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Document(s)
Determinants of the Death Penalty: A Comparative Study of the World
By Carsten Anckar / Routledge, on 1 January 2004
2004
Book
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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,
Document(s)
Religion and the Death Penalty: A Call for Reckoning
By John D. Carlson / Erik C. Owens / Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company / Eric P. Elshtain / J. Budziszewski / E. J. Dionne / Avery Cardinal Dulles / Stanley Hauerwas / Frank Keating / Gilbert Meilaender / David Novak, on 1 January 2004
Book
More details See the document
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 ,
Document(s)
Officials’ Estimates of the Incidence of ‘Actual Innocence’ Convictions
By Angie Kiger / Brad Smith / Marvin Zalman / Justice Quarterly, on 1 January 2008
2008
Article
United States
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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,
Document(s)
Racial Disparity and Death Sentences in Ohio
By Marian R. Williams / Jefferson E. Holocomb / Journal of Criminal Justice, on 1 January 2001
2001
Article
United States
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The use of the death penalty has resulted in a number of studies attempting to determine if its application is consistent with the guidelines established by the United States Supreme Court. In particular, many studies have assessed whether there are racial disparities in the imposition of death sentences. This study examined the imposition of death sentences in Ohio, a state largely ignored by previous research and that, until 1999, had not executed an inmate since 1963. Drawing from previous studies that have examined the issue in other states, this study assessed the likelihood that a particular homicide would result in a death sentence, controlling for race of defendant and victim and other relevant factors. Results indicated both legal and extralegal factors (including race of victim) were significant predictors of a death sentence, supporting many previous studies that concluded that race plays a role in the imposition of the death penalty.
- Document type Article
- Countries list United States
- Themes list Networks,
Document(s)
Litigating in the Shadow of Death
By Lawrence C. Marshall / University of Pittsburgh Law Review, on 1 January 2006
2006
Article
United States
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One gets the strong sense that Professor White believed that the key to changing or abolishing the death penalty in the United States was to educate policymakers and the public about its practical operation. This, of course, was Justice Thurgood Marshall’s hypothesis in Furman v. Georgia: that the widespread support that the death penalty enjoys in the country is a product of mass ignorance about how it is applied. Professor White did not simply posit the theory, he dedicated much of his life to the mission of educating the public about the inequities of the American death penalty. This final book does that in an extraordinarily effective way by combing together studies of illustrative cases, analysis of the lawyers’ roles and dilemmas, and cogent explanations of the state of the law.
- Document type Article
- Countries list United States
- Themes list Networks,
Document(s)
Predictors of Miscarriages of Justice in Capital Cases
By Talia Roitberg Harmon / Justice Quarterly, on 1 January 2001
2001
Article
United States
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Prior research on wrongful convictions in capital cases focused primarily on qualitative methods designed to provide in-depth descriptive analyses of these cases. In contrast, this study is a quantitative comparison between 76 documented cases from 1970 to 1998, in which prisoners were released from death row because of “doubts about their guilt,” and a matched group of inmates who were executed. Through the use of a logistic regression model, significant predictors of cases that result in a release from death row as opposed to an execution, are identified. The final section of this study focuses on policy implications that may decrease the risk of error in capital cases. Additional lines of research are suggested in an effort to increase understanding of miscarriages of justice in such cases.
- Document type Article
- Countries list United States
- Themes list Innocence,
Document(s)
Debating the death penalty: should America have capital punishment? : the experts on both sides make their case
By Hugo Adam Bedau / Stephen B. Bright / Joshua K. Marquis / Bryan Stevenson / Louis P. Pojman / Alex Kozinski / Paul G. Cassell / Oxford University Press / George Ryan, on 1 January 2004
2004
Book
United States
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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,
Document(s)
White Female Victims and Death Penalty Disparity Research
By Stephen Demuth / Marian R. Williams / Jefferson E. Holocomb / Justice Quarterly, on 1 January 2004
Article
United States
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Empirical studies of the death penalty continue to find that the race and gender of homicide victims are associated with the severity of legal responses in homicide cases even after controlling for legally relevant factors. A limitation of this research, however, is that victim race and gender are examined as distinct and independent factors in statistical models. In this study, we explore whether the independent examination of victim race and gender masks important differences in legal responses to homicides. In particular, we empirically test the hypothesis that defendants convicted of killing white females are significantly more likely to receive death sentences than killers of victims with other race-gender characteristics. Findings indicate that homicides with white female victims were more likely to result in death sentences than other victim race-gender dyads. We posit that this response may be unique and result in differential sentencing outcomes.
- Document type Article
- Countries list United States
- Themes list Discrimination,
Document(s)
STRENGTHENING THE DEFENCE IN DEATH PENALTY CASES IN THE PEOPLE´S REPUBLIC OF CHINA: Empirical Research into the Role of Defence Councils in Criminal Cases Eligible for the Death Penalty
By Hans Jörg Albrecht / Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law, on 1 January 2006
2006
Article
China
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This project examines the role of defence councils in Chinese criminal proceedings that can end up with the imposition of the death penalty. It aims to review the problems defence lawyers face in such proceedings, the defence strategies they apply and to examine whether the assignment of a defence lawyer makes a difference in the outcome of a criminal trial. Moreover, the project explores what can and should be done to empower defence councils to effectively represent suspects and accused in death penalty eligible cases.The objective of the study is to shed light on the problems experienced by criminal defence councils when defending capital crime cases and to generate information on how death penalty cases are processed through the Chinese system of justice as well as the determinants of the outcomes death penalty eligible criminal cases.
- Document type Article
- Countries list China
- Themes list Legal Representation,
Document(s)
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND ELITE POLITICS: DISSENSUS AND THE DEATH PENALTY IN AMERICA
By Judith Randle / Studies in Law, Politics and Society, on 1 January 2003
2003
Article
United States
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Drawing from televised debates over capital punishment on CNN’s Crossfire from February 2000 to June 2002, I argue that Teles’s (1998) theory of “dissensus politics” is useful in understanding the U.S.’s preservation of capital punishment as well as current divisions in death penalty sentiment within the U.S. I pose the retention of capital punishment as the product of rival elites who are unwilling to forsake capital punishment’s moral character (and often the political benefits it offers), and who consequently ignore an American public that appears to have reached a measured consensus of doubt about the death penalty.
- Document type Article
- Countries list United States
- Themes list Public opinion, Public debate,
Document(s)
New Claims about Executions and General Deterrence: Déjà Vu All Over Again?
By Richard Berk / Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, on 1 January 2005
2005
Article
United States
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A number of papers have recently appeared claiming to show that in the United States executions deter serious crime. There are many statistical problems with the data analyses reported. This paper addresses the problem of “influence,” which occurs when a very small and atypical fraction of the data dominate the statistical results.
- Document type Article
- Countries list United States
- Themes list Deterrence ,
Document(s)
Death Penalty in Korea: From Unofficial Moratorium to Abolition?
By Kuk Cho / Asian Journal of Comparative Law, on 1 January 2008
2008
Article
Democratic People's Republic of Korea
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This article provides an overview of the legal regime governing the death penalty and the on-going debate on the death penalty in Korea. It begins by briefly reviewing international treaties that call for the abolition of the death penalty, contrasting them with the retentionist trend in most Asian countries. It then reviews the major decisions of the Korean Supreme Court and the Korean Constitutional Court. It also discusses recent moves in the National Assembly and the National Human Rights Commission to abolish the death penalty. It suggests that the Korean death penalty debate has potentially significant implications for its retentionist Asian neighbours grappling with similar issues.
- Document type Article
- Countries list Democratic People's Republic of Korea
Document(s)
Chinese Executions: Visualising their Differences with European Supplices
By Bourgon J / European Journal of East Asian Studies, on 1 January 2003
2003
Article
China
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European executions obeyed a complex model that the author proposes to call ‘the supplice pattern’. The term supplice designates tortures and tormented executions, but it also includes their cultural background. The European way of executing used religious deeds, aesthetic devices and performing arts techniques which themselves called for artistic representations through paintings, theatre, etc. Moreover, Christian civilisation was unique in the belief that the spectacle of a painful execution had a redemptive effect on the criminals and the attendants as well. Chinese executions obeyed an entirely different conception. They were designed to show that punishment fitted the crime as provided in the penal code. All details were aimed to highlight and inculcate the meaning of the law, while signs of emotions, deeds, words, that could have interfered with the lesson in law were prohibited. In China, capital executions were not organized as a show nor subject to aesthetic representations, and they had no redemptive function. This matter-of-fact way of executing people caused Westerners deep uneasiness. The absence of religious background and staging devices was interpreted as a sign of barbarity and cruelty. What was stigmatised was not so much the facts that their failure to conform to the ‘supplice pattern’ that constituted for any Westerner the due process of capital executions.
- Document type Article
- Countries list China
- Themes list Networks,
Document(s)
Against the death penalty: international initiatives and implications
By Richard C. Dieter / Sangmin Bae / Seema Kandelia / William A. Schabas / Lilian Chenwi / Peter Hodgkinson / Roger Hood / Lina Gyllensten / Nicola Machean / Jane Marriott / Julian Killingley / Quincy Whitaker / Jon Yorke (ed) / Ashgate Publishing Limited / Rachael Stokes, on 1 January 2008
2008
Book
China
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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,
Document(s)
When the State No Longer Kills: International Human Rights Norms and Abolition of Capital Punishment
By Sangmin Bae / State University of New York Press, on 1 January 2007
2007
Book
Republic of Korea
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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 ,
Document(s)
The Waiver and Withdrawal of Death Penalty Appeals as “Extreme Communicative Acts”
By Avi Brisman / Western Criminology Review, on 1 January 2010
2010
Article
United States
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This paper explores the power struggle between the State and the condemned over the timing and conditions under which an inmate is executed. It begins with a discussion of current public opinion about the death penalty and the ways in which the death penalty has been resisted. Next, it describes capital defendants who elect execution over life imprisonment and considers some of the reasons proffered for waiver and withdrawal. This paper then contemplates whether some instances of “volunteering” should be regarded as “extreme communicative acts” (Wee 2004, 2007)—nonlinguistic communicative acts that are usually associated with protest, especially in the context of a lengthy political struggle (such as hunger strikes, self-immolation, and the chopping off of one’s fingers). In so doing, this paper weighs in on the larger questions of who ultimately controls the body of the condemned and what governmental opposition to waiver and withdrawal may reveal about the motives and rationale for the death penalty. This paper also furthers research on how the prison industrial complex is resisted and how State power more generally is negotiated.
- Document type Article
- Countries list United States
- Themes list Networks,
Document(s)
Ultimate Punishment: A Lawyer’s Reflections on Dealing with the Death Penalty
By Scott Turow / Picador, on 8 September 2020
2020
Book
United States
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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,
Document(s)
Legal Lynching: The Death Penalty and America’s Future
By Bruce Shapiro / Rev. Jesse L. Jackson / Anchor , on 8 September 2020
Book
United States
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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,
Document(s)
In the Shadow of Death: Restorative Justice and Death Row Families
By Elizabeth Beck / Oxford University Press / Sarah Britto / Arlene Andrews, on 1 January 2007
2007
Article
United States
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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,
Document(s)
Killing as Punishment: Reflections on the Death Penalty in America
By Hugo Adam Bedau / Northeastern, on 1 January 2004
2004
Book
United States
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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,
Document(s)
Of Crimes and Punishment
By Cesare Beccaria-Bonesana / Philip H. Nicklin, on 1 January 1764
1764
Book
enenfrzh-hantesMore details See the document
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
Document(s)
Death Penalty Cases: Leading U.S. Supreme Court Cases on Capital Punishment
By David McCord / Barry Latzer / Butterworth-Heinemann, on 1 January 2010
2010
Book
United States
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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,
Document(s)
America’s Death Penalty: Between Past and Present
By David Garland / Jonathan Simon / Douglas Hay / Michael Meranze / Randall McGowen / New York University (NYU) / Rebecca Mc Lennan, on 8 September 2020
2020
Book
United States
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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,
Document(s)
Mercy on Trial: What It Means to Stop an Execution
By Austin Sarat / Princeton University Press, on 1 January 2005
2005
Book
United States
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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,
Document(s)
The Death Penalty: An American History
By Stuart Banner / Harvard University Press, on 1 January 2003
2003
Book
United States
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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,
Document(s)
When the State Kills: Capital Punishment and the American Condition
By Austin Sarat / Princeton University Press, on 1 January 2001
2001
Book
United States
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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,
Document(s)
The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions
By Helen Prejean / Vintage , on 1 January 2005
2005
Book
United States
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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,
Document(s)
Murdering Myths: The Story Behind the Death Penalty
By Judith W. Kay / Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., on 1 January 2005
Book
United States
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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,
Document(s)
Death by Design: Capital Punishment As a Social Psychological System
By Craig Haney / Oxford University Press, on 1 January 2005
Book
United States
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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,
Document(s)
Capital Punishment: Strategies for Abolition
By William A. Schabas / Peter Hodgkinson / Cambridge University Press, on 1 January 2004
2004
Book
Georgia
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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,
Document(s)
The Abolition of the Death Penalty in International Law
By William A. Schabas / Cambridge University Press, on 1 January 2002
2002
Book
More details See the document
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,
Document(s)
Chinas Death Penalty: History, Law and Contemporary Practices
By Terance D. Miethe / Hong Lu / Routledge, on 1 January 2007
2007
Book
China
More details See the document
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,
Document(s)
Europe as an International Actor: Friends Do Not Let Friends Execute: The Council of Europe and the International Campaign to Abolish the Death Penalty
By Sangmin Bae / International Politics, on 1 January 2008
2008
Article
Ukraine
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This article investigates the way in which the Council of Europe enforced the norm against capital punishment in Europe. The Council of Europe, through both moral persuasion and centripetal pressure, compelled its member states to adopt the regionally promoted human rights standard. Ukraine, where the very last execution in Europe took place, accepted the norm after a number of years of resistance and in the face of public opposition to abolition. It was possible because of the adamant role of the Council of Europe in attempting to build a death penalty-free zone in Europe and Ukraine’s strategic will to be integrated within the European regional community.
- Document type Article
- Countries list Ukraine
- Themes list Trend Towards Abolition,
Document(s)
Capital Punishment at the United Nations: Recent Developments
By Ilias Bantekas / Peter Hodgkinson / Criminal Law Forum, on 1 January 2000
2000
Article
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The article discusses the difficulties and controversies surrounding the 1999 Draft Resolution on the Death Penalty to the United Nations General Assembly.
- Document type Article
- Themes list Networks,
Document(s)
Voices and video from death row- Ghezelhesar mass-executions
By Iran Human Rights (IHR), on 1 January 2015
2015
Multimedia content
Iran (Islamic Republic of)
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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,
Document(s)
Taking Capital Punishment Seriously
By Franklin E. Zimmering / David T. Johnson / Asian Journal of Criminology, on 1 January 2006
2006
Article
More details See the document
Although Asia is the most important region of the world when it comes to capital punishment, it is also one of the most understudied. This article identifies four research questions that deserve attention from students and scholars who believe taking capital punishment seriously requires studying Asia seriously too. What are the empirical contours of capital punishment in contemporary Asia? What are the histories of capital punishment in Asia? Can Western theories of capital punishment explain patterns and changes in Asia? And what is the future of capital punishment in Asia? If researchers take the trouble to explore these questions, the death penalty will not only become an interesting window into law and society in Asia, but Asia will prove to be an instructive window into the death penalty—the gravest real-life problem in the law.
- Document type Article
- Themes list Networks,
Document(s)
THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTS OF 2007 (and the first six months of 2008)
By HANDS OFF CAIN, on 1 January 2008
2008
NGO report
enMore details See the document
The U.N. Moratorium on Executions : On December 18, 2007, with 104 votes in favour, 54 votes against and 29 abstentions, the United Nations 62nd General Assembly (UNGA) adopted a Resolution that calls upon all States that still maintain the death penalty to “Establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.”
- Document type NGO report
- Themes list Statistics,
- Available languages Italian : SINTESI DEI FATTI PIÙ IMPORTANTI DEL 2007 (e dei primi sei mesi del 2008)
Document(s)
Criminological analysis on deterrent power of death penalty
By Yuanhuang Zhang / Frontiers of law in China, on 1 January 2009
2009
Article
China
zh-hantMore details See the document
Death penalty is the most effective deterrence to grave crimes, which has been the key basis for the State to retain death penalty. In fact, either in legislation or in execution, death penalty can not produce the special deterrent effect as expected. With respect to this issue, people tend to conduct normative exploration from the perspective of ordinary legal principles or the principle of human rights, which is more speculative than convincing. Correct interpretation based on the existing positive analysis and differentiation based on human nature which sifts the true from the false will not only help end the simple, repetitive and meaningless arguments regarding the basis for the existence of death penalty, but also help understand the rational nature of both the elimination and the preservation of death penalty, so as to define the basic direction towards which the State should make efforts in controlling death penalty in the context of promoting social civilization.
- Document type Article
- Countries list China
- Themes list Deterrence ,
- Available languages 犯罪学分析死刑威慑力量(注:英文名翻译)
Document(s)
Annual Report of the Death Penalty in Iran in 2010
By Iran Human Rights (IHR), on 1 January 2010
2010
NGO report
faMore details See the document
The annual report of the death penalty in 2010 shows a dramatic increase in the number of executions compared to the previous years. The number of annual executions in 2010 in Iran is probably the highest since the mass executions of political prisoners in the summer of 1988.
- Document type NGO report
- Available languages سازمان حقوق بشر ایران: گزارش سالانه اعدام در سال میلادی ۲۰۱۰
Document(s)
The most important facts in 2000
By HANDS OFF CAIN, on 1 January 2000
2000
NGO report
enMore details See the document
This is the fourth consecutive year that Hands off Cain is publishing its report on the death penalty. The events registered in 2000 reveal a positive trend towards abolition.As of 31/12/2000, there were 123 abolitionist countries of various types: 77 were fully abolitionist, 12 were abolitionist for ordinary crimes, 30 were de facto abolitionist (they haven´t carried out a death sentence in at least ten years), 2 were engaged in abolishing the death penalty as members of the Council of Europe, 2 had a legal moratoria on executions. Seventy three states retained the death penalty.
- Document type NGO report
- Themes list Statistics,
- Available languages Italian : Sintesi dei fatti più rilevanti del 2000
Document(s)
THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTS IN BRIEF 2004 (and up to September 15, 2005)
By HANDS OFF CAIN, on 1 January 2005
2005
NGO report
enfrMore details See the document
The worldwide situation to date: The worldwide trend towards abolition, underway for at least a decade, was again confirmed in 2004 and the first half of 2005. There are currently 138 countries that to different extents have decided to renounce the death penalty. Of these: 86 are totally abolitionist; 11 are abolitionist for ordinary crimes; 1 (Russia) is committed to abolishing the death penalty as a member of the Council of Europe and currently observing a moratorium on executions; 5 have a moratorium on executions in place and 35 are de facto abolitionist (i.e. no executions have taken place in those countries for at least ten years). Since the beginning of 2004, 3 countries have passed from retention to an extent of abolition, whereas 5 countries have advanced within the categories of the abolitionist group.
- Document type NGO report
- Themes list Statistics,
- Available languages Italian : SINTESI DEI FATTI PIU’ IMPORTANTI DEL 2004 (e dei primi mesi del 2005)LES FAITS LES PLUS IMPORTANTS DE 2004 (ET DES PREMIERS NEUF MOIS DE 2005)
Document(s)
THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTS OF 2005 (AND THE FIRST SIX MONTHS OF 2006)
By HANDS OFF CAIN, on 1 January 2006
2006
NGO report
enMore details See the document
The worldwide situation to date: The worldwide trend towards abolition, underway for at least a decade, was again confirmed in 2005 and the first half of 2006. There are currently 142 countries that to different extents have decided to renounce the death penalty. Of these: 90 are totally abolitionist; 10 are abolitionist for ordinary crimes; 1 (Russia) is committed to abolishing the death penalty as a member of the Council of Europe and currently observing a moratorium on executions; 5 have a moratorium on executions in place and 37 are de facto abolitionist (i.e. no executions have taken place in those countries for at least ten years).
- Document type NGO report
- Themes list Statistics,
- Available languages Italian : I FATTI PIù IMPORTANTI DEL 2005 (e dei primi sei mesi del 2006)
Document(s)
THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTS OF 2006 (and the first seven months of 2007)
By HANDS OFF CAIN, on 1 January 2007
2007
NGO report
enMore details See the document
The worldwide situation to date: The worldwide trend towards abolition, underway for at least a decade, was again confirmed in 2006 and the first six months of 2007. There are currently 146 countries and territories that to different extents have decided to renounce the death penalty. Of these, 93 are totally abolitionist, 9 are abolitionist for ordinary crimes, 1 (Russia) is committed to abolishing the death penalty as a member of the Council of Europe and currently observes a moratorium on executions, 4 have a moratorium on executions in place and 39 are de facto abolitionist (i.e. – no executions have taken place in the last ten years).
- Document type NGO report
- Themes list Statistics,
- Available languages Italian : SINTESI DEI FATTI PIU' IMPORTANTI DEL 2006 (e dei primi sette mesi del 2007)
Document(s)
THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTS OF 2008 (and the first six months of 2009)
By HANDS OFF CAIN, on 1 January 2009
2009
NGO report
enMore details See the document
The Worldwide Situation to Date: The worldwide trend towards abolition, underway for at least a decade, was again confirmed in 2008 and the first six months of 2009. There are currently 151 countries and territories that to different extents have decided to renounce the death penalty. Of these: 96 are totally abolitionist; 8 are abolitionist for ordinary crimes; 5 have a moratorium on executions in place and 42 are de facto abolitionist (i.e. countries that have not carried out any executions for at least 10 years or countries which have binding obligations not to use the death penalty).
- Document type NGO report
- Themes list Statistics,
- Available languages Italian : SINTESI DEI FATTI PIÙ IMPORTANTI DEL 2008 (e dei primi sei mesi del 2009)
Document(s)
THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTS OF 2009 (and the first six months of 2010)
By HANDS OFF CAIN, on 8 September 2020
2020
NGO report
enMore details See the document
THE SITUATION TODAY The worldwide trend towards abolition, underway for more than ten years, was again confirmed in 2009 and the first six months of 2010. There are currently 154 countries and territories that, to different extents, have decided to renounce the death penalty. Of these: 96 are totally abolitionist; 8 are abolitionist for ordinary crimes; 6 have a moratorium on executions in place and 44 are de facto abolitionist (i.e. countries that have not carried out any executions for at least 10 years or countries which have binding obligations not to use the death penalty).
- Document type NGO report
- Themes list Statistics,
- Available languages Italian : I FATTI PIÙ IMPORTANTI DEL 2009 (E DEI PRIMI SEI MESI DEL 2010)
Document(s)
The last executioner: memoirs of Thailand’s last prison executioner
By Chavoret Jaruboon / Nicola Pierce / kindle edition, on 8 September 2020
Book
Thailand
More details See the document
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,
Document(s)
HANDS OFF CAIN’S 2015 REPORT. The Most Important Facts of 2014 (And the First Six Months of 2015)
By HANDS OFF CAIN, on 8 September 2020
NGO report
More details See the document
The 2015 HANDS OFF CAIN’s Report analyses the current status of executions around the world, providing detailed regional overviews. The Report confirms the worldwide trend towards abolition, even though the death penalty is still applied for violent and non-violent crimes, as in the contexts of the “war on drugs” and the “war on terror”.
- Document type NGO report
- Themes list Trend Towards Abolition, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,
Member(s)
Association for the Right to Live
on 30 April 2020
The Association for the Right to Life (ARL) was founded in Iran by Emadeddin Baghi, a writer and long-time human rights activist. Baghi was sentenced to three years in prison after writing an article against the death penalty in 2000. After his release, he established two human rights associations: – the Society for the defense […]
2020
Iran (Islamic Republic of)
![](https://worldcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/0359385adcd8774fd3070f02520aa9d0_2.png)
Member(s)
Coalition nationale tunisienne contre la peine de mort
on 30 April 2020
The National Tunisian Coalition Against the Death Penalty (CTCPM) was founded in 2007 and legally recognized in 2012 after the fall of dictator Ben Ali. The CTCPM continues many generations of activist’ fight for the abolition of the death penalty since the mid-1970s. The CTCPM’s objectives are written down in its charter: – Achieving the abolition […]
Tunisia
![](https://worldcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/f8125cec62f7c667a96c4d5feafb6e90_2.jpg)
Member(s)
Iran Human Rights
on 30 April 2020
Iran Human Rights (IHR) is a non-profit politically independent NGO with a mission to build a strong civil society by empowering citizens, promoting and defending human rights as defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Abolition of the death penalty is one of the main objectives of IHR’s activities. With its broad network of […]
Iran (Islamic Republic of)
![](https://worldcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/4e36c8b5d1871fb6356f3d1835c8f029_2.jpg)
Member(s)
Hands Off Cain
on 30 April 2020
Hands Off Cain is a league of citizens and parliamentarians for the abolition of the death penalty worldwide. It was founded in Brussels in 1993. Hands Off Cain (HOC) is a non-profit organization and a constituent member of the Transnational Radical Party. The name “Hands Off Cain” is inspired by the Genesis. The first book […]
Italy
![](https://worldcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/5eb8aa5012375535dbad57ebd5dd5452_2.jpg)
Member(s)
Ordre des avocats du Barreau de Liège
on 30 April 2020
The Liège Bar Association (Ordre des avocats du Barreau de Liège) is the representative and disciplinary body for the lawyers registered with the Liège Bar. It promotes their profession and defends the rights of individuals. Some 880 lawyers are registered with the Liège Bar.
Belgium
Member(s)
Norden Directions
on 30 April 2020
Norden Directions is an Australian non-government organisation founded in 2009. It focuses on policy in relation to social justice and human rights issues both within Australia and overseas. It has contributed to the abolition of the death penalty internationally in public debate over the past decade. Its Director, Professor Peter Norden AO, is an experienced […]
Australia
![](https://worldcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/9712d7acacf191dc38954fbaab22806f_2.png)
Member(s)
The Sunny Center Foundation
on 30 April 2020
Ireland
![](https://worldcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/6a59d2087e4a09d42677bae373acea4b_2.gif)
Member(s)
Ordre des avocats de Genève
on 30 April 2020
The Geneva Bar association (Ordre des Avocats de Genève) represents lawyers before the authorities, other regional bar associations, foreign bar associations and the Swiss Lawyers’ Federation. At the same time, it looks after the strict application of ethical and deontological standards. The Geneva Bar association was a partner of the 4th World Congress Against the […]
Switzerland
![](https://worldcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/1c8e8d178e5ba585583499050081c695_2.png)
Member(s)
Ordre des avocats du Barreau de Versailles
on 30 April 2020
France
Member(s)
Observatoire burundais des prisons
on 30 April 2020
Burundi
![](https://worldcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/5294f0f6150d4aa6920ac380ae6a58dc_2.png)
Member(s)
Réseau Marocain Euromed des ONG
on 30 April 2020
Morocco
![](https://worldcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/4a20519a06e540a2374e2b633776b038_2.jpg)
Member(s)
International Academic Network for the Abolition of Capital Punishment (REPECAP)
on 30 April 2020
REPECAP was founded in 2009 with the aim of supporting preparations for the creation of the International Commission against the Death Penalty that was created a year later. We represent a non-governmental organization whose purpose is of academic nature for the dissemination of scientific knowledge impartially through its many nodes present at prestigious Universities around […]
Spain
![](https://worldcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/abb742c61a572407f59b7fc07dd2a103_2.gif)
Member(s)
Confédération générale du travail (CGT)
on 30 April 2020
The General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail – CGT) is based in France and is strong of 690,000 members. It is affiliated to the European Trade Union Confederation and the International Trade Union Confederation and is one of the confederated unions representing France. Through its analysis, proposals and action, it aims at developping […]
France
![](https://worldcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/26547b82497567c1f32c9f261ba7c985_2.png)
Member(s)
Kurdistan Human Rights Network
on 30 April 2020
Iran (Islamic Republic of)
![](https://worldcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/c69e11809a290048b9459b3caeb9c8e4_2.jpg)
Member(s)
ACAT Deutschland
on 30 April 2020
The objective of Aktion der Christen für die Abschaffung der Folter (ACAT Deutschland) is to fight against torture and the death penalty. They issue: urgent Appeals, petitions and caimpaign for raising awarness on human rights issues (schools, forums…).
Germany
Member(s)
Rescue Alternatives Liberia (RAL)
on 30 April 2020
Being the forerunner of prisoners’ rights and anti-torture and death penalty in Liberia, we have the vision that the Liberian society will adheres to: 1. The tenets of human rights, rule of law and democracy for all people; 2. Active citizens’ participation in national and local governance; and 3. Rehabilitation of survivals of torture, violence […]
Liberia
![](https://worldcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/a0df96a41a92791c2b202061a62d4554_2.jpg)
Member(s)
Ville de Dijon
on 30 April 2020
The City of Dijon, France, is a member of the World Coalition.
France
![](https://worldcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/835bad3e79168f1db173211548a54cec_2.gif)
Member(s)
Ordine Provinciale dei Medici-Chirurgi e degli Odontoiatri di Firenze
on 30 April 2020
The Provincial Order of Doctors, Surgeons and Dentists in Florence is a member of the World Coalition.
Italy
![](https://worldcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/a2e7f2626eeef1819fce6ce797984c9d_2.png)
Member(s)
Mouvement contre le Racisme et pour l’Amitié entre les Peuples (MRAP)
on 30 April 2020
The Movement Against Racism and for Friendship between Nations (MRAP) has its origins in the French Resistance: it emerged from the National Movement against Racism, founded secretly in 1941 to save Jewish children from deportation and to thwart the racist ideology of the Vichy regime. Since then the MRAP has taken action against other forms […]
France
![](https://worldcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/6fbe597393a062102b989747d950c3ba_2.jpg)
Member(s)
Lutte pour la Justice
on 30 April 2020
Le comité Lutte pour la Justice (LPJ) was created in 1996 by Odell Barnes, a death row prisoner in Texas who wanted to have his innocence recognised and the right to a new trial. His three French correspondents took on his cause the very same year. This informal committee aimed to provide moral support and, […]
France
Member(s)
Città di Venezia
on 30 April 2020
The city of Venice is globally renowned for its unique cultural heritage and location. Venice is strongly mobilised to improve the well-being of its inhabitants, by promoting a peaceful coexistence among its people and stimulating inter-religious and intercultural dialogue. In this way the city is following the example of tolerance set by the ancient “Serene […]
Italy
![](https://worldcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/288cd2567953f06e460a33951f55daaf_2.png)
Member(s)
We Believe in Second Chances
on 30 April 2020
We Believe in Second Chances was founded as a reaction to Yong Vui Kong’s condemnation to death, and are advocating for the abolishment of the death penalty in Singapore.
Singapore
Document(s)
The Death Penalty for Drug Offences: Global Overview 2015
By Rick Lines / Harm Reduction International, on 1 January 2015
2015
NGO report
More details See the document
In this new fourth edition of HRI’s ‘Global Overview’ series, HRI updates its previous research on the death penalty for drugs worldwide, and it considers critical developments on the issue. While the report notes that there still are a troubling number of governments with capital drug laws, in practice very few states execute people for drugs. The number of people killed for drug-related offences is high because China, Iran and Saudi Arabia are aggressive executioners. Those governments that kill for drugs are an extreme fringe of the international community.
- Document type NGO report
- Themes list Drug Offences,
Document(s)
The Deprived: Innocent On Death Row
By Steffen Hou / BookBaby, on 1 January 2019
2019
Book
United States
More details See the document
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,
Document(s)
Juan Melendez-6446
By YouTube / Comision de Derechos Civiles, on 1 January 2014
2014
Working with...
More details See the document
Juan Melendez-6446 portrays the story of a New York born Puerto Rican immigrant who was accused of murder in the state of Florida, a crime he did not commit. Juan Melendez was sentenced to death in a trial that only lasted 5 days. He was on death row for 17 years, 8 months and 1 day, until his exoneration on January 3, 2002.
- Document type Working with...
Document(s)
The Punishment
By Andres Segura, on 1 January 2018
2018
Multimedia content
United States
More details See the document
“The Punishment” is a short film that takes place in 1978 at a Texas State Penitentiary. The story follows inmate Randle Kohler’s last hours on Death Row leading up to his execution. The only human being he’s able to communicate with is the Prison Guard assigned to bring him his last meal. As their conversation develops we begin to see more and more layers of Kohler’s past and the events that led him to the prison cell.
- Document type Multimedia content
- Countries list United States
- Themes list Death Row Conditions, Electrocution, Death Penalty,
Document(s)
Capital Punishment, 2016 – Statistical Brief
By Bureau of Justice Statistics / Elizabeth Davis, on 8 September 2020
2020
NGO report
United States
More details See the document
Presents statistics on persons under sentence of death at year-end 2016, including summary trends in the population, admissions to and releases from death row, the number of persons executed, and an advance count of executions in 2017. Data are from BJS’s National Prisoner Statistics(NPS-8 series.Highlights:- At year-end 2016, a total of 32 states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) held 2,814 prisoners under sentence of death, which was 58 (2%) fewer than at year-end 2015.- California (26%), Florida (14%), and Texas (9%) held nearly half (49%) of the nation’s prisoners under sentence of death at year-end 2016; in 2016, Texas executed seven prisoners, Florida executed one, and California did not execute any prisoners.- In 2016, the number of prisoners under sentence of death decreased for the sixteenth consecutive year.- Twelve states received a total of 32 prisoners under sentence of death in 2016.- Five states executed a total of 20 prisoners in 2016, with Georgia (9) and Texas (7) accounting for 80% of executions.
- Document type NGO report
- Countries list United States
Document(s)
HRI makes two submissions on human rights and drug control to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
By World Coalition Against the Death Penalty / Harm Reduction International, on 1 January 2018
2018
NGO report
More details See the document
On May 18th HRI submitted information to the OHCHR, feeding into a report that the human rights body will present at the next session of the Human Rights Council, on the implementation of the 2016 UNGASS Outcome Document (entitled “joint commitment to effectively addressing and countering the world drug problem with regard to human rights”).The first contribution, submitted jointly with the World Coalition against the Death Penalty (WCADP), focuses on the death penalty for drug offences, building on our 2017 Global Overview. The second submission, dedicated to harm reduction as a core component of the right to health, analyses global trends related to the availability, accessibility and funding of harm reduction services, also highlighting the specific challenges faced by subjects in detention.
- Document type NGO report
- Themes list International law, Death Penalty,
Document(s)
Death Row – The Final Minutes
By Blink Publishing / Michelle Lyons, on 8 September 2020
2020
Book
United States
More details See the document
First as a reporter and then as a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Michelle was a frequent visitor to Huntsville’s Walls Unit, where she recorded and relayed the final moments of death row inmates’ lives before they were put to death by the state.Michelle was in the death chamber as some of the United States’ most notorious criminals, including serial killers, child murderers and rapists, spoke their last words on earth, while a cocktail of lethal drugs surged through their veins.
- Document type Book
- Countries list United States
- Themes list Right to life, Death Penalty,
Document(s)
3 questions to Ndume Olatushani, former death row prisoner
By Ensemble contre la peine de mort (ECPM), on 1 January 2018
2018
Academic report
United States
More details See the document
Ndume, 56 years old, spent 28 years in prison in the US, 20 of which on death row, for a crime he did not commit. Today, he is human rights activist, and fight with us for the abolition of the death penalty. He is also a very gifted painter.
- Document type Academic report
- Countries list United States
- Themes list Death Row Conditions, Death Penalty,
Document(s)
3 questions to Susan Kigula, former death row prisoner
By Ensemble contre la peine de mort (ECPM), on 1 January 2018
Working with...
More details See the document
Sentenced to death in Uganda for murder, Susan Kigula never stopped to claim her innocence. Creator of a death row inmates’ choir and law graduate from the University of London, she finally obtained her release after 15 years in prison. In Uganda, she became a real symbol of the fight against the death penalty. She continues the fight with us, and created the Susan Kigula African Child Foundation.
- Document type Working with...
- Themes list Death Row Conditions, Death Penalty,
Document(s)
3 questions to Arthur Judah, former death row prisoner
By Ensemble contre la peine de mort (ECPM), on 1 January 2018
Working with...
More details See the document
Sentenced to death in Nigeria for murder, Arthur Judah was finally released in 2000 after 16 years of incarceration. Today, he works as writer and painter, and fight with us for the abolition of the death penalty.
- Document type Working with...
- Themes list Death Row Conditions, Death Penalty,
Document(s)
Courting Death – The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment
By Carol S. Steiker / Jordan M. Steiker / Harvard University Press, on 8 September 2020
2020
Book
United States
More details See the document
While execution chambers remain active in several states in the United States, constitutional regulation has contributed to the death penalty’s new fragility. In the next decade or two, Carol Steiker and Jordan Steiker argue, the fate of the American death penalty is likely to be sealed by this failed judicial experiment. Courting Death illuminates both the promise and pitfalls of constitutional regulation of contentious social issues.
- Document type Book
- Countries list United States
- Themes list Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,
Document(s)
Myuran Sukumaran: Another Day in Paradise
By Myuran Sukumaran / Bendigo Art Gallery, on 1 January 2018
2018
Working with...
More details See the document
Another Day in Paradise is the first major exhibition by Myuran Sukumaran along with a series of newly commissioned artworks by leading Australian artists, Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, Megan Cope, Jagath Dheerasekara, Taloi Havini, Khaled Sabsabi, Matthew Sleeth.It presents the significant body of work produced while incarcerated in Bali’s Kerobokan Prison, Denpasar and during the final 72 hours of his life spent on Nusa Kambangan Island. For Myuran, painting was a means of communicating with the world and a redemptive practice.
- Document type Working with...
- Themes list Death Row Conditions, Death Row Phenomenon, Death Penalty,
Document(s)
Last Woman Hanged
By Caroline Overington / Harper Collins, on 1 January 2018
Book
More details See the document
In January 1889, Louisa Collins, a 41-year-old mother of ten children, became the first woman hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol and the last woman hanged in New South Wales. Louisa Collins was hanged at a time when women were in no sense equal under the law — except when it came to the gallows. They could not vote or stand for parliament — or sit on juries.
- Document type Book
- Themes list International law, Death Penalty,
Document(s)
This Mortal Boy
By Fiona Kidman / Penguin, on 1 January 2018
Book
New Zealand
More details See the document
A revealing novel based on real events and real people.Albert Black, known as the ‘jukebox killer’, was only twenty when he was convicted of murdering another young man in a fight at a milk bar in Auckland on 26 July 1955. His crime fuelled growing moral panic about teenagers, and he was to hang less than five months later, the second-to-last person to be executed in New Zealand.But what really happened? Was this a love crime, was it a sign of juvenile delinquency? Or was this dark episode in our recent history more about our society’s reaction to outsiders?Black’s final words, as the hangman covered his head, were, ‘I wish you all a merry Christmas, gentlemen, and a prosperous New Year.’ This is his story.
- Document type Book
- Countries list New Zealand
- Themes list Death Penalty,
Document(s)
GUILTY. THE FINAL 72 HOURS OF BALI-9’S MYURAN SUKUMARAN
By Madman Films / Matthew Sleeth / Maggie Miles / Matthew Bate, on 8 September 2020
2020
Multimedia content
Indonesia
More details See the document
The final 72-hours in the life of Myuran Sukumaran, the Bali-9 convicted criminal who became an accomplished artist while in Kerobokan prison under the tutorship of artist Ben Quilty. Myuran was executed by Indonesian firing squad on Nusakambangan Island, 29 April 2015 alongside fellow Australian Andrew Chan and six others. Dramatic and archival material takes us into the final three days of Myuran Sukumaran’s life, as he farewells his family and creates his final paintings.
- Document type Multimedia content
- Countries list Indonesia
- Themes list Foreign Nationals, Firing Squad,
Document(s)
Slavery and the Death Penalty
By Routledge / Bharat Malkani, on 1 January 2018
2018
Book
United States
More details See the document
It has long been acknowledged that the death penalty in the United States of America has been shaped by the country’s history of slavery and racial violence, but this book considers the lesser-explored relationship between the two practices’ respective abolitionist movements. The book explains how the historical and conceptual links between slavery and capital punishment have both helped and hindered efforts to end capital punishment. The comparative study also sheds light on the nature of such efforts, and offers lessons for how death penalty abolitionism should proceed in future. Using the history of slavery and abolition, it is argued that anti-death penalty efforts should be premised on the ideologies of the radical slavery abolitionists.
- Document type Book
- Countries list United States
- Themes list Trend Towards Abolition, Death Penalty,
Document(s)
Trial by fire
By Edward Zwick, on 1 January 2019
2019
Multimedia content
United States
More details See the document
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,
Document(s)
Surviving Execution: A Miscarriage of Justice and the Fight to End the Death Penalty
By Ian Woods / Atlantic Books, on 1 January 2018
2018
Book
United States
More details See the document
Imagine being condemned to death for murder, when even the prosecutors admit that you didn’t actually kill anyone. This is what happened to Richard Glossip.Despite being convicted on the word of the actual self-confessed killer, the state of Oklahoma is still intent on executing him.Ian Woods, a reporter for Sky News in the UK, came across the case, and has tirelessly campaigned ever since to bring the injustices Glossip has faced to the world’s attention.
- Document type Book
- Countries list United States
- Themes list Innocence, Death Penalty,
Document(s)
Does the death penalty give victims closure? Science says no
By Linda Lewis Griffith / San Luis Obispo Tribune, on 1 January 2019
2019
Article
United States
More details See the document
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,
Document(s)
River of Fire: My Spiritual Journey
By Helen Prejean / Random House, on 1 January 2019
Book
United States
More details See the document
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,
Document(s)
A Stolen Life: The Debra Milke Story
By Jana Bommersbach, on 1 January 2019
Book
United States
More details See the document
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,
Document(s)
Just Mercy
By Destin Daniel Cretton / Gil Netter / Asher Goldstein / Michael B. Jordan, on 1 January 2019
Multimedia content
United States
More details See the document
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,
Document(s)
Clemency
By Chinonye Chukwu, on 1 January 2019
Multimedia content
United States
More details See the document
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,
Document(s)
Failings of the Supreme Court, Human Sacrifice, Sentencing and the Death Penalty
By Anup Surendranath / Economic and Political Weekly, on 1 January 2020
2020
Article
India
More details See the document
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,
Document(s)
There Is No Evil
By YouTube / Mohammad Rasoulof, on 1 January 2020
Multimedia content
Iran (Islamic Republic of)
frMore details See the document
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
Document(s)
The Death Penalty for Drug Offences: Global Overview 2019
By Harm Reduction International / Giada Girelli, on 1 January 2020
NGO report
More details See the document
Harm Reduction International (HRI) has monitored the use of the death penalty for drug offences worldwide since our first ground-breaking publication on this issue in 2007. This report, our ninth on the subject, continues our work of providing regular updates on legislative, policy and practical developments related to the use of capital punishment for drug offences, a practice which is a clear violation of international law.
- Document type NGO report
- Themes list Drug Offences,
Document(s)
Darlie Lynn (song)
By YouTube / Indie Pirate Shop, on 1 January 2019
2019
Multimedia content
United States
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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,
Document(s)
My Life As a Death Row Executioner
By YouTube / Real Stories, on 1 January 2020
2020
Multimedia content
United States
More details See the document
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,
Document(s)
The Innocence Files
By Netflix, on 1 January 2020
Multimedia content
United States
frMore details See the document
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
Document(s)
Italian : I FATTI PIÙ IMPORTANTI DEL 2009 (E DEI PRIMI SEI MESI DEL 2010)
By HANDS OFF CAIN, on 8 September 2020
2020
NGO report
enMore details See the document
LA SITUAZIONE AD OGGI : L’evoluzione positiva verso l’abolizione della pena di morte in atto nel mondo da oltre dieci anni, si è confermata nel 2009 e anche nei primi sei mesi del 2010. I Paesi o i territori che hanno deciso di abolirla per legge o in pratica sono oggi 154. Di questi, i Paesi totalmente abolizionisti sono 96; gli abolizionisti per crimini ordinari sono 8; quelli che attuano una moratoria delle esecuzioni sono 6; i Paesi abolizionisti di fatto, che non eseguono sentenze capitali da oltre dieci anni o che si sono impegnati internazionalmente ad abolire la pena di morte, sono 44.
- Document type NGO report
- Themes list Statistics,
- Available languages THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTS OF 2009 (and the first six months of 2010)
Document(s)
Italian : SINTESI DEI FATTI PIÙ IMPORTANTI DEL 2008 (e dei primi sei mesi del 2009)
By HANDS OFF CAIN, on 8 September 2020
NGO report
enMore details See the document
La situazione ad oggi : L’evoluzione positiva verso l’abolizione della pena di morte in atto nel mondo da oltre dieci anni, si è confermata nel 2008 e anche nei primi sei mesi del 2009. I Paesi o i territori che hanno deciso di abolirla per legge o in pratica sono oggi 151. Di questi, i Paesi totalmente abolizionisti sono 96; gli abolizionisti per crimini ordinari sono 8; quelli che attuano una moratoria delle esecuzioni sono 5; i Paesi abolizionisti di fatto, che non eseguono sentenze capitali da oltre dieci anni o che si sono impegnati internazionalmente ad abolire la pena di morte, sono 42.
- Document type NGO report
- Themes list Statistics,
- Available languages THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTS OF 2008 (and the first six months of 2009)