Resources: Death Penalty

Web sites

Amnesty International Death Penalty campaign
Provides statistics, country reports, news updates, and action items.

Campaign to End the Death Penalty
Includes fact sheets, an event calendar, and a newsletter.

Catholics Against Capital Punishment
"Catholics Against Capital Punishment was founded in 1992 to promote greater awareness of Catholic Church teachings that characterize capital punishment as unnecessary, inappropriate and unacceptable in today's world."

Death Penalty Information Center
"The Death Penalty Information Center is a non-profit organization serving the media and the public with analysis and information on issues concerning capital punishment. The Center was founded in 1990 and prepares in-depth reports, issues press releases, conducts briefings for journalists, and serves as a resource to those working on this issue."

National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
"NCADP provides information, advocates for public policy, and mobilizes and supports individuals and institutions that share our unconditional rejection of capital punishment."

Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
"The Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (TCADP) is a grassroots Texas organization comprised of individuals and groups who work to end the death penalty in all cases, everywhere. We are an inclusive organization composed of human rights activists; death row prisoners and their families; crime victims and their families; persons working within the criminal justice system; persons opposed to capital punishment on religious and moral grounds; and other concerned citizens opposed to capital punishment."

Articles

The Other Side of the Death Penalty by George M. Anderson
"Through my association with an anti-death penalty group, Murder Victims for Human Rights, I have learned how much the family members of murder victims feel manipulated by prosecutors in capital cases. If the family members are against the death penalty, prosecutors often do not allow them to testify at the sentencing phase of a capital trial."

Innocence and the Death Penalty (editorial)
"Despite high-profile death sentences like Scott Peterson’s in California, public support for the death penalty is falling. The reasons lie partly in mounting evidence that innocent people have been condemned and—in some cases—put to death."

No to the Death Penalty by Dale S. Recinella
"As I begin my seventh year of cell-to-cell ministry on Florida’s death row, it is not surprising that I am frequently asked to speak to Catholic audiences on the realities of the American death penalty."

Death Penalty Debate by Claire Schaeffer-Duffy
"Just weeks before the scheduled execution of serial killer Michael Ross, Connecticut’s Catholic bishops urged the state’s more than 1 million Catholics to “make their voices heard” by calling for repeal of the death penalty."

Just Another Night on Texas' Death Row by Patricia Lefevere
"Just before 6 p.m. Friday, Jan. 21, Ken and Lois Robison stood less than a block from the death house where their son, Larry, 42, was just minutes away from being executed. The crowd of 100 or so persons gathered around them was larger than that which had turned out for David Hick’s execution the night before or Spencer Goodman’s on Jan. 18 or Earl Heiselbetz’s on Jan. 12."

From the Vatican

The Defence of Life in the Context of International Policies and Norms

Declaration of the Holy See to the First World Congress on the Death Penalty

Catechism of the Catholic Church (Para. 2266 and 2267)

Evangelium Vitae (Chap. 3, Para. 56)

Books

Death of the Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions by Helen Prejean
"Sister Helen Prejean traces the historical underpinnings of executions in this country, demonstrating that it is no accident that over 80 percent of executions in the past twenty-five years have been carried out in the former slave states. She also raises profound constitutional questions about an appeals system that decides most death cases on procedural grounds without ever examining their merits."

Also by Helen Prejean: Dead Man Walking

The Death Penalty on Trial: Crisis in American Justice by Bill Kurtis
"Kurtis, a true crime investigative television reporter, uses two murder cases in which innocent people were sent to death row to argue against the death penalty. He uncovers extensive evidence to support his allegations about the reasons people are wrongly condemned to death and makes a strong case for his own conversion from a death penalty supporter to an abolitionist."

Debating the Death Penalty ed. by Hugo A. Bedau and Paul G. Cassell
"This volume brings together seven experts -- judges, lawyers, prosecutors, and philosophers -- to debate the death penalty in a spirit of open inquiry and civil discussion. Here, as the contributors present their reasons for or against capital punishment, the multiple facets of the issue are revealed in clear and thought-provoking detail."

Religion and the Death Penalty: A Call for Reckoning ed. by Erik C. Owens, Eric P. Elshtain, and D. Carlson
"Gathers contributors from academia, government, and public life who represent a wide range of faiths to share their perspectives on the retention, reform, or abolition of capital punishment. Their ideas are collected under themes of faith traditions and the death penalty, theological reflections on the death penalty, and personal commitments and public responsibilities."

Miracle at Sing Sing: How One Man Transformed the Lives of America's Most Dangerous Prisoners by Ralph Blumenthal
"From the riotous days of Prohibition and the Jazz Age to the brutal awakening of Pearl Harbor, one man ruled the fate of America's most dangerous criminals. He was Lewis E. Lawes, warden of Sing Sing prison, the Big House up the river, who believed that no man was beyond redemption. Warden Lawes couldn't banish the electric chair (though he tried) but he knew that humanitarian care and good morale provided better security than the stoutest walls."