The Capital Punishment Research Initiative



The University at Albany

Capital Punishment Research Initiative

School of Criminal Justice

University Libraries

are pleased to announce the addition of a special collection to the National Death Penalty Archive:

M. Watt Espy, Jr.

Executions in America

Sept. 26, 2008

5:00 p.m.

Standish Room

Science Library

University at Albany

Program

Welcoming Remarks:

George M. Philip, Interim President, University at Albany

Julie Horney, Dean, School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany

Brian Keough, Head of M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and

Archives, University at Albany Libraries

Speakers:

Charles Lanier, Director, University at Albany Capital Punishment Research

Initiative

New York State Assemblymember John J. McEneny, 104th Assembly District

Michael Radelet, Chair, Sociology Department, University of Colorado

William Bowers, Director, Capital Jury Project, University at Albany

Special thanks to Walter M. Francis for his generous support of the Capital Punishment Research Initiative in connection with this event.

The M. Watt Espy, Jr. collection, “Executions in America,” documents more than 15,000 executions in America, dating to 1608 and colonial Jamestown. The collection includes nearly 100 boxes containing research folders, newspaper and magazine articles, a wide variety of correspondence, photographic materials, speeches, and other records; handwritten ledgers with an alphabetical listing of executed individuals by state and by date from the 1600s through 1995; and more than 1,000 books. The materials represent a unique and invaluable contribution to the history of capital punishment in this country.

M. Watt Espy, Jr. resides in Headland, Alabama. Through decades of detailed and extensive labor, and by traveling countless thousands of miles throughout the country, he has compiled this richly valuable collection chronicling nearly four centuries of executions in America. He has been described as “America’s foremost death penalty historian.”

The Executions in America collection adds to the growing body of historical records about capital punishment within the University at Albany’s National Death Penalty Archive (NDPA). The NDPA was initiated by the School of Criminal Justice’s Capital Punishment Research Initiative (CPRI) working in collaboration with the University at Albany Libraries’ M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives. Other collections in the NDPA include the Capital Jury Project Collection; Capital Punishment Clemency Petitions; the Hugo Adam Bedau Papers; the Bill Babbitt Collection; the Alvin Ford Collection; the Rick Halperin Papers; the Michael A. Mello Papers; the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty Records; the Ernest van den Haag Papers; the David Von Drehle Papers; and more. Please see the NDPA web site, , for additional information.

The Capital Punishment Research Initiative was founded at the University at Albany School of Criminal Justice in the late 1990s with three primary goals: (1) to build and maintain a national archive for historical documents and data on the death penalty; (2) to plan and conduct basic and policy-related research on capital punishment; and (3) to encourage scholarship, conduct graduate and undergraduate training, and disseminate scientifically grounded knowledge about the ultimate penal sanction. CPRI Advisory Board members include David Baldus, Hugo Adam Bedau, William Bowers, Richard Dieter, Jeffrey Fagan, Eric Freedman, Michael Radelet, and Margaret Vandiver. Please see the CPRI web site, , for additional information.

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