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 to raise public awareness and…

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 system…

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 Book…

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 defendants, or a list of all…

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 portion of the bill, all…

By Richard C. Dieter From: Foreign Service Journal, October 2003 Richard Dieter is Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center. A graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, he also teaches capital punishment law at Catholic University Law School. Slowly, but impressively, international law and opinion are beginning to have an impact on law in the United States, and particularly on the death penalty. While the law and practices of other countries may not have played a…

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 Violence to Healing. Though at first he supported the death penalty for 15-year-old Paula Cooper, one of the young girls who had murdered his grandmother in her home for $10 and an old car, he later opposed her execution and successfully fought to have Cooper’s death sentence overturned. The book follows his personal journey…