Testimony and Statements

SANTA FE — Governor Bill Richardson today signed House Bill 285, Repeal of the Death Penalty. The Governor’s remarks follow:Today marks the end of a long, per­son­al jour­ney for me and the issue of the death penalty.Throughout my adult life, I have been a firm believ­er in the death penal­ty as a just pun­ish­ment — in very rare instances, and only for the most heinouscrimes. I still believe that.But six years ago, when I took office as Governor of the State of New Mexico, I start­ed to chal­lenge my own…

New Jersey Senator Raymond Lesniak deliv­ered the fol­low­ing speech at the Memorial de Caen International Human Rights Competition in Caen, France on Sunday, February 1,2009. The com­pe­ti­tion includ­ed lawyers from Washington, D.C., France, Belgium, Guinea, Senegal, and Switzerland with speech top­ics rang­ing from gov­ern­men­tal to mil­i­tary abus­es of human rights.

Testimony of Richard C. Dieter, Executive Director, Death Penalty Information Center, before the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment regard­ing the costs of the death penal­ty and relat­ed issues (Sept. 5, 2008)

Testimony of Richard C. Dieter, Executive Director, Death Penalty Information Center, before the Nevada Advisory Commission on the Administration of Justice regard­ing the costs of the death penal­ty and relat­ed issues (July 7, 2008; tele­phon­ic testimony)

On June 16, 2008, the Council of the European Union (EU) meet­ing in Luxembourg released a state­ment on General Affairs and External Relations. The doc­u­ment con­tained a restate­ment of its 1998 Human Rights Guideline on the death penal­ty. The Council, con­sist­ing of almost all Foreign Ministers in the EU, stat­ed that it ​“reaf­firms that work­ing towards uni­ver­sal abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty con­sti­tutes an inte­gral objec­tive of the EU’s human rights pol­i­cy.” The Council reassert­ed the ​“oppo­si­tion of the European Union to the death penal­ty in all cas­es and in…

On April 8, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary held a hear­ing on ​“The Adequacy of Representation in Capital Cases.” Sen. Russ Feingold (D‑WI) presided over the ses­sion of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, which heard tes­ti­mo­ny from a vari­ety of experts includ­ing Michael Greco, for­mer President of the American Bar Association, Bryan Stevenson, Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, the Honorable Carolyn Temin of the Court of Common Pleas in Pennsylvania, and Donald Verilli, a part­ner at Jenner & Block. Copies of the tes­ti­mo­ny giv­en, state­ments from…

NEWS RELEASEGovernor Jon S. CorzineDecember 17, 2007

The American Bar Association (ABA) renewed its call for a nation­wide halt to exe­cu­tions fol­low­ing a series of state stud­ies that found seri­ous prob­lems in their death penal­ty systems.“After care­ful­ly study­ing the way states across the spec­trum han­dle exe­cu­tions, it has become crys­tal clear that the process is deeply flawed. The death penal­ty sys­tem is rife with irreg­u­lar­i­ty,” said Stephen F. Hanlon (pic­tured), chair­man of the ABA Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project. During the past three years, the ABA has issued death penal­ty assess­ment reports in eight states: Alabama,…

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