Testimony and Statements

The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty will hold its nation­al con­fer­ence at the Fair Lakes Hyatt Hotel in Fairfax, Virginia, October 26 – 29, 2006. The NCADP con­sists of a wide spec­trum of groups and indi­vid­u­als opposed to the death penal­ty. Among the speak­ers at this year’s event are Theodore Shaw, President of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Hugo A. Bedau, author and Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Tufts University, and numer­ous indi­vid­u­als who were exon­er­at­ed and freed from death row. The NCADP will hon­or indi­vid­u­als who have…

A broad spec­trum of reli­gious lead­ers from Wisconsin issued a joint state­ment regard­ing their views on the death penal­ty on October 14. The state­ment follows:

Capital Punishment Research Initiative: The Future of Innocence by Richard C. Dieter (October 6 – 7, 2006)

The American Bar Association passed a res­o­lu­tion on August 8 at its annu­al con­fer­ence rec­om­mend­ing that juris­dic­tions refrain from sen­tenc­ing to death or exe­cut­ing indi­vid­u­als with severe men­tal dis­or­ders. Using lan­guage adopt­ed ear­li­er by the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association, the res­o­lu­tion assert­ed that defen­dants should not be exe­cut­ed or sen­tenced to death if, at the time of the offense, they had ​“sig­nif­i­cant lim­i­ta­tions in both their intel­lec­tu­al func­tion­ing and adap­tive behav­ior,” or had ​“a severe men­tal dis­or­der or dis­abil­i­ty that sig­nif­i­cant­ly impaired their capac­i­ty (a) to…

New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission: Testimony of Richard C. Dieter (July 19, 2006)

The Anniston StarSection: OpinionJuly 2, 2006Author: Richard C. DieterSpecial to The StarIn decid­ing a nar­row issue about an obscure part of Kansas’ death penal­ty law, the Supreme Court last week revealed a chasm of dif­fer­ing opin­ions regard­ing the fun­da­men­tal reli­a­bil­i­ty of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in this coun­try. Although the oppos­ing views were wide­ly diver­gent and sharply expressed, the court did us all a ser­vice by iden­ti­fy­ing the key prob­lem that may decide the future of the death penal­ty in this coun­try in com­ing years.The issue before the court was sim­ply whether…

In a let­ter issued pri­or to Easter, the Catholic Bishops in Missouri called for an end to exe­cu­tions in the U.S. and urged parish­ioners to ​“build a cul­ture of life.” The let­ter not­ed that vio­lence ​“is not a solu­tion to soci­ety’s prob­lems,” and it sum­ma­rized church teach­ings regard­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and high­light­ed a cam­paign by U.S. Catholic Bishops to end the use of the death penal­ty. “(Christ) was unjust­ly sen­tenced to death and exe­cut­ed on a cross, the cru­elest form of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment at the time.… [R]ecent…

The recent ​“Faces of Wrongful Conviction” con­fer­ence at UCLA fea­tured a wide vari­ety of speak­ers, includ­ing California’s Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, for­mer spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor and fed­er­al judge Kenneth Starr, and for­mer Bexar County (TX) District Attorney Sam Milsap. The con­fer­ence was orga­nized to exam­ine mis­takes in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and to explore reforms, par­tic­u­lar­ly in California. A state Senate com­mis­sion is prepar­ing a study of California’s death penal­ty sys­tem, and some mem­bers of the com­mis­sion par­tic­i­pat­ed in the con­fer­ence. At the open­ing event, inmates who had been exonerated…

Supplement Letter for the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property Rights’ Hearing on the Death Penalty (Feb. 7, 2006)

New Hampshire House Criminal Justice and Safety Committee: Testimony of Richard C. Dieter (Jan. 10, 2006)