Publications & Testimony

As Connecticut pre­pares to car­ry out its first exe­cu­tion in over 40 years, Catholic Archbishop Henry J. Mansell of Hartford called on local parish­es to sign a Church peti­tion that calls for an end to capital punishment. ​“The death penal­ty offers the trag­ic illu­sion that we can defend life only by tak­ing life,” Mansell wrote in a let­ter that will be read dur­ing Masses on January 8 and 9. Other bish­ops in Connecticut are tak­ing sim­i­lar actions pri­or to the…

The Washington Post has con­duct­ed fur­ther research into the clemen­cy mem­os pre­pared by U.S. Attorney General nom­i­nee Alberto R. Gonzales, who served as lead coun­sel to then-Governor George W. Bush in Texas. Gonzales craft­ed 62 mem­os regard­ing clemen­cy requests from Texas death row inmates, and sev­er­al Texas attor­neys have voiced their crit­i­cisms that the clemen­cy mem­os con­tained incom­plete and unfair sum­maries of evi­dence and mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances. The memos,…

The book In Sweet Company: Conversations With Extraordinary Women About Living a Spiritual Life by Margaret Wolff fea­tures Sister Helen Prejean as one of 14 women whose spir­i­tu­al beliefs have served as the com­pass for their deci­­sion-mak­ing and life’s work. Prejean, author of the Pulitzer Prize-nom­i­­nat­ed book​“Dead Man Walking” and the new­ly released​“The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions,” has been an advi­sor to those on death row and an…

In her new book, The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions, Sister Helen Prejean uses her per­son­al expe­ri­ences as a coun­selor to those on death row to explore the issue of inno­cence and the like­li­hood of exe­cut­ing a wrong­ly con­vict­ed per­son. The book also traces the his­tor­i­cal and legal under­pin­nings of the death penal­ty in the U.S. Prejean, who authored the #1 New York Times best­seller​“Dead Man Walking,” begins her new book…

In an inter­view with The New York Times, Judge Jed S. Rakoff (pic­tured) dis­cussed his rea­sons for find­ing the fed­er­al death penal­ty to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Judge Rakoff ruled in April 2002 that the death penal­ty failed to secure due process because of the demon­strat­ed risk of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son. He not­ed that his con­clu­sions on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment were based in part on his exten­sive review of cas­es includ­ed on the Death Penalty Information…

Juveniles and the Mentally Disabled More Likely to Give…

Autopsies of Executed Inmates by State Medical Examiners Reveal Probability of…

Poll Finds Tepid Support for Death Penalty as State Sets Execution…

California Plans $220 Million Death Row While Inmates Wait 4 Years…

North Carolina Preparing to Execute…