Want to learn more about the death penalty? The following sites are excellent sources of information. Some of them provide ways to get involved in the campaign to end the death penalty in the USA and worldwide.
The Death Penalty Discourse Network (DPDN)
A network of organizations dedicated to deepening and broadening the discourse about the death penalty. Witness To Innocence is a part of the DPDN. Other members of the network include Sister Helen Prejean, the Dead Man Walking School Theatre Project and the Moratorium Campaign.
Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC)
The premier source of in-depth information on all aspects of the death penalty.
National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP)
The NCADP is a national organization exclusively devoted to abolishing capital punishment. It provides information, advocates for public policy, and mobilizes and supports individuals and institutions that share its unconditional rejection of capital punishment.
Amnesty International USA's Program to Abolish the Death Penalty
Amnesty International USA's Program to Abolish the Death Penalty seeks to end the cycle of violence created by a system riddled with economic and racial bias and tainted by human error. It provides the opportunity to have your voice heard in opposing executions here in the US and overseas.
Equal Justice USA is a national leader in the movement to halt executions. EJUSA works state by state to train and empower grassroots leaders to advocate for a more fair and humane criminal justice system.
Murder Victims Families for Human Rights (MVFHR)
One of the frequently-given justifications for the death penalty is that it provides the families of murder victims with “closure” or “justice”. So you may be surprised to learn that some of the most active – and certainly some of the most persuasive – voices raised against the death penalty are those very same family members.
MVFHR is an international, non-governmental organization of family members of victims of criminal murder, terrorist killings, state executions, extrajudicial assassinations, and “disappearances” working to oppose the death penalty from a human rights perspective.
Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (CUADP)
CUADP works to end the death penalty in the United States through aggressive campaigns of public education, and the promotion of tactical grassroots activism.
Innocence Projects:
Centurion Ministries is a secular, non-profit organization with a national network of attorneys and forensic experts who work on behalf of innocent people who have been convicted of crimes throughout the U.S. and Canada. It also assists its clients, once freed, with reintegration into society on a self-reliant basis.
The Cardozo School of Law Innocence Project
The Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York handles cases where post-conviction DNA testing of evidence can yield conclusive proof of innocence. Most of its clients are poor, forgotten, and have used up all of their legal avenues for relief. The hope they all have is that biological evidence from their cases still exists and can be subjected to DNA testing.
This innocence project, based at Michigan's Thomas M. Cooley Law School, was established to identify, provide legal assistance to, and secure the release of persons who are wrongfully imprisoned for crimes they did not commit.
The Georgia Innocence Project has three goals:
- To free the wrongly prosecuted through the use of DNA testing.
- To advance practices that minimize the chances that others will suffer the same fate.
- To educate the public that wrongful convictions are not isolated or rare events.
Based at California Western School of Law, the California Innocence Project has uncovered new evidence – including false eye-witness identifications and unreliable trial testimony in several cases – that led to the release of four California inmates in the past two years. The men served a combined 56 years in prison for crimes they did not commit. Founded in 1999, the Project reviews more than 1000 claims of innocence from California inmates each year.
The Law School also runs the Hawai'i Innocence Project, providing pro bono legal assistance to inmates in cases where there is evidence of actual innocence.
The Wisconsin Innocence Project, founded in 1998 by the University of Wisconsin Law School, provides legal assistance to inmates who have provable claims that they were wrongly convicted.