Hugo A. Bedau (Ph.D., Harvard, 1961) was a commentator, scholar, and activist for the abolition of capital punishment. He was a prominent spokesperson in the abolitionist movement and well-known for his scholarship and writing concerning the death penalty and the challenge to separate logical arguments from moral arguments.

Bedau completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Redlands in 1949, did his graduate work at Boston University, and attained his doctorate in 1961 from Harvard University. [Who's Who in America. 62nd ed. 2008]. Before getting his doctorate, Bedau worked as an instructor and lecturer at Dartmouth College and Princeton University as his growing interest in death penalty issues led to an offer to serve on the Board of Directors of the American League to Abolish Capital Punishment. In 1961, Bedau completed the doctoral program and was soon hired as an Associate Professor at Reed College where he stayed from 1962-1966. During this time he published his first book, The Death Penalty in America: An Anthology (1962), that is currently in its 4th edition.

In 1966, Bedau was hired as Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University where spent the next thirty-three years as he helped found the Center for the Study of Decision Making. Among his scholarly work, Bedau is the author of the Courts, the Constitution and Capital Punishment (1977); Death is Different (1987); co-author, In Spite of Innocence (1992); editor, Civil Disobedience in Focus (1991); Current Issues and Enduring Questions (4th edition, 1996); co-editor, Capital Punishment in the United States (1976); and a contributor to many other volumes. He also wrote books about writing such as Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing (2nd edition, 1996). His Romanell - Phi Beta Kappa lectures delivered at Tufts in the spring of 1995, were published by Oxford University Press under the title, Making Moral Choices. In addition, he published hundreds of articles, essays, and commentaries on capital punishment.

In addition to his scholarship, Bedau was active in the capital punishment abolition movement for many decades. He was the chairman of the board for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP) and a board member for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Massachusetts, the American League to Abolish Capital Punishment and several other organizations. He was also a long time member of the Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty (MCADP) and an active member of such organizations as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Amnesty International, the American Philosophical Association, American Association of University Professors, and the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy. Bedau frequently testified before state and federal legislative committees as an expert on the issue of capital punishment and advocated for Death Row inmates, such as Harold "Wili" Otey who was executed in 1994 in Nebraska.

Bedau married his second wife Constance Elizabeth Putnam in 1990. In 1992, she co-authored In Spite of Innocence with Bedau and Michael Radelet. [Who's Who in America. 62nd ed. 2008]. Bedau had four children from his first marriage: Lauren, Mark Adam, Paul Hugo, and Guy Anthony, as well as four grandchildren. [Who's Who in America. 62nd ed. 2008 and Hugo Adam Bedau. Tufts Philosophy http://ase.tufts.edu/philosophy/people/bedau.shtml]. After retiring from Tufts in 1999, Bedau continued writing, speaking and working for the abolition of capital punishment.

On August 13, 2012 Hugo Bedau passed away at the age of 85.