Testimony and Statements

Items: 41 — 50


Mar 19, 2009

Governor Bill Richardson Signs Repeal of the Death Penalty

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…

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Feb 01, 2009

The Road to Justice and Peace by New Jersey State Senator Raymond Lesniak

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…

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Oct 22, 2008

Professor Anthony Amsterdam Delivers Speech at Southern Center of Human Rights Event

Leading attor­ney, law pro­fes­sor, and advo­cate Anthony Amsterdam was hon­ored by the Southern Center for Human Rights with the Frederick Douglass Human Rights Award in Washington, DC on October 2. Professor Amsterdam con­ducts the Capital Defender Clinic at New York University Law School and is rec­og­nized for his four decades of promi­nent work in cas­es rang­ing from death penal­ty defense to claims of free speech and the press, pri­va­cy, and equal­i­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ty for racial minori­ties and…

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Jun 19, 2008

European Union Reasserts Its Opposition to the Death Penalty in All Countries and All Cases

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…

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Apr 10, 2008

Senate Judiciary Committee Hears Testimony on Adequacy of Counsel in Death Penalty Cases

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…

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Oct 30, 2007

AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION RENEWS CALL FOR NATIONAL MORATORIUM ON EXECUTIONS

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…

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