Publications & Testimony

The Montana Senate has vot­ed to abol­ish the state’s death penal­ty law. Supporters of the mea­sure not­ed that the death penal­ty does not deter crime, is expen­sive, increas­es the suf­fer­ing of vic­tims’ fam­i­lies who must endure a lengthy manda­to­ry appeals process, and is not applied fair­ly or accu­rate­ly. ​“It’s not right. You can’t do it fair­ly, you can’t do it with equi­ty, you can’t do it with jus­tice,” said Democratic Senator Steve Gallus. Among the Republican Senators who supported…

The Indiana Death Penalty Assessment Team, under the aus­pices of the American Bar Association, has called for a halt to exe­cu­tions in the state because of con­cerns about the arbi­trari­ness of the state’s death penal­ty. ​“The seem­ing­ly ran­dom process of charg­ing deci­sions, plea agree­ments, and jury rec­om­men­da­tions is just part of a death penal­ty sys­tem that has apt­ly been called Indiana’s ​‘oth­er lot­tery’,” the group not­ed in its report. The sev­en-mem­ber Indiana pan­el was organized…

MARYLAND GOVERNORS CALL FOR ABOLITION OF DEATH…

The Third World Congress Against the Death Penalty took place in Paris from February 1 – 3, 2007. During this time, Paris wel­comed hun­dreds of death penal­ty experts and activists from around the world, includ­ing numer­ous U.S. rep­re­sen­ta­tives who pro­vid­ed a broad overview of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment trends in the U.S. Among the American pan­elists who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Congress…

Former Connecticut state pros­e­cu­tor and legal ana­lyst Susan Filan recent­ly stat­ed that the death penal­ty is not an appro­pri­ate sen­tence, par­tic­u­lar­ly when the crime appears to be a heinous vio­la­tion of the sanc­ti­ty of life . In her com­men­tary post­ed on MSNBC​.com, Filan…

by Vicki Schieber and Carolyn Leming Feb. 16, 2007 The GazetteWe write as moth­ers who have been scarred by the death penalty.Our sto­ries are very dif­fer­ent, but they are both sto­ries of jus­tice gone wrong. They are sto­ries that con­vince us the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem in Maryland and across the coun­try is broken beyond…

The New Mexico House of Representatives has approved leg­is­la­tion that would repeal the death penal­ty and replace it with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. Supporters of the mea­sure say that it will save tax­pay­ers an esti­mat­ed $3 mil­lion a year, mon­ey they con­tend would be bet­ter spent on help­ing vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. They also note that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment could result in an inno­cent per­son being exe­cut­ed, does not deter mur­der, and is unfair­ly admin­is­tered in the state. ​“There are…