Resources

Related Websites

Death Penalty Related Web Sites

The Death Penalty Information Center does not endorse any of the orga­ni­za­tions list­ed below nor does it guar­an­tee the accu­ra­cy of the infor­ma­tion post­ed at these sites. Similarly, we do not claim that these orga­ni­za­tions endorse DPI.

Government Resources

Federal 

  • Bureau of Justice Statistics: Capital Punishment — crim­i­nal jus­tice sta­tis­tics, includes infor­ma­tion on pub­li­ca­tions, press releas­es, and oth­er BJS services
  • Department of Justice: Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics — data per­tain­ing to all aspects of crim­i­nal jus­tice in the United States
  • FBI’s Uniform Crime Report (UCR) — pro­vides crim­i­nal sta­tis­tics nation­al­ly, as well as by region, state, and city.

State Departments of Corrections

(sites often include his­to­ry, list of death row inmates, case his­to­ries, and upcoming executions)

Research & Legal Sources

  • ABA Death Penalty Representation Project — a Web site with a pub­lic page describ­ing the Project’s pri­ma­ry goal to recruit law firms to rep­re­sent death sen­tenced pris­on­ers; the site includes a pass­word pro­tect­ed area lim­it­ed to lawyers rep­re­sent­ing indi­vid­u­als fac­ing the death penal­ty. It also has a Capital Clemency Resource Initiative Clearinghouse with infor­ma­tion on clemency practices.
  • ABA Death Penalty Due Process Review Project — the Project con­duct­ed research and edu­cat­ed the pub­lic and deci­sion-mak­ers on the oper­a­tion of cap­i­tal juris­dic­tions’ death penal­ty laws and process­es in order to pro­mote fair­ness and accu­ra­cy in death penal­ty sys­tems. It encour­aged adop­tion of the ABA’s Protocols on the Fair Administration of the Death Penalty; assist­ed state, fed­er­al, and inter­na­tion­al stake­hold­ers on death penal­ty issues; and col­lab­o­rat­ed with oth­er indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions to devel­op new ini­tia­tives to sup­port reform of death penalty processes.
  • Boalt Hall Death Penalty Clinic — clin­ic for stu­dents at UC Berkeley School of Law
  • Capital Punishment or Compassion: Executions in the State of New Mexico: The Death Penalty Since Territorial Days — pro­vides the names, crimes, and dates of exe­cu­tion for those exe­cut­ed in New Mexico.
  • Center for Death Penalty Litigation — the Center for Death Penalty Litigation is a non-prof­it law firm that pro­vides direct rep­re­sen­ta­tion to inmates on North Carolina’s death row, as well as con­sult­ing with and train­ing attor­neys who prac­tice cap­i­tal lit­i­ga­tion across the state.
  • Center for Prosecutor Integrity — con­tains a data­base of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al misconduct cases
  • Center on Wrongful Convictions — ded­i­cat­ed to iden­ti­fy­ing and rec­ti­fy­ing wrong­ful con­vic­tions and oth­er seri­ous mis­car­riages of jus­tice. The Center inves­ti­gates pos­si­ble wrong­ful con­vic­tions and rep­re­sent impris­oned clients with claims of actual innocence.
  • Clark County Prosecutor’s web site with links to over 1,000 death penal­ty relat­ed Web sites
  • The Constitution Project’s Death Penalty Initiative — a bipar­ti­san com­mit­tee of death penal­ty sup­port­ers and oppo­nents who agree that the risk of wrong­ful exe­cu­tions in this coun­try is unacceptably high
  • Cornell Law School Death Penalty Project — links to state and fed­er­al statutes and cases.
  • Death Row USA — the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund’s quar­ter­ly reports on death rows across the United States.
  • Death Penalty Worldwide — International death penalty database.
  • Derechos — pro­vides links to a vari­ety of death penalty sites.
  • Equal Justice Initiative — pro­vides assis­tance for Alabama death-row pris­on­ers dur­ing the post-con­vic­tion appeals process.
  • Find Law​.com
  • Rick Halperin’s Death Penalty News and Updates — death penal­ty sta­tis­tics, news, updates, address­es of U.S. Governors
  • Indiana Public Defender Council
  • Clark County (Indiana) Prosecutor
  • Innocence Project Web Site — com­pre­hen­sive Web site of the Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. The site con­tains case pro­files, oth­er inno­cence projects, DNA leg­is­la­tion and news, and much more.
  • Internship Opportunities in Capital Defense Offices — this site has law stu­dent intern­ship oppor­tu­ni­ties in offices around the coun­try that are engaged in the defense of death-row pris­on­ers or capitally-charged defendants.
  • Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS) — death penal­ty sec­tion con­tains news of international developments
  • Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project — a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to pre­vent­ing and cor­rect­ing wrong­ful con­vic­tions in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia
  • MacArthur Justice Center — a non-prof­it pub­lic inter­est law firm affil­i­at­ed with the Northwestern University of Law. The cen­ter con­cen­trates on cas­es that raise con­sti­tu­tion­al or sig­nif­i­cant issues in the field of criminal justice.
  • National Death Penalty Archive, University at Albany — an archival col­lec­tion of mate­ri­als from death penal­ty activists, researchers, lit­i­ga­tors, and oth­ers cov­er­ing the his­to­ry of the death penal­ty in the United States.
  • National Registry of Exonerations — the National Registry of Exonerations is a joint project of the University of the Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law. It pro­vides detailed infor­ma­tion about all known exon­er­a­tions (for all crimes, not just death penal­ty crimes) in the United States since 1989; cas­es in which a per­son was con­vict­ed of a crime and lat­er cleared of all the charges.
  • Southern Center for Human Rights — death penal­ty news, arti­cles and reports, good source for prison reform resources, and legal/​advocacy resources
  • Stateline​.org — includes data­bas­es of infor­ma­tion on crime and pris­ons, cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, and news for each state. Allows a com­par­i­son of between 2 – 4 states.
  • Texas Defender Service — aims to help improve the qual­i­ty of rep­re­sen­ta­tion afford­ed to indi­gent Texans charged with a cap­i­tal crime or under sen­tence of death.
  • Texas Tech University School of Law Capital Punishment Clinic — clin­ic for law stu­dents in the Regional Public Defender’s Office for Capital Cases locat­ed in Lubbock, Texas.

Advocacy and Abolitionist Groups

National

  • American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) — a vari­ety of arti­cles and resources on the death penal­ty, includes state legislation updates.
  • ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project — a cam­paign to build sup­port for the repeal of the death penal­ty in the U.S. through advo­ca­cy and education.
  • Campaign to End the Death Penalty — a nation­al abo­li­tion­ist group, focus­ing on grass­roots sup­port and orga­ni­za­tion to end the death penalty
  • Death Penalty Action — a nation­al advo­ca­cy group seek­ing to end the death penal­ty both leg­isla­tive­ly and through direct action in individual cases.
  • Equal Justice USA — a nation­al, grass­roots orga­ni­za­tion work­ing to build a crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem that is fair, effec­tive, and humane, start­ing with repeal of the death penal­ty and increased ser­vices to fam­i­lies of homicide victims.
  • Friends Committee on National Legislation — a Quaker lob­by in the pub­lic inter­est, seeks to fol­low the lead­ings of the Spirit as it speaks for itself and for like-minded Friends.
  • Journey of Hope — led by mur­der vic­tim fam­i­ly mem­bers that con­ducts pub­lic edu­ca­tion speak­ing tours and address­es alter­na­tives to the death penalty.
  • Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights — is an orga­ni­za­tion with a nation­al and inter­na­tion­al focus active­ly work­ing to abol­ish the death penal­ty. MVFHR mem­bers are mur­der vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers and fam­i­ly mem­bers of the exe­cut­ed who are opposed to killing in all cas­es whether it be homi­cide, state killing, or extra­ju­di­cial killings and ​“dis­ap­pear­ances.”
  • Sisterhelen​.org— the Official web­site of Sr. Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking.
  • Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty
  • Witness to Innocence — is the nation’s only orga­ni­za­tion com­posed of, by, and for exon­er­at­ed death row sur­vivors and their loved ones. The orga­ni­za­tion chal­lenges the American pub­lic to grap­ple with the prob­lem of a fatal­ly flawed crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem that sends inno­cent peo­ple to death row. One of Witness to Innocence’s pri­ma­ry goals is to empow­er death row sur­vivors and their loved ones to be effec­tive lead­ers in the death penal­ty move­ment. It pro­vides an essen­tial net­work of peer sup­port for these indi­vid­u­als as they respond to the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties of life after exoneration.

International

  • Amnesty International — tracks death penal­ty inter­na­tion­al­ly, includes sta­tis­tics and gen­er­al infor­ma­tion, country reports
  • Australian Coalition Against the Death Penalty — anti-death penal­ty orga­ni­za­tion in Australia that sup­ports International abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty and is against the re-intro­duc­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in Australia
  • Italian Section of Amnesty International — inter­na­tion­al death penal­ty doc­u­ments, appeals and information
  • Bruderhof Community — arti­cles and essays on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, includes writ­ings from death row prisoners
  • Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty
  • Sant’Egidio Community of Italy — an appeal for the mora­to­ri­um of the death penal­ty all over the world by the year 2000, pro­mot­ed by Sr. Helen Prejean and other organizations.
  • Ensemble Contre La Peine de Mort — holds inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ences on world­wide abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty and pub­lish­es an elec­tron­ic newslet­ter (in French).
  • European Association for Human Rights — cam­paigns for the pro­mo­tion, advance­ment and pro­tec­tion of human rights and the pro­mo­tion, mon­i­tor­ing and sup­port of peo­ple in emer­gen­cies, includ­ing those on death row, at nation­al and inter­na­tion­al lev­el. (in English and German)
  • European Union in the United States — Site offer­ing infor­ma­tion on European Union pol­i­cy and action on the death penalty.
  • International Commission against the Death Penalty — an inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tion of high-lev­el for­mer gov­ern­men­tal offi­cials that works to abol­ish the death penalty worldwide.
  • The Moratorium Campaign — works towards obtain­ing a mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty, edu­cat­ing the pub­lic, and col­lects sig­na­tures for a peti­tion that will be deliv­ered to the United States rep­re­sen­ta­tives to the United Nations on Human Rights Day.
  • International Justice Project — works towards the devel­op­ment, coor­di­na­tion and increased employ­ment of inter­na­tion­al law and human rights stan­dards as they per­tain to capital punishment.
  • Reprieve — pro­vides effec­tive legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion and human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance to impov­er­ished peo­ple fac­ing the death penal­ty at the hands of the state in the US and the Caribbean. Reprieve’s Web site is an umbrel­la site that cat­a­logues all death penal­ty resources on the internet.
  • World Coalition Against the Death Penalty — Coalition com­mit­ted to the uni­ver­sal abo­li­tion of the death penalty.

State

Religious

  • Catholic Mobilizing Network — nation­al orga­ni­za­tion that mobi­lizes Catholics to end the use of the death penal­ty and to trans­form the U.S. crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem from puni­tive to restorative.
  • PaxChristi USA — nation­al Catholic move­ment for peace. Includes announce­ment of new nation­al cam­paign against the death penalty.
  • People of Faith Against the Death Penalty — a nation­al non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion with infor­ma­tion on edu­cat­ing, orga­niz­ing, and mobi­liz­ing reli­gious lead­ers and laity in reli­gious com­mu­ni­ties towards abo­li­tion of the death penalty.
  • Ministry Against the Death Penalty — nation­al reli­gious orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to pro­mot­ing alter­na­tives to the death penalty.
  • ReligionLink — a site that helps jour­nal­ists devel­op and write informed sto­ries about reli­gion. (Link goes direct­ly to death penalty).
  • Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism — pro­vides an issue and leg­isla­tive analy­sis and defines the posi­tion of the Reform Jewish Movement
  • Unitarian Universalists Against the Death Penalty — brief overview of the Unitarian Universalist posi­tion and upcoming events

Resources for Victims

Inmate Correspondence Groups

Other Sources

  • The Clemency Project seeks the release from prison of bat­tered women who have killed or injured their abusers.
  • Art for Redemption — site for the dis­play and sale of art by incar­cer­at­ed and for­mer­ly incarcerated individuals
  • Inmate Art — site for the dis­play and sale of art by death row inmates.
  • Texas Death Row By Alan Pogue — A page of pho­tographs and com­men­tary from Texas’ death row
  • Criminal Justice Programs with cap­i­tal punishment focus.