Publications & Testimony

Deterrence & Murder of Police Officers - According to sta­tis­tics from the lat­est FBI Uniform Crime Report, regions of the coun­try that use the death penal­ty the least are the safest for police offi­cers. Police are most in dan­ger in the south, which accounts for 80% of all exe­cu­tions (90% in 2000). From 1989 – 1998, 292 law enforce­ment offi­cers were felo­nious­ly killed in the south, 125 in the…

Ford Foundation SymposiumNovember 12, 1998by Richard C. Dieter, Esq. Executive Director, Death Penalty Information…

Las Vegas…

Question of the…

Resolution Opposing the Death Penalty: Adopted unan­i­mous­ly by the General Assembly of the Texas Conference of ChurchesFebruary…

NEWS RELEASE, IOWA…

Blackman, Paul H.:​“A cri­tique of the epi­demi­o­log­ic study of firearms and homi­cide”; 1 Homicide Studies 169…

PHILADELPHIA BAR ASSOCIATION RESOLUTION CALLING FOR A MORATORIUM ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENT UNTIL SUCH TIME THAT FAIRNESS IN ITS ADMINISTRATION CAN BE ENSURED Adopted by the Board of Governors November 25, 1997, voting…

October 20, 1997As spir­i­tu­al lead­ers in the com­mu­ni­ty we Catholic Bishops of Texas are acute­ly aware of the vio­lence in our state. Despite a grow­ing reliance on longer sen­tences, more pris­ons, and more exe­cu­tions, our state’s crime rate…

The Vatican issued the defin­i­tive Latin lan­guage ver­sion of its Universal Catechism on September 9, 1997. The pri­ma­ry change in the cat­e­chism focus­es on legit­i­mate defense and the death penal­ty . The new ver­sion reads:​“The tra­di­tion­al teach­ing of the Church does not exclude … recourse to the death penal­ty when it is the only prac­ti­cal way to effi­cient­ly defend the lives of human beings from the unjust aggres­sor.” It con­tin­ues,​“Today, in fact, because the means…