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This resource is for parliamentarians around the globe, currently working or thinking of working for the abolition of the death penalty. It is intended to provide some of the key arguments for abolition based on a series of case studies, showing how abolition has been achieved and is being achieved around the world. The resource also sets out the mini steps that can be taken toward abolition and some information on the development of parliamentary networks and there are a list of contacts where parliamentarians can find information and support.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Public debate, Trend Towards Abolition,
• Available languages Les parlementaires et l’abolition de la peine de mort – une ressource

This article discusses a new art exhibition in Los Angeles which aims to humanise condemned prisoners. It continues to situate the exhibition in the greater context of the depiction of the death penalty in art history. The conversation this article raises is the link the death penalty in art history has with creating a public discussion. From the sword to the electric chair, the death penalty has inspired challenging art, writes Jason Farago.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Public debate,

The fifth edition of this highly praised study charts and explains the progress that continues to be made towards the goal of worldwide abolition of the death penalty. The majority of nations have now abolished the death penalty and the number of executions has dropped in almost all countries where abolition has not yet taken place. Emphasising the impact of international human rights principles and evidence of abuse, the authors examine how this has fuelled challenges to the death penalty and they analyse and appraise the likely obstacles, political and cultural, to further abolition. They discuss the cruel realities of the death penalty and the failure of international standards always to ensure fair trials and to avoid arbitrariness, discrimination and conviction of the innocent: all violations of the right to life. They provide further evidence of the lack of a general deterrent effect; shed new light on the influence and limits of public opinion; and argue that substituting for the death penalty life imprisonment without parole raises many similar human rights concerns.

• Document type Book
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition,

This article addresses the effect of judge versus jury decision making through analysis of a database of all capital sentencing phase hearing trials in the state of Delaware from 1977-2007. Over the three decades of the study, Delaware shifted responsibility for death penalty sentencing from the jury to the judge. Currently, Delaware is one of the handful of states that gives the judge the final decision making authority in capital trials. Controlling for a number of legally-relevant and other predictor variables, we find that the shift to judge sentencing significantly increased the number of death sentences. Statutory aggravating factors, stranger homicides, and the victim’s gender also increased the likelihood of a death sentence, as did the county of the homicide. We reflect on the implications of these results for debates about the constitutionality of judge sentencing in capital cases.

• Document type Academic report
• Themes list Statistics, Country/Regional profiles,

The latest edition of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s Death Row, USA showed a continuing decline in the size of the death row population. The new total of 3,035 represented a 13% drop from 10 years earlier, when the death row population was 3,471. The racial demographics of death row have been steady, with white inmates making up 43% of death row, black inmates composing 42%, and Latino inmates 13%. California continued to have the largest death row, with 745 inmates, followed by Florida (404), Texas (276), Alabama (198), and Pennsylvania (188). Arkansas, which last carried out an execution nearly nine years ago, had a 13% decrease in its death row population since last year. The report also contains information about executions. Since 1976, 10% (143) of those executed were defendants who gave up their appeals.

• Document type International law - Regional body
• Themes list Due Process , Trend Towards Abolition,

This survey polled public opinion in Kazakhstan towards the use of the death penalty for terrorist offences resulting in death, and also for especially grave crimes committed inwartime.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Public opinion,

‘Filling The Void’ is a brutal record of Bill Leonard’s troubled childhood and youth.The memoir provides a shocking insight into the neglect and abuse that he suffered as a child at the hands of his parents and stepfather and gives a frank account of the murders that led to his incarceration. It reveals the horrendous conditions in which Bill is held in Ely State Prison, Nevada and gives a graphic description of the barbarous treatment that he has received at the hands of his prison guards. It also details and examines the flawed process that earned him the death penalty and describes his struggle for self-rehabilitation through a process called neuroplasticity. This is the life story of a man who has suffered a great deal, who has passions that aren’t always under control. A man who loves order and truth but hasn’t always been able to engage in them. Someone who is hugely motivated to learn and develop his abilities. Someone who ought to be alive for a long time. This is Bill Leonard – and this is his story.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Death Row Conditions, Death Penalty,

Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama, has written a new book, Just Mercy, about his experiences defending the poor and the wrongfully convicted throughout the south. It includes the story of one of Stevenson’s first cases as a young lawyer, that of Walter McMillian, who was eventually exonerated and freed from death row. McMillian, a black man, had been convicted of the murder of a white woman in Monroeville, Alabama. His trial lasted just a day and a half, prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence, and the judge imposed a death sentence over the jury’s recommendation for life. Archbishop Desmond Tutu said of the book, “Bryan Stevenson is America’s young Nelson Mandela, a brilliant lawyer fighting with courage and conviction to guarantee justice for all. Just Mercy should be read by people of conscience in every civilized country in the world to discover what happens when revenge and retribution replace justice and mercy. It is as gripping to read as any legal thriller, and what hangs in the balance is nothing less than the soul of a great nation.”

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Due Process , Fair Trial, Death Penalty,

The Dui Hua Foundation estimates that China executed approximately 2,400 people in 2013 and will execute roughly the same number of people in 2014. Annual declines in executions recorded in recent years are likely to be offset in 2014 by the use of capital punishment in anti-terrorism campaigns in Xinjiang and the anti-corruption campaign nationwide.

• Document type Article
• Countries list China
• Themes list Statistics,

This report provides evidence on public attitudes to the death penalty in Ghana, withan empirical focus on Accra.

• Document type Academic report
• Themes list Public opinion, Statistics,