Publications & Testimony
Testimony and Statements on the Death Penalty
FROM DPIC
For testimony by former Executive Director Robert Dunham and former Executive Director Richard C. Dieter, please visit our page DPIC Testimony.
FROM RELIGIOUS LEADERS AND ORGANIZATIONS
- News Brief: Pope Francis Calls for Prayer to Abolish the Death Penalty (September 1, 2022)
- Jewish Congregation Renews Request for Department of Justice to Drop Death Penalty in Tree of Life Synagogue Killings (June 24, 2021)
- Orthodox Church Patriarch Calls Death Penalty Incompatible with Christian Beliefs (October 20, 2020)
- Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) — Statement on the Federal Death Penalty (August 5, 2019)
- Louisiana Christian Faith Leaders Call for State to Abolish Death Penalty (April 25, 2019)
- Pittsburgh Rabbi’s Wife Opposes Death Penalty for Tree of Life Synagogue Killings (March 18, 2019)
- Orthodox Jewish Organization Calls for an End to Capital Punishment in the U.S. | Death Penalty Information Center (February 17, 2016)
- Baptist Theologian Says Death Penalty Does Not Fit With Christian Theology (March 8, 2016)
- Civil and Human Rights: Death Penalty — Church & Society, The United Methodist Church
- Religious Views: Over 150 Catholic Theologians Call for Repeal of the Death Penalty (September 27, 2011)
- Power Over Life and Death — The Power to Save a Life (January 15, 2005)
- Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice (November 2000)
- The Challenge of Holiness: A Sermon on the Death Penalty (January 10, 2000)
- General Assembly of the Texas Conference of Churches — Resolution Opposing the Death Penalty (February 24, 1998)
- Statement by Catholic Bishops of Texas on Capital Punishment (October 20, 1997)
- Catholic Church Expresses Strong Opposition to Capital Punishment in Catechism (September 9, 1997)
- Catholic Bishops of Iowa Issue Statement on Death Penalty (February 4, 1998)
- To End the Death Penalty: A Report of the National Jewish/Catholic Consultation
- Transcript of Dr. Pat Robertson’s Speech on the Role of Religion and the Death Penalty at The College of William and Mary
- Collection of Official Catholic Statements on the Death Penalty (1980)
FROM THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
- UN experts call for universal abolition of the death penalty | OHCHR (October 9, 2023)
- Zambia Becomes 25th Sub-Saharan African Nation to Abolish Death Penalty (December 23, 2022)
- Belgium Wants a World Without the Death Penalty (October 20, 2022)
- As France Prepares to Assume Presidency of European Union, Emmanuel Macron Announces Initiative for Worldwide Abolition of Death Penalty (October 11, 2021)
- U.N. Secretary-General, European Union Ambassador Call for Abolition of “Barbaric” Death Penalty (October 11, 2017)
- European Union Calls for Abolition of Capital Punishment as World Coalition Hosts International Death Penalty Conference (June 27, 2017)
- U.N. Investigator Talks About the Future of Solitary and the Death Penalty (November 7, 2016)
- World Congress Against the Death Penalty Renews Call for Global Moratorium, Pope Sends Message of Support (June 27, 2016)
- Declaration by the Presidency on behalf of the European Union on the 400th execution in Texas from the Council of the European Union (August 21, 2007)
- Resolution Supporting Worldwide Moratorium on Executions from the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (April 1999)
- Mary Robinson, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights — Message to the Press Conference organized by the Death Penalty Information Center for the release of the report, “International Perspectives on the Death Penalty” (October 12, 1999)
- Status of the International Covenants on Human Rights from the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (April 1998)
FROM ADVOCACY GROUPS
- Advocacy Group Tells Supreme Court that Negative Stereotypes Distort Perception that Latinos in Death-Penalty Cases Pose Future Danger to Society (April 15, 2022)
- Disability Rights Groups, Legal Experts, and Conservative Advocates Urge Supreme Court to Strike Down Georgia’s Uniquely Harsh Proof Requirements in Death-Penalty Intellectual Disabilities Cases (January 11, 2022)
- NAACP Reaffirms Its Support of Abolishing the Death Penalty (2022)
- More Than 80 Civil Rights and Advocacy Organizations Urge President Biden to End Federal Executions | Death Penalty Information Center (February 9, 2021)
- More Than 250 Conservative Leaders Join Call to End Death Penalty (October 29, 2019)
- National Alliance on Mental Illness: The Death Penalty
- Florida League of Women Voters Calls for Halt to Executions (May 28, 2007)
- Victims Organizations Issue Joint Statement for National Victims’ Rights Week (April 19, 2007)
FROM JUDGES, LEGISLATORS, AND OTHER ORGANIZATIONS
- Republican-led Oklahoma committee considers pause on executions amid death case scrutiny (October 5, 2023)
- Former Pro-Death Penalty District Attorney Explains Why He Now Supports Abolition, and Fears Political Promises to Expand the Use of the Death Penalty (August 20, 2023)
- Pressley, Durbin Reintroduce Bill to End the Federal Death Penalty (July 13, 2023)
- The Lancet Editorial: Physician Involvement in Executions Violates Medical Ethics | Death Penalty Information Center (May 20, 2023)
- APA calls for extending ineligibility for the death penalty to adolescent offenders younger than age 21 (August 4, 2022)
- Why some Republicans are turning against the death penalty | Ron Ferguson | Ohio House of Representatives (March 8, 2022)
- Eight years on Texas’ highest criminal court turned Elsa Alcala into a death penalty skeptic. How will the court change without her? (January 26, 2019)
- AMA to Supreme Court: Doctor participation in executions unethical (August 22, 2018)
- Former Governor Bill Richardson: Death Penalty Is Bad for Business, Out of Step With World’s Views (June 16, 2017)
- Capital Punishment and Nurses’ Participation in Capital Punishment (2016)
- Former Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro Says Death Penalty Unfixable, “Not Worth It Any More” (September 12, 2016)
- Resolution Supporting Repeal of the Death Penalty, National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators (August 11, 2016)
- Retired Police Captain Says Repealing Death Penalty Is “Smart on Crime” (November 24, 2014)
- Resolution Supporting Abolition of the Death Penalty, Natl. Assoc. of Black Psychologists (2012)
- The Road to Justice and Peace by New Jersey State Senator Raymond Lesniak (February 1, 2009)
- Statement On The Federal Death Penalty System by Senator Feingold (June 7, 2001)
- Statement on the Need for a Federal Moratorium on the Death Penalty Senator Feingold (October 29, 2000)
- Death Penalty: The Torah and Today (August 23, 2000)
- Press Release for Senator Russ Feingold’s Introduction of Senate’s First Death Penalty Moratorium Bill (April 20, 2000)
- Amnesty International Southern Regional Conference: Orlando, Florida Remarks by Former Florida Chief Justice Gerald Kogan (October 23, 1999)
- American Bar Association Resolution on the Death Penalty (February 3, 1997)
FROM MURDER VICTIMS’ FAMILY MEMBERS
Items: 4331 — 4340
Jun 25, 2010
NEW VOICES: Former Georgia Supreme Court Justice Would Have Granted Troy Davis a Hearing
Judge Norman Fletcher served on the Georgia Supreme Court and was in the majority that upheld Troy Davis’s original conviction and death sentence on direct appeal. However, Judge Fletcher has noted he was not on the court after many of the witnesses from Davis’s trial recanted their testimony, and he probably would have voted in favor of a new evidentiary hearing for Davis if he was on the court today. Judge Fletcher recently wrote about the wisdom of retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stevens…
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Jun 24, 2010
EDITORIALS: “Congress Must Rewrite the Law Governing Lawyers for Poor Death-Row Inmates”
The Washington Post recently published an editorial calling for Congress to rewrite the part of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 that governs legal representation for indigent death-penalty defendants. The law allows a fast-track for federal appeals of state capital convictions provided states guarantee and pay for a system of legal representation that covers all capital defendants . Originally, the program had to be certified by the federal courts. In 2006, Congress…
Read MoreJun 23, 2010
NEW VOICES: Former New Hampshire Supreme Court Justice Calls for Abolition
Joseph P. Nadeau, who served on New Hampshire’s Supreme Court for six years and as a judge for 37 years, recently testified before the state’s death penalty commission about his opposition to the practice. In an op-ed, Judge Nadeau summarized the moral and practical reasons why he believes capital punishment should be repealed. “Our thinking evolves, as people, technology, and societies progress,” he said. “And what is acceptable at one time in our history may become unwelcome at another. So we…
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Jun 22, 2010
NEW RESOURCES: “The State of the World’s Human Rights”
Amnesty International recently released its annual report on international abuses and progress in the field of human rights: “The State of the World’s Human Rights.” The report covers January to December 2009 and addresses human rights issues in every country around the world. The report also highlights countries’ involvement in international and regional human rights treaties. Among the nations in the Americas, the United States had the most active death penalty practices with over 100 new…
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Jun 21, 2010
Federal Court Finds Georgia’s Standards for Mental Retardation (Intellectual Disability) Unconstitutional
On June 18, a federal appeals court in Atlanta held that the burden Georgia places on death-penalty defendants to prove they are intellectually disabled, and thus exempt from the death penalty, is unconstitutional. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit said that requiring defendants to prove intellectual disability (mental retardation) “beyond a reasonable doubt” violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban against cruel and unusual punishments. It could also result in the execution of…
Read MoreJun 18, 2010
BOOKS: Voices of the Death Penalty Debate
Voices of the Death Penalty Debate: A Citizen’s Guide to Capital Punishment is a new book that explores arguments for and against the death penalty through testimony given at the historic 2004 and 2005 hearings in New York on whether the state’s death penalty should be reinstated. The state’s law was struck down by the N.Y. Court of Appeals in 2004. Authored by Russell Murphy, a Suffolk University Law School professor, the book walks readers through testimony from experts, ordinary citizens…
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Jun 17, 2010
Supreme Court Agrees to Hear California Death Penalty Case
On June 14, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in Cullen v. Pinholster. In 1984, Scott Pinholster was convicted and sentenced to death for killing two men during a burglary in Los Angeles, California. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned Pinholster’s death sentence because of ineffectiveness of counsel since his lawyer did not give the jury evidence of Pinholster’s mental illness during the penalty phase of the trial. The appeals court said the evidence might have…
Read MoreJun 16, 2010
DNA Evidence Could Show If Texas Executed an Innocent Man
Texas Judge Paul C. Murphy recently ordered prosecutors to hand over key evidence from a 1989 murder case to the Innocence Project and the Texas Observer for DNA testing. In 2007, the Innocence Project and the Observer filed suit to obtain a one-inch strand of hair that allegedly implicated Claude Howard Jones (pictured) in the killing of a liquor store owner in San Jacinto County. Other than vague eyewitness accounts and questionable testimony from Jones’s two friends who were also at the…
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Jun 15, 2010
Supreme Court Allows Late Appeal Under Extraordinary Circumstances
On June 14, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Albert Holland, who lost his right to file a federal appeal of his death sentence when his lawyer missed the 1‑year deadline established under the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that Holland’s attorney’s conduct in missing the deadline was not egregious enough to warrant setting aside the imposed deadline. The appeals court said that the attorney would…
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Jun 14, 2010
MULTIMEDIA: “Slow Death of the Death Penalty” on CBS News Sunday Morning
On June 13, CBS News’ program Sunday Morning featured a report entitled, The Slow Death of the Death Penalty, which addressed various issues regarding the use of the death penalty today. The report highlighted the cases of Ronnie Lee Gardner, who was scheduled to be executed in Utah this week, and Gaile Owens, whose scheduled execution in September would make her the first woman to be executed in Tennessee since 1820. The video featured interviews from many death penalty experts, including…
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