Publications & Testimony

In ​“Kiss of Death: America’s Love Affair with the Death Penalty,” attor­ney John Bessler presents argu­ments against cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment based on his work as a pro bono attor­ney for death row inmates in Texas. Woven into Bessler’s per­son­al account is an exam­i­na­tion of U.S. cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment prac­tices in con­trast to the absence of the death penal­ty in oth­er nations. The book also address­es the toll exe­cu­tions take on those who par­tic­i­pate in the process. (Northeastern University Press, 2003) See…

The October 2003 edi­tion of the Foreign Service Journal con­tains a series of arti­cles exam­in­ing world opin­ion on the death penal­ty and its effect on U.S. poli­cies. The arti­cles, includ­ing one by DPIC Executive Director Richard Dieter, fea­ture infor­ma­tion on inter­na­tion­al treaties, the expe­ri­ences of for­mer U.S. for­eign diplo­mats, and the effect of the inter­na­tion­al move­ment away from the death penal­ty on the U.S.‘s posi­tion as a leader in human rights. Among the oth­er con­tribut­ing writers are…

In a deci­sion vacat­ing the death penal­ty for Nebraska death row inmate Charles Jess Palmer, U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Bataillon declared that elec­tro­cu­tion is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Bataillon wrote, ​“In light of evi­dence and evolv­ing stan­dards of decen­cy, the court would find that a death penal­ty sen­tence imposed on a defen­dant in a state that pro­vides elec­tro­cu­tion as its only method of exe­cu­tion is an unnec­es­sary and wan­ton inflic­tion of pain.” Nebraska is the only state that maintains…

The most recent edi­tion of The Angolite, a bimonth­ly mag­a­zine pro­duced by inmates at Louisiana’s Angola State Penitentiary, focus­es on the Texas death penal­ty. The pub­li­ca­tion’s fea­ture arti­cle, ​“If Not For Texas,” is an overview of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Texas com­pared to oth­er states and to nation­al death penal­ty devel­op­ments. The high num­ber of exe­cu­tions in Texas, inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion, inno­cence, juve­niles, race, vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, the men­tal­ly retard­ed, and women on death row are…

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 to raise public awareness…

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 pan­curo­ni­um bro­mide in the…

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 and a capital punishment…

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 since 2000. In the…

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 Punishment…

“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 won the Outstanding…