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The powerful documentary AN EYE FOR AN EYE, conveys message of forgiveness and healing. Directed by award winning filmmaker Ilan Ziv, AN EYE FOR AN EYE tells the story of death row inmate Mark Stroman, and the friendship he ultimately forges with one of his surviving victims Rais Bhuiyan, who sets about to save Stroman from death row.With unprecedented access and in-depth interviews, the film charts this riveting drama of revenge, change and forgiveness. A powerful human drama that carries a warning and a message of hope in our troubled times.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Capital offences, Murder Victims' Families, World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

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,

Nothing produced a glow in his eyes like the wonders of nature provoking his every curiosity. Everything about nature appealed to his meticulous character and his childhood was invested at Medina Lake, chasing down fireflies, and fishing. There was nothing he liked better than fried perch and eggs for breakfast. So how does such an innocent boy end up on death row in what most agree is the most relentless state for executing murders? The Grass Beneath His Feet recounts the life of Charles Victor Thompson, who after falling in love; found himself in a disturbing chain of events that would change his life forever. This re-telling of his story is extracted directly from the journals of Charles Victor Thompson himself where his childhood, his true love, and his ultimate escape from death row are revealed. For this first time, readers can enjoy the intimate details of the escape that shocked the entire nation. America?s Most Wanted, CNN, The World News all wanted to know the same question: How did this man manage to escape from the most notorious death row system in the country? The Grass Beneath His Feet also introduces Charles to the people, not as a murderer, but as a man fighting to prove that there were many flaws in his legal process that kept him from proving that he does not meet criteria for capital punishment. Prepare to embark on a journey into a life at death row through the eyes of Charles Victor Thompson and run next to him as a child and an escapee as he took in the beauty of nature and the South Texas sun with the grass beneath his feet.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Death Row Conditions, Death Row Phenomenon, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages Les pieds nus dans l'herbe: L'histoire de Charles Thompson

On February 20, 2006, Michael Morales was hours away from execution in California when two anesthesiologists declined to participate in his lethal injection procedure, thereby halting all state executions. The events brought to the surface the long-running schism between law and medicine, raising the question of whether any beneficial connection between the professions ever existed in the execution context. History shows it seldom did. Decades of botched executions prove it. This Article examines how states ended up with such constitutionally vulnerable lethal injection procedures, suggesting that physician participation in executions, though looked upon with disdain, is more prevalent— and perhaps more necessary —than many would like to believe. The Article also reports the results of this author’s unique nationwide study of lethal injection protocols and medical participation. The study demonstrates that states have continued to produce grossly inadequate protocols that severely restrict sufficient understanding of how executions are performed and heighten the likelihood of unconstitutionality. The analysis emphasizes in particular the utter lack of medical or scientific testing of lethal injection despite the early and continuous involvement of doctors but ongoing detachment of medical societies. Lastly, the Article discusses the legal developments that led up to the current rush of lethal injection lawsuits as well as the strong and rapid reverberations that followed, particularly with respect to medical involvement. This Article concludes with two recommendations. First, much like what occurred in this country when the first state switched to electrocution, there should be a nationwide study of proper lethal injection protocols. An independent commission consisting of a diverse group of qualified individuals, including medical personnel, should conduct a thorough assessment of lethal injection, especially the extent of physician participation. Second, this Article recommends that states take their execution procedures out of hiding. Such visibility would increase public scrutiny, thereby enhancing the likelihood of constitutional executions. By clarifying the standards used for determining what is constitutional in Baze v. Rees, the U.S. Supreme Court can then provide the kind of Eighth Amendment guidance states need to conduct humane lethal injections.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Methods of Execution, Lethal Injection,

The IPS ‘Death Penalty Abolition Project’, supported bythe European Union, has recorded the voices of many of those who have played a key role in the recently fast-moving journey towards a death-penalty-free world. In doing so, IPS has been guided by the purposes and principles contained in the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, theInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.Collected here are some 100 reports from dozens ofcountries and every continent. The voices of those who have spoken out here – many hundreds in number – include activists,academics, lawyers and, of course, those waiting for that dreaded last knock on their cell door.

• Document type Book
• Themes list Moratorium , Trend Towards Abolition, Death Penalty,

• Document type Book
• Themes list Beheading, Death Penalty,
• Available languages Italian : Riflessioni sulla pena di morteRéflexions sur la guillotine思索斷頭台

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list Spain
• Themes list Women, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list Japan
• Themes list Hanging, Death Penalty,

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Country/Regional profiles,

This video was made by IHR after the start of the executions of 77 prisoners in Ghezehesar prison. Two of the prisoners speak about the interrogations, torture, – You also see the last farewell of a prisoner before the execution.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Torture, Death Row Conditions,

During the 56th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in Banjul, Gambia, 21 April – 7 May 2015, the FIACAT made an oral statement as they would like to would like to congratulate on the actions taken by the Committee for the prevention of torture in Africa since the 55th Ordinary Session of the ACHPR. Nevertheless, FIACAT remains greatly concerned by the number of cases of torture documented by its members (ACATs) and the impunity which torturers enjoy.

• Document type Article
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition, Country/Regional profiles,

Chavoret Jaruboon was personally responsible for executing 55 prison inmates in Thailand’s infamous prisons. As a boy, he wanted to be a teacher like his father, but his life changed when he chose one of the hardest jobs in the world. Honest and often disturbing – but told with surprising humour and emotion – ‘The Last Executioner’ is the remarkable story of a man who chose death as his vocation.

• Document type Book
• Countries list Thailand
• Themes list Firing Squad,

Inspired by true event, The last executioner is the story of Chavoret Jaruboon, the last person in Thailand whose job was to execute by gun.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list Thailand
• Themes list Firing Squad,

The Iranian authorities use the drug issue to enforce their rule and repress ethnic nationalities and members of opposition groups. Whenever it faces escalating crises, internally or externally, new and harsher laws against drugs and addicts are adopted and public hangings of members of ethnic nationalities increase dramatically. The following periods of hangings and drug laws illustrate this policy.

• Document type Article
• Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)
• Themes list Drug Offences,
• Available languages ایران: استفاده از مجازات اعدام در جرایم مربوط به موادمخدر بعنوان ابزاری برای کنترل سیاسیt

A new book by Professor Harry M. Ward of the University of Richmond examines the death penalty in Virginia at a time when executions were carried out for all to see.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Country/Regional profiles,

Survivor on Death Row, a new e-book co-authored by death row inmate Romell Broom and Clare Nonhebel, tells the story of Ohio’s botched attempt to execute Broom by lethal injection in 2009. In September of that year, Broom was readied for execution and placed on the gurney, but the procedure was terminated after corrections officials spent over two hours attempting to find a suitable vein for the lethal injection.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment,

Story of Ivan Ray Murphy Jr who was condemned to death for murder. Over a period of ten years and through the medium of more than a hundred letters, Murphy, who was known as Pee-Wee, shared his innermost thoughts with his twenty years older Norwegian pen friend, the author of this book, Marit Lund Bødtker. The author twice travelled to the prison in Huntsville, Texas, where Murphy was held and from where he worked tirelessly to regain his freedom. ‘Whether he is innocent, as he claims to be, or guilty, Murphy is first and foremost a human being, a man with his own personal strengths and weaknesses, dreams and aspirations. In all probability readers will sometimes find themselves agreeing with him, at other times totally at variance with his conduct and opinions, just as they do with other people they meet or read about.’ From the afterword by John Peder Egenæs, Secretary General, Amnesty International Norway

• Document type Book
• Themes list Innocence,

In Murdering Myths: The Story Behind the Death Penalty, Judith Kay goes beyond the hype and statistics to examine Americans’ deep-seated beliefs about crime and punishment. She argues that Americans share a counter-productive idea of justice–that punishment corrects bad behavior, suffering pays for wrong deeds, and victims’ desire for revenge is natural and inevitable. Drawing on interviews with both victims and inmates, Kay shows how this belief harms perpetrators, victims, and society and calls for a new narrative that recognizes the humanity in all of us.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

This book examines how family members and advocates for victims address the impact of capital punishment. The book presents the personal stories of victims’ family members and their interactions with the criminal justice system. It also examines the relevant areas of legal research, including the use of victim impact evidence in capital trials, how capital punishment affects victims’ family members, and what is known about addressing the needs of the survivors after a murder.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Murder Victims' Families,

The haunting specter of hanging trees holds a powerful sway on the American imagination, conjuring images of rough-and-tumble frontier towns struggling to impose law and order in a land where violence was endemic. In this thoughtful study, former New Mexico State Historian Robert Torrez examines several fascinating criminal cases that reveal the harsh and often gruesome realities of the role hangings, legal or otherwise, played in the administration of frontier justice. At first glance, the topic may seem downright morbid, and in a sense it is, but these violent attempts at justice are embedded in our perception of America’s western experience. In tracing territorial New Mexico’s efforts to enforce law, Torrez challenges the myths and popular perceptions about hangings and lynching in this corner of the Wild West.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Hanging,

In “Towards the abolition of the death penalty in Africa – a human rights perspective”, the author shows that international law increasingly recognises that the imposition and execution of the death penalty constitute violations of human rights. The author locates an emerging international trend towards the abolition of capital punishment in the African context. In doing so, she provides a particular African perspective on the issue. In this rich and informative text, she reflects on the role and impact of relevant UN instruments on African states, and analyses related African regional instruments, domestic law and case-law.

• Document type Book

Twelve states and the District of Columbia do not impose the death penalty. The authors, all sociology professors at American universities, use the case-study method to examine why this is so. The factors they consider include murder rates, the history of executions, economic circumstances, public opinion, mass media, population diversity, and each state’s abolition of the death penalty. They also examine the role of a state’s social, cultural, and economic leaders in public debate on capital punishment. The states studied are Michigan, Wisconsin, Maine, Minnesota, North Dakota, Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, and West Virginia, though there is also some discussion of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and the District of Columbia. Media reports and government documents were reviewed and legislators, civil servants, journalists, death-penalty activists, and others interviewed. Throughout, the authors express an abolitionist point of view, stating “We hope this book will provide practical information to those interested in furthering death penalty abolition in the United States and throughout the world.”

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

In this collaborative work, the Jacksons, father (former presidential candidate and founder of the Rainbow Coalition) and son (a congressional representative) with Salon.com editor Shapiro, pursue a nationwide conversation on the issues surrounding the death penalty one that begins with the proposal of a moratorium and could lead to the eventual cessation of capital punishment. This book describes a bureaucratic nightmare involving defense lawyers asleep at trial, vengeance-hungry politicos and a problematic, imperfect justice system in which the handing out of death sentences is skewed, both racially and economically. An objective examination of this penal system would be beneficial to all, say the authors: since the Supreme Court allowed executions to resume in 1976, one in every eight prisoners on death row has been found innocent and released. There are undoubtedly cases, the authors argue, where the proof of innocence didn’t see the light of day in time. Navigating the historical precedents of the death penalty and the reasons why federally mandated executions were restored following a 10-year moratorium imposed in 1967, the authors thoroughly detail legitimate questions regarding what they view as erroneous deterrence theories, scriptural misrepresentation and simple vengeance.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

The stories of parents, siblings, children, and cousins chronicled in this book-vividly illustrate the precarious position family members of capital offenders occupy in the criminal justice system. They live in the shadow of death, crushed by trauma, grief, and helplessness. In this penetrating account of guilt and innocence, shame and triumph, devastating loss and ultimate redemption, the voices of these family members add a new dimension to debates about capital punishment and how communities can prevent and address crime.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

Drawing on his encyclopedic knowledge of the field, Bedau addresses topics such as strong public suppport for the death penalty, wrongful convictions, the disappearance of executive clemency, constitutional arguments surronding the Eight Amendment, and procedural reforms under consideration that move toward abolition.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

This is a highly thought-provoking work where Beccaria-Bonesana has explained his ideas against the use of torture and capital punishments. He has produced a humanitarian spirit in the dispensation of laws. This work is important as the views expressed here, were not regarded either in his times or now.

• Document type Book
• Themes list Networks,
• Available languages German : Über Verbrechen und StrafenItalian : Dei delitti e delle pene-Consulte criminaliDes délits et des peines论犯罪与刑罚De Los Delitos Y De Las Penas

This brand new edition of Death Penalty Cases makes the most manageable comprehensive resource on the death penalty even better. It includes the most recent cases, including Kennedy v. Louisiana, prohibiting the death penalty for child rapists, and Baze v. Rees, upholding execution by lethal injection. In addition, all of the cases are now topically organized into five sections: * The Foundational Cases * Death-Eligibility: Which persons/crimes are fit for the death penalty? * The Death Penalty Trial * Post-conviction Review * Execution Issues The introductory essays on the history, administration, and controversies surrounding capital punishment have been thoroughly revised. The statistical appendix has been brought up-to-date, and the statutory appendix has been restructured. For clarity, accuracy, complete impartiality and comprehensiveness, there simply is no better resource on capital punishment available.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

This volume represents an effort to restore the sense of capital punishment as a question caught up in history. Edited by leading scholars of crime and justice, these original essays pursue different strategies for unsettling the usual terms of the debate. In particular, the authors use comparative and historical investigations of both Europe and America in order to cast fresh light on familiar questions about the meaning of capital punishment.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

Turow bases his opinions on his experiences as a prosecutor and, in his post-prosecutorial years, working on behalf of death-row inmates, as well as his two years on Illinois’s Commission on Capital Punishment, charged by the former Gov. George Ryan.Turow presents both sides of the death penalty debate and seems himself to flip sides depending on the argument.Turow’s reflections include: * Thoughts on victims’ rights vs. community rights * Whether execution is a deterrent * The possible execution of an innocent person * If not the death penalty, what to do with the worst offenders

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

In this compelling and timely work, Austin Sarat provides the first book-length work on executive clemency. He turns our focus from questions of guilt and innocence to the very meaning of mercy. Starting from Ryan’s controversial decision, Mercy on Trial uses the lens of executive clemency in capital cases to discuss the fraught condition of mercy in American political life. Most pointedly, Sarat argues that mercy itself is on trial. Although it has always had a problematic position as a form of “lawful lawlessness,” it has come under much more intense popular pressure and criticism in recent decades. This has yielded a radical decline in the use of the power of chief executives to stop executions.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Clemency,

Is capital punishment just? Does it deter people from murder? What is the risk that we will execute innocent people? These are the usual questions at the heart of the increasingly heated debate about capital punishment in America. In this bold and impassioned book, Austin Sarat seeks to change the terms of that debate. Capital punishment must be stopped, Sarat argues, because it undermines our democratic society.Sarat unflinchingly exposes us to the realities of state killing. He examines its foundations in ideas about revenge and retribution. He takes us inside the courtroom of a capital trial, interviews jurors and lawyers who make decisions about life and death, and assesses the arguments swirling around Timothy McVeigh and his trial for the bombing in Oklahoma City. Aided by a series of unsettling color photographs, he traces Americans’ evolving quest for new methods of execution, and explores the place of capital punishment in popular culture by examining such films as Dead Man Walking, The Last Dance, and The Green Mile.Sarat argues that state executions, once used by monarchs as symbolic displays of power, gained acceptance among Americans as a sign of the people’s sovereignty. Yet today when the state kills, it does so in a bureaucratic procedure hidden from view and for which no one in particular takes responsibility. He uncovers the forces that sustain America’s killing culture, including overheated political rhetoric, racial prejudice, and the desire for a world without moral ambiguity. Capital punishment, Sarat shows, ultimately leaves Americans more divided, hostile, indifferent to life’s complexities, and much further from solving the nation’s ills. In short, it leaves us with an impoverished democracy.The book’s powerful and sobering conclusions point to a new abolitionist politics, in which capital punishment should be banned not only on ethical grounds but also for what it does to Americans and what we cherish.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

She tells the story of two inmates she came to know as a spiritual adviser. Dobie Williams, a poor black man with an IQ of 65 from rural Louisiana, was executed after being represented by incompetent counsel and found guilty by an all-white jury based mostly on conjecture and speculation. Joseph O’Dell was convicted of murder after the court heard from an inmate who later admitted to giving false testimony for his own benefit. O’Dell received neither an evidentiary hearing nor potentially exculpatory DNA testing and was executed, insisting on his innocence the whole while. Besides exploring the shaky cases against them, Prejean describes in vivid detail the thoughts and feelings of Williams and O’Dell as their bids for clemency fail and they are put to death. The second part of the book details “the machinery of death,” the legal process that Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, dismayed at the inequities of the death penalty, cited as his reason for resigning and that current justice Antonin Scalia has boasted of being a part of.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

In Death by Design, research psychologist Craig Haney argues that capital punishment, and particularly the sequence of events that lead to death sentencing itself, is maintained through a complex and elaborate social psychological system that distance and disengage us from the true nature of the task. Relying heavily on his own research and that of other social scientists, Haney suggests that these social psychological forces enable persons to engage in behavior from which many of them otherwise would refrain. However, by facilitating death sentencing in these ways, this inter-related set of social psychological forces also undermines the reliability and authenticity of the process, and compromises the fairness of its outcomes. Because these social psychological forces are systemic in nature –built into the very system of death sentencing itself –Haney concludes by suggesting a number of inter-locking reforms, derived directly from empirical research on capital punishment, that are needed to increase the fairness and reliability of the process.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

PRI training resource (1/3): Aimed mainly to mid-level prison officers, this resource’s trains these stakeholders on: due process and fair trial standards, international standards on the treatment of prisoners, vulnerable prisoners, building a rehabilitation-oriented penal culture.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Fair Trial, Death Row Conditions,

The editors of this study isolate the core issues influencing legislation so that they can be incorporated into strategies that advise governments in changing their policy on capital punishment. What are the critical factors determining whether a country replaces, retains or restores the death penalty? Why do some countries maintain the death penalty in theory, but in reality rarely invoke it? These questions and others are explored in chapters on South Korea, Lithuania, Georgia, Japan and the British Caribbean Commonwealth, as well as the U.S.

• Document type Book
• Countries list Georgia
• Themes list Networks,

This extensively revised third edition covers developments since publication of the second edition in 1997. It includes consideration of the UN human rights system, international humanitarian law, European human rights law and Inter-American human rights law. New chapters address capital punishment in African human rights law and international criminal law. An extensive list of appendices contains many of the essential documents for the study of capital punishment in international law.

• Document type Book
• Themes list Networks,

This book examines the death penalty within the changing socio-political context of China. The authors’ treatment of China’s death penalty is legal, historical, and comparative. In particular, they examine; the substantive and procedures laws surrounding capital punishment in different historical periods the purposes and functions of capital punishment in China in various dynasties changes in the method of imposition and relative prevalence of capital punishment over time the socio-demographic profile of the executed and their crimes over the last two decades and comparative practices in other countries. Their analyses of the death penalty in contemporary China focus on both its theory – how it should be done in law – and actual practice – based on available secondary reports/sources.

• Document type Book
• Countries list China
• Themes list Networks,

Law professor Stuart Banner tells the story of how, over four centuries, dramatic changes have taken place in the ways capital punishment has been administered and experienced. Banner moves beyond the debates, to give us an unprecedented understanding of capital punishment’s many meanings. As nearly four thousand inmates are now on death row, and almost one hundred are currently being executed each year, the furious debate is unlikely to diminish. The Death Penalty is invaluable in understanding the American way of the ultimate punishment.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

This book tries to explain what leads a state to abolish capital punishment or impose a moratorium, by offereing in-depth analyses of four countries: Ukraine, South Africa, South Korea and the United States. Focusing on the role of political leadership and domestic political institutions, Bae clarifies the causal mechanisms that lead to state compliance or noncompliance with the norm.

• Document type Book
• Countries list Republic of Korea
• Themes list Moratorium ,

This book contains contributions from judges, attorneys, and academicians on both sides of the death penalty question. The grounds advanced for justification of capital punishment–including deterrence, retribution, and closure for victims’ families–are considered. Whether life imprisonment is adequate to address these concerns is also debated. Other issues include whether racial minorities or indigent defendants are disproportionately executed, whether the penalty is otherwise arbitrarily applied, and what risks exist regarding the execution of an innocent person.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

This edited volume brings together leading scholars on the death penalty within international, regional and municipal law. It considers the intrinsic elements of both the promotion and demise of the punishment around the world, and provides analysis which contributes to the evolving abolitionist discourse.The contributors consider the current developments within the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the African Commission and the Commonwealth Caribbean, and engage with the emergence of regional norms promoting collective restriction and renunciation of the punishment. They investigate perspectives and questions for retentionist countries, focusing on the United States, China, Korea and Taiwan, and reveal the iniquities of contemporary capital judicial systems. Emphasis is placed on the issues of transparency of municipal jurisdictions, the jurisprudence on the ‘death row phenomenon’ and the changing nature of public opinion. The volume surveys and critiques the arguments used to scrutinize the death penalty to then offer a detailed analysis of possible replacement sanctions.

• Document type Book
• Countries list China
• Themes list International law,

They undertake this “cultural voyage” comparatively—examining the dynamics of the death penalty in Mexico, the United States, Poland, Kyrgyzstan, India, Israel, Palestine, Japan, China, Singapore, and South Korea—arguing that we need to look beyond the United States to see how capital punishment “lives” or “dies” in the rest of the world, how images of state killing are produced and consumed elsewhere, and how they are reflected, back and forth, in the emerging international judicial and political discourse on the penalty of death and its abolition.

• Document type Book
• Countries list China
• Themes list Networks,

Determinants of the Death Penalty seeks to explain the phenomenon of capital punishment – without recourse to value judgements – by identifying those characteristics common to countries that use the death penalty and those that mark countries which do not. This global study uses statistical analysis to relate the popularity of the death penalty to physical, cultural, social, economical, institutional, actor oriented and historical factors. Separate studies are conducted for democracies and non-democracies and within four regional contexts. The book also contains an in-depth investigation into determinants of the death penalty in the USA.

• Document type Book
• Themes list Networks,

The second edition of America’s Experiment with Capital Punishment is an updated and expanded version of the comprehensive first edition. Chapters, authored by the country’s leading legal and social science scholars, have been revised to include a host of important developments since the 1998 edition. Thus, new evidence and information is presented concerning racial disparities in the administration of the death penalty, wrongful convictions, deterrence, the prediction of future dangerousness, jury decision-making, public opinion about the death penalty, the effects of the capital punishment process on murder victims’ and offenders’ relatives, death row incarceration, the costs of capital punishment, execution methods, and many other issues.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States

This important book is sure to foster informed public discussion about the death penalty by deepening readers’ understanding of how religious beliefs and perspectives shape this contentious issue. Featuring a fair, balanced appraisal of its topic, Religion and the Death Penalty brings thoughtful religious reflection to bear on current challenges facing the capital justice system.

• Document type Book
• Themes list Religion ,

Evidence indicates that the conviction and imprisonment of factually innocent persons occur with some regularity. Most research focuses on causes, but the incidence of wrongful convictions is an important scientific and policy issue, especially as no official body gathers data on miscarriages of justice. Two methods are available for discovering the incidence of wrongful conviction: (1) enumerating specific cases and (2) having criminal justice experts estimate its incidence. Counts or catalogues of wrongful conviction necessarily undercount its incidence and are subject to accuracy challenges. We surveyed Michigan criminal justice officials, replicating a recent Ohio survey, to obtain an expert estimate of the incidence of wrongful conviction. All groups combined estimated that wrongful convictions occurred at a rate of less than 1/2 percent in their own jurisdiction and at a rate of 1-3 percent in the United States. Defense lawyers estimate higher rates of wrongful conviction than judges, who estimate higher rates than police officials and prosecutors. These differences may be explained by professional socialization. An overall wrongful conviction estimate of 1/2 percent extrapolates to about 5,000 wrongful felony convictions and the imprisonment of more than 2,000 innocent persons in the United States every year.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence,

Many states fail to conduct, or even to permit, DNA testing of biological materials in circumstances in which the results might exonerate convicts under sentence of death. Senator Patrick Leahy thinks that Congress should enact a statute requiring states to provide for testing when it promises to reveal the truth. Leahy’s idea is sensible as a matter of policy. I mean in this Article to argue that it is also constitutionally feasible.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

This short article will explore some additional issues regarding the relationship between international law and the death penalty. First, it will discuss some additional aspects of the representation of foreign nationals in capital cases. Second, it will discuss additional instances in which defense counsel can make international law arguments, regardless of the client’s nationality. Third, because international law issues are new to most lawyers in the United States, even those who are seasoned in capital litigation, it will suggest some alternative ways in which international law arguments can be made. The conclusion will put theUnited States experience with the death penalty into the broader context of world practice on the death penalty.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Legal Representation,

The common assumption is that all victims’ family members support the death penalty. We cannot expect to abolish the death penalty without presenting an alternative view. Victims’ voices have a powerful effect – lawmakers have voted against the death penalty as a result of hearing victims’ testify for abolition. Including victims’ stories when working for abolition is strategically wise and is essential to bringing new people into the abolition movement. Here are a few suggestions. We encourage activists to consult with MVFHR for further guidance.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Networks,

More than 3,300 people have been murdered in the City of Detroit since 2003. In this Detroit Free Press documentary, meet some of the families who have lost loved ones to homicide, are searching for justice and trying to come to terms with their losses.

• Document type Legal Representation
• Themes list FRONTPAGE

A new book by Professor Robert Bohm of the University of Central Florida looks at death-penalty decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court prior to the modern era of capital punishment that began in 1968. In The Past As Prologue, Bohm examines 39 Court decisions, covering issues such as clemency, jury selection, coerced confessions, and effective representation.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list International law, Trend Towards Abolition,

This book is a first-hand account of the life of Simon City Royals gangster Robert “Saint” Bailey who is currently on Death Row in Raiford, Florida. He killed a law enforcement officer in 2005.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence, Country/Regional profiles,

Bessler examines the Supreme Court’s Eighth Amendment case law and concludes that the death penalty may well be declared unconstitutional in time. Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, called the book, “A searing indictment of capital punishment, this pioneering history of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause is destined to reframe America’s death penalty debate.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list International law, Public debate,

The book looks at issues such as jury selection, ineffective assistance of counsel, innocence, and race, and how these issues reflect on who is sentenced to death. Prof. Williams concludes that that application of the death penalty is inconsistent and incoherent, partly because of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence, and this leads to a lack of public confidence in the system.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Due Process , Fair Trial, Capital offences,

chronicles the compelling story of Philip Workman, who was executed in Tennessee in 2007. The author, a minister of the United Church of Christ who has spent decades working with those on death row, served as Mr. Workman’s pastor and tells the story from his own viewpoint, as well as those of others familiar with the case.

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

A new book published in electronic format, The Death Penalty Failed Experiment: From Gary Graham to Troy Davis in Context by Diann Rust-Tierney, examines the problem of arbitrariness in the death penalty since its reinstatement in 1976. Through an analysis of the cases of Gary Graham and Troy Davis, the author argues that race, wealth and geography play a more significant role in determining who faces capital punishment than the facts of the crime itself.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Arbitrariness,

Professor Jody Lynee’ Madeira of the Indiana University School of Law follows the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing to explore whether the families of murder victims obtain closure from an execution. In Killing McVeigh: The Death Penalty and the Myth of Closure, Prof. Madeira recounts her wide range of interviews with those who experienced this tragedy first-hand.

• Document type Book
• Themes list Murder Victims' Families,

A new book by Clive Stafford Smith, a British lawyer who has defended death row inmates in the U.S., offers an in-depth view of capital punishment in America. In Injustice: Life and Death in the Courtrooms of America, Stafford Smith examines the case of Kris Maharaj, a British citizen who was sentenced to death in Florida for a double murder, to expose problems in the justice system.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Innocence,

A new electronic book by former journalist Peter Rooney offers an in-depth look at the case of Joseph Burrows, who was exonerated from Illinois’s death row in 1996. In Die Free: A True Story of Murder, Betrayal and Miscarried Justice, Rooney explains how Burrows was sentenced to death for the murder of William Dulin based on snitch testimony.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence,

Many studies during the past few decades have sought to determine whether the death penalty has any deterrent effect on homicide rates. Researchers have reached widely varying, even contradictory, conclusions. Some studies have concluded that the threat of capital punishment deters murders, saving large numbers of lives; other studies have concluded that executions actually increase homicides; still others, that executions have no effect on murder rates. Commentary among researchers, advocates, and policymakers on the scientific validity of the findings has sometimes been acrimonious.

• Document type Book
• Themes list Deterrence ,

In this comprehensive, well-crafted book, published in association with the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, SUNY-Buffalo professors Jackson and Christian build upon the photographs and interviews from death row in Texas that yielded their 1979 book and documentary Death Row

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Death Row Phenomenon,

On September 15, 2009, the State of Ohio tried to execute Romell Broom and failed. Ohio claims it has a right to try again. This film explores the legal and moral questions surrounding this unique case.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Death Row Conditions, Lethal Injection,

Robert Towery was denied clemency by the state of Arizona on Friday March 2, 2012 and was executed on Thursday March 8th in Florence, Arizona. He was 47 years old. The last 35 days of his life, Robert was placed on “Death Watch” where his every move was recorded and chronicled by prison officials. Robert kept a diary and he sent his writings to his attorneys. Robert authorized his lawyers to release his diary after his execution.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Death Row Conditions,

The book that helped free an innocent man who had spent twenty-seven years on death row. In January 1982, an elderly white widow was found brutally murdered in the small town of Greenwood, South Carolina. Police immediately arrested Edward Lee Elmore, a semiliterate, mentally retarded black man with no previous felony record. His only connection to the victim was having cleaned her gutters and windows, but barely ninety days after the victim’s body was found, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Death Row Conditions,

This book contains a selection of papers that were presented during the multidisciplinary conference “Beyond the Death Penalty: Reflections on Punishment,” organized by the Maastricht Center for Human Rights. The aim of the conference was to reflect on punishment from a variety of angles and to give some food for thought to the contemporary debate on crime and punishment. After a first cluster of chapters with a strong focus on capital punishment, an intriguing mixture of topics in relation to punishment is presented, including chapters on the populist context of contemporary crime control, reconciliation and rehabilitation, prison life, and efficiency and effectiveness.

• Document type Book
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment,

Art and letters from the men who await death in the Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, Florida

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Death Row Conditions, Country/Regional profiles,

Life in the Balance: a book on the Billy Wayne Sinclair Story, A Journey from Murder to Redemption Inside America’s Worst Prison System. The New York Times Book Review called it a “numbing tale of crime, punishment, and redemption.”

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence, Country/Regional profiles,

This article explores the constitutionality of the death penalty for those convicted of felony murder, i.e., those who participated in a serious crime in which a death occurred, but were not directly responsible for the death.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence,

Joe Berlinger’s third film about the West Memphis 3, Paradise Lost: Purgatory

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence,

The document broadly looks at the historical, human rights law, and practical aspects of the death penalty. It takes a comprehensive approach to the question of the death penalty, bearing in mind the need to provide the African Commission with sufficient information that will enable it to take an informed position on the matter.

• Document type Book
• Themes list International law, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages Etude sur la question de la peine de mort en afrique

In this Opinion, Professor Schabas argues that the Commonwealth is behind the curve of the international trend towards the abolition of the death penalty. He analyses the status and use of capital punishment in Commonwealth countries, as compared to all UN member states more broadly.

• Document type Article
• Themes list International law,

Norman Mailer tells Gary Gilmore’s story, and those of the men and women caught up in his procession toward the firing squad, with implacable authority, steely compassion, and a restraint that evokes the parched landscapes and stern theology of Gilmore’s Utah.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

Tony Medina was accused of shooting into a crowd of young people with a semi-automatic weapon from a dark colored car. Two children were fatally wounded during the shooting. Nevertheless, he is innocent according to the furnished evidence and the testimony of witnesses.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence,

The book looks at the death penalty through interviews with people affected by the system in different ways. He uses interviews to explore issues of deterrence, retribution, and fairness, while taking a unique look at how the death penalty affects those who participate in the system.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Fair Trial, Deterrence , Retribution,

The fast-paced new book, “Dead Reckoning,” offers a critical overview of capital punishment in America, along with a vivid discussion of current issues central in today’s debate, based on many interviews. Along the way, Mitchell turns to a wide cast of notable abolitionists, from Charles Dickens and Mark Twain to Albert Camus and Christopher Hitchensو and Steve Earle.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States

While shedding important new light on the U.S. Constitution’s “cruel and unusual punishments” clause, Bessler explores the influence of Cesare Beccaria’s essay, on Crimes and Punishments, on the Founders’ views, and the transformative properties of the Fourteenth Amendment, which made the Bill of Rights applicable to the states.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States

This Article uncovers the true costs of administering the death penalty in California by tracing how much taxpayers are spending for death penalty trials versus non–death penalty trials and for costs incurred due to the delay from the initial sentence of death to the execution.The article makes recomendations.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Sentencing Alternatives, Financial cost,

This Article identifies the woeful inefficiencies of the current procedures that have led to inexcusable delays in arriving at just results in death penalty cases and describes how California came to find itself in this untenable condition. The article makes recomendations.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Fair Trial,

A Crime Novel Based on Real Events, follows the discoveries and dangerous encounters of a fictional author investigating the case of Toronto Patterson, the last juvenile defendant executed in Texas.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Juveniles,

A death row inmate finds redemption as a prison journalist in this uplifting memoir. In 1961, after a bungled bank robbery, Rideau was convicted of murder at the age of 19 and received a death sentence that was later commuted to life in prison.

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

Very few crimes committed in the United States involve biological evidence that can be tested using DNA. Convicting the Innocent makes a powerful case for systemic reforms to improve the accuracy of all criminal cases.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence,

How can a human being stand up, under conditions of unjust imprisonment on death row, alone and without hope of being released? In this documentary film, Anne-Frédérique Widmann draws the portrait of Kenneth Reams, who wakes up every day with an unwavering desire to live, and succeeds in writing, testifying, painting and loving a woman. A film about the art, resistance and dignity of every human life.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence, Death Row Conditions, Death Penalty,

On 9 and 10 April, more than 300 abolitionists, activists, diplomats, politicians, parliamentarians, lawyers, former death row inmates and citizens gathered in Abidjan for the first African Congress against the death penalty. After two days of debating and sharing experiences, the delegates adopted a final declaration at the closing ceremony.

• Document type Article
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages Congrès Africain: déclaration finale pour une Afrique abolitionniste

This ressource provided by the American Bar Association permits to help fill clemency petitions in the United States.

• Document type Arguments against the death penalty
• Themes list Clemency, Death Penalty,

FIACAT press release about the awareness raising workshop for permanent representatives to the African Union.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Themes list International law, Trend Towards Abolition, World Coalition Against the Death Penalty,
• Available languages L'importance de la sensibilisation des ambassadeurs auprès de l'Union africaine sur le projet de Protocol africain sur l'abolition de la peine de mort

L’articolo prende in considerazione la condanna a morte di Saddam Hussein e sottolinea come il principio di compensazione che sta alla base di numerosi ragionamenti a favore della pena di morte sia del tutto inapplicabile nel caso di violazioni dei diritti umani quali quelle compiute dal dittatore iracheno. Partendo da questa constatazione l’autore passa poi a descrivere come il valore di una persona non sia legato solamente alle proprie gesta e conclude che la pena di morte vada rifiutata proprio a causa dell’impossibilità di misurare la distanza tra il valore della vita di una persona e le sue azioni.

• Document type Article
• Countries list Iraq
• Themes list Networks,

This mini-series sheds light on 8 true stories of wrongful convictions overturned thanks to the work of the Innocence Project and several organizations from the Innocence Network. One of its episode feature the case of Texas death-row exoneree Alfred Dewayne Brown.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence, Legal Representation, Death Penalty,
• Available languages Preuves d'innocence

Published on Real Stories YouTube channel, this documentary casts a penetrating look at the consequences of the death penalty through three powerful stories – the rare perspective of a former state executioner who comes within days of executing an innocent person; a Boston Marathon bombing victim who struggles to decide what justice really means; and the parents of a murder victim who choose to fight for the life of their daughter’s killer. As the battle to overturn capital punishment comes to a head in the U.S., this provocative film challenges viewers to question their deepest beliefs about justice.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Public debate, Death Row Conditions, Death Penalty,

Darlie was convicted and sentenced to death for a crime she did not commit. Ever since that conviction, new attorneys have been working to obtain a new trial and establish her innocence.This story is a tragic one, but it is not finished yet.Song performed and recorded by Indie Pirate Shop.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Women,

There Is No Evil (Persian: شیطان وجود ندارد‎, lit. ‘Satan doesn’t exist’) is a 2020 Iranian drama film directed by Mohammad Rasoulof. It won the Golden Bear for Best Film at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival. The film relates four stories concerning the death penalty in Iran. Rasoulof explained that the film is about “people taking responsibility” for their actions, and that each story “is based on my own experience.”

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)
• Themes list Public debate,
• Available languages Le Diable n'existe pas

In the judicial discourse on the relationship between human sacrifice and punishment in criminal law, there are glaring errors. Looking closely at the Supreme Court’s judgment in Ishwari Lal Yadav v State of Chhattisgarh, the deviation from the principle of individualised sentencing and the consequences of ignoring evidence on the complex anthropological and psychological dimensions of human sacrifice are reflected upon.

• Document type Article
• Countries list India
• Themes list Hanging,

Public support for the death penalty, which reached a four-decade low in 2016, has increased somewhat since then. Today, 54% of Americans favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder, while 39% are opposed, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in April and May.

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

Bernadine Williams, a prison guard, still has to drive an inmate through Death Row. Little by little, his work becomes unbearable.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Death Row Conditions,

A powerful and thought-provoking true story, “Just Mercy” follows young lawyer Bryan Stevenson (Jordan) and his history-making battle for justice. After graduating from Harvard, Bryan heads to Alabama to defend those wrongly condemned or who were not afforded proper representation, with the support of local advocate Eva Ansley (Larson). Bryan becomes embroiled in a labyrinth of legal and political maneuverings and overt and unabashed racism as he fights for Walter, and others like him, with the odds—and the system—stacked against them.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Death Penalty,

Arizona said Debra Milke was a baby killer. Phoenix Homicide Detective Armando Saldate testified she “confessed” to having her four-year-old son murdered when he thought he was going to see Santa. In 1990, she ended up exactly where most thought she deserved–the only woman on Arizona’s death row. This compelling investigative work by one of Arizona’s most acclaimed journalists takes readers inside the case–inside the prison, inside the evidence, inside the breakdown of justice, inside the legal tenacity, inside the heart and mind of Debra Milke.

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

Six months after the 7th World Congress against the Death Penalty, ECPM is proud to announce the publication of the Proceedings of the Brussels Congress. This unpublished, documented and illustrated book reports on the rich debates held during the Congress and discusses the new associative and political dynamics promoted in this context.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Themes list Member organizations, World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

River of Fire is a book for anyone interested in journeys of faith and spirituality, doubt and belief, and “catching on fire” to purpose and passion. It is a book, written in accessible, luminous prose, about how to live a spiritual life that is wide awake to the sufferings and creative opportunities of our world.

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

This article deals with one of the main arguments of defenders of the capital sentence: is the death penalty a source of relief for the victims?

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

Trial by Fire is the true-life Texas story of the unlikely bond between an imprisoned death row inmate (Jack O’Connell) and a mother of two from Houston (Laura Dern) who, though facing staggering odds, fights mightily for his freedom. Cameron Todd Willingham, a poor, uneducated heavy metal devotee with a violent streak and a criminal record, is convicted of arson-related triple homicide in 1992. During his 12 years on death row, Elizabeth Gilbert, an improbable ally, uncovers questionable methods and illogical conclusions in his case, and battles with the state to expose suppressed evidence that could save him.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Death Row Conditions, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

The book describes how thousands of Americans are convicted of crimes they never committed. Many of them end up on death row where inmates have been executed despite their innocence. ‘The Deprived’ is based on interviews with 10 Americans who have all been affected by wrongful convictions and the death penalty. The book also describes what leads to wrongful convictions in America and who’s most likely to be convicted of a crime they never committed.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence, World Coalition Against the Death Penalty,