Publications & Testimony

In​“Last Words From Death Row: The Walls Unit,” Norma Herrera recounts the tribu­la­tions she and her fam­i­ly suf­fered as they worked to free her broth­er, Leonel, from death row in Texas. The book doc­u­ments court events and press cov­er­age of the case and cap­tures the fam­i­ly’s efforts to assist Leonel pri­or to his exe­cu­tion in 1993, four months after the U.S. Supreme Court held in Herrera v. Collins that, in the absence of oth­er con­sti­tu­tion­al vio­la­tions, new evidence of…

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…

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…

In his new auto­bi­og­ra­phy,​“Just Call Me Mike: A Journey to Actor and Activist,” Mike Farrell pro­vides inti­mate accounts of his life as a tele­vi­sion sit­com star and as a human rights activist. Farrell explains how his work on the tele­vi­sion pro­gram MAS*H inspired him to become more involved in pol­i­tics and human rights issues. Over the years, he has been con­sid­ered one of Hollywood’s most promi­nent activists, espe­cial­ly on issues related to…

The Death Penalty Information Center’s new Religion and the Death Penalty Web page is now avail­able online. In recent years, a grow­ing num­ber of reli­gious orga­ni­za­tions have par­tic­i­pat­ed in the nation’s death penal­ty debate. The pur­pose of this new Web page is to pro­vide access to infor­ma­tion regard­ing the efforts of these faith groups and to high­light recent devel­op­ments relat­ed to reli­gion and the death penal­ty. The page fea­tures offi­cial reli­gious statements on…

MARYLAND GOVERNORS CALL FOR ABOLITION OF…

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…

In a posi­tion paper issued this month dur­ing the World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, the Vatican said that the death penalty ​“is not only a refusal of the right to life, but it also is an affront to human dig­ni­ty.” Echoing the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the paper not­ed that while gov­ern­ments have an oblig­a­tion to pro­tect their cit­i­zens,​“today it tru­ly is dif­fi­cult to jus­ti­fy” using capital…

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…

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…