Death Penalty Information Resources
There are several great resources from which to collect information pertaining to capital punishment and it's history in the United States and Alaska. A quick way to stay up to date is to View the AADP Newsletters. You can also Subscribe to the AADP Newsletter to have each newsletter sent to your email address automatically.
Below is a list of several sites that are also great resources for great up-to-date information regarding capital punishment.
National Criminal Justice Month
America Magazine Article of Interest
Death Penalty Information Center
Providing information about the application of the death penalty in the United States. This site has eye opening information regarding the death penalty in the U.S. Complete with a searchable Execution Database.National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP) was founded in 1976 in response to the Supreme Court decision in Gregg v. Georgia which permitted executions to resume in the United States. Our mission: abolish the death penalty in the U.S. and support efforts to abolish the death penalty world wide.
On June 12-15, political leaders and criminal justice experts from five continents gathered in Madrid, Spain, for the Fifth World Congress Against the Death Penalty. The World Congress was co-sponsored by Spain, France, Norway, and Switzerland, and included delegates from over 90 countries. The delegation from the United States included Jerry Givens, a former correctional officer in Virginia, who assisted with the execution of 62 inmates. Givens became an opponent of the death penalty after his experience of participating in executions. He said, “It was like a rollercoaster, up and down, because as a correctional officer I prepared inmates to return into society as a productive citizen and as an executioner you take lives.” The World Congress also included messages from Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu of South Africa, Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and other influential leaders from around the world.
On June 12, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) held that former death row inmate Jerry Hartfield has been held in prison for 33 years despite having no valid conviction. The court concluded: "The status of the judgment of conviction is that Petitioner is under no conviction or sentence." Hartfield, an illiterate man with an IQ of 51, had his capital conviction overturned by the same court in 1980 because his trial jury was improperly selected. The court ordered a new trial for Hartfield, but that trial was never held. In 1983, then-Governor Mark White attempted to commute Hartfield’s death sentence to life, but the CCA's recent ruling said the commutation was invalid because Hartfield had no conviction and hence, no sentence. He has remained in prison--not convicted of any crime--the entire time. The CCA's ruling was prompted by a request from the 
