INDEX

What would you do if your child was murdered?
What would you do if your child was convicted of murder?

Alice Goodman has known great loss. Since the brutal murder of her daughter Madeline decades earlier, she has tirelessly fought to see the killer pay for his crime. Now, after twenty years, the day has arrived that she will witness his long-delayed execution. Will justice finally be done? Will she finally find the peace that has long eluded to her?

Lori Williams knows she was not the perfect mother, but she never believed her son Mark could be guilty of the crime that placed him on death row. Confronting every challenge along the way, she refused to give up her pursuit of the truth—a truth she believed would set her son free. Will it be enough?

Both women are fighting for a justice they believe has been denied their children. Now, their lives are on a collision course with each other. Is either woman prepared for the truth?

• Document type Book
• Countries list Canada
• Themes list Right to life, Clemency, Death Penalty,

South Africa, 1987. When Leon, a white 19-year-old prison guard commits an inexplicable act of violence, killing seven black men in a hail of bullets, the outcome of the trial – and the court’s sentence – seems a foregone conclusion.

Hotshot lawyer John Weber reluctantly takes on the seemingly unwinnable case.

A passionate opponent of the death penalty, John discovers that young Leon worked on death row in the nation’s most notorious prison, under traumatic conditions: befriending the inmates over the years while having to assist their eventual execution.

As the court hearings progress, the case offers John the opportunity to put the entire system of legally sanctioned murder on trial. How can one man take such a dual role of friend and executioner, becoming both shepherd and butcher?

Inspired by true events, this is the story that puts death penalty on trial and changes history.

• Document type Legal Representation
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition, Death Row Conditions, Discrimination, Country/Regional profiles,

Some Human Rights and civil society groups wrote to the member states of the Human Rights Council to get them to support the resolution to renew the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran at the 31st session of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)
• Themes list International law, Most Serious Crimes, Country/Regional profiles,

The 8th annual report of Iran Human Rights (IHR) on the death penalty provides an in-depth assessment of how the capital punishment was implemented in 2015 in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In addition to providing the number of executions that were conducted, the report also looks at the trends compared to previous years, the methods of execution, geographical distribution, the charges that were used by authorities to justify the executions and the articles in the penal law that were used to issue the death sentences.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Statistics, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages بخش اول از گزارش سالانه اعدام - دستکم ۷۵۳ اعدام در سال ۲۰۱۴

The accounts of the “anonymous execution teams” who implement the death penalty are chilling, and rarely reach the public sphere, because their identities are protected by stringent state laws. Rare interviews from retired corrections officers, wardens, and prison chaplains, as well as those included in the 2000 Peabody Award winning radio documentary “Witness to an Execution” give us glimpses of executioners and their experiences.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Methods of Execution, Lethal Injection, Electrocution, Death Penalty,

Two decades after Iran ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the authorities continue to show contempt for one of its core principles – the prohibition of the death penalty for juvenile offenders (people younger than 18 at the time of the crime). Indeed, Iran tops the grim global table of executioners of juvenile offenders.The report analyses the Iranian Penal System with regard to juvenile offenders, acknowledges the reforms, presents the recent trends and points out the major shortcomings that still need to be addressed in view of a full compliance of the Islamic Republic of Iran with the international standards.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Juveniles, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages Iran: Synthèse et les conclusions du rapport sur la peine de mort en Iran.

While the death penalty remains, persons with mental disabilities are at risk of being sentenced to death and executed in breach of international standards. This briefing paper provides concrete examples of what can be done to address this risk, including by ensuring that all states have laws that embed international protections in their domestic legislation and by extending protection to those with [serious] mental illness not covered by existing proscriptions against executing persons affected by “insanity”.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Mental Illness, Intellectual Disability,
• Available languages Fiche pratique pour les parlementaires

In this report, Mai Sato and Paul Bacon go beyond the simple results of opinion polls conducted
recently by the Japanese government, which show very high levels of support for the death penalty.
Using a similar methodology and sample, the authors reveal that the majority of the population form
their views on the death penalty with limited information and based on often inaccurate perceptions
– for example, believing that the crime rate is increasing. Sato and Bacon also demonstrate that
people have a relatively low level of ‘psychological ownership’ when it comes to the future of the death
penalty: the majority think that the government and experts should decide. Furthermore, discussions
about the death penalty among participants increased tolerance towards those with different views –
which, in turn, facilitated potential reform and change.

• Document type Academic report

• Document type Arguments against the death penalty
• Themes list Public opinion, Networks, Member organizations,

Simandjuntak’s article comes back to the death sentences part of the “war against drugs” conducted by President Widjojo in Indonesia. In 2015, 14 drug convicts – mostly foreign nationals – have been executed. The article also comes back to the wide support to the death penalty in the country, on the debate on the presumed deterrent effect of the death penalty and on the political function of the capital punishment in Indonesia.

• Document type Article
• Countries list Indonesia
• Themes list Public opinion, Deterrence , Drug Offences, Foreign Nationals, Country/Regional profiles,