Publications & Testimony

Amnesty International mem­bers around the world are observ­ing the orga­ni­za­tion’s inau­gur­al World Day Against the Death Penalty. The October 10, 2003, obser­vance includes activ­i­ties spon­sored in con­junc­tion with the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. In addi­tion to an Internet demon­stra­tion for all coun­tries that still prac­tice the death penal­ty demand­ing the imme­di­ate end to all exe­cu­tions, the day’s events will include debates, lec­tures, and demonstrations…

A grow­ing num­ber of med­ical and legal experts are warn­ing that the chem­i­cal pan­curo­ni­um bro­mide, a com­mon­ly used lethal injec­tion drug, could leave a wide-awake inmate unable to speak or cry out as he slow­ly suf­fo­cates. Advances in med­i­cine have found that the drug, used by exe­cu­tion­ers to par­a­lyze the skele­tal mus­cles while not affect­ing the body’s brain or nerves, can mask severe suf­fer­ing. While the American Veterinary Medical Association con­demns the use of…

When New Jersey enact­ed its death penal­ty law in 1982, it estab­lished a spe­cial unit of lawyers and experts for defen­dants fac­ing cap­i­tal charges. After two decades, the state has 14 indi­vid­u­als on death row. In con­trast, when Pennsylvania enact­ed its death penal­ty law, the state failed to estab­lish a sim­i­lar sys­tem for assis­tance. For Pennsylvania, a state of com­pa­ra­ble pop­u­la­tion to New Jersey, the result of this deci­sion has been a death row pop­u­la­tion of 237…

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Pima County, Arizona have been the main juris­dic­tions in their respec­tive states for death sen­tences in the past. Now they are send­ing con­sid­er­ably few­er peo­ple to death row or seek­ing the death penal­ty less. Philadelphia pros­e­cu­tors have sought the death penal­ty 24 times since last September, but jurors from the city have not sent any­one to death row in more than a year. In fact, the city has only secured death sen­tences against 4 people…

A stream­ing video on the death penal­ty from the American Constitution Society​’s first National Conference August 1 – 3, 2003 in Washington, DC is now avail­able. Participants includ­ed Joseph Curran, Attorney General of Maryland; Angela Davis, American University pro­fes­sor of law; John Gibbons, for­mer Chief Justice of the 3^d Circuit US Court of Appeals; Bryan Stevenson, Executive Director of Equal Justice Initiative of Alabama; and Diann Rust-Tierney, Director of the ACLU Capital…

“Poetic Justice: Reflections on the Big House, the Death House and the American Way of Justice” is Professor Robert Johnson’s first col­lec­tion of poems about prison and cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The col­lec­tion explores the day-to-day life of pris­on­ers and exam­ines the emo­tion­al impact of serv­ing time on death row. Johnson, a pro­fes­sor of jus­tice, law and soci­ety at American University, is an award-win­n­ing author of sev­er­al social sci­ence books on crime and pun­ish­ment and has…

The Death Penalty Information Center has added a new and ver­sa­tile fea­ture to its exten­sive Web site. Users may now search a ful­ly func­tion­al​“Executions Database” for detailed infor­ma­tion on all exe­cu­tions in the United States in the mod­ern era, 1977 to the present. The data­base enables users to search by year, by state, by race of defen­dant and vic­tim, and by many oth­er cat­e­gories. For exam­ple, you can now find a list of all the exe­cu­tions in Texas involving white…

A broad bi-par­ti­san coali­tion of House and Senate law­mak­ers has intro­duced leg­is­la­tion to estab­lish a five-year, $1 bil­lion ini­tia­tive to ensure DNA test­ing for death row inmates who claim inno­cence. The​“Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology Bill,” sup­port­ed by House Judiciary Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner and Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, includes an Innocence Protection Act (IPA) pro­vi­sion aimed at reduc­ing the risk of wrong­ful con­vic­tions. Under this…

By Richard…

Bill Pelke tells of the life-alter­ing trans­for­ma­tion that occurred after his 78-year-old grand­moth­er was mur­dered by four teen-aged girls in his book, Journey of Hope…From…