The Capital Punishment Research Project, 1974-1999, Undated

This series features administrative records of Watt Espy’s efforts to chronicle every government-sanctioned execution in the United States as part of his Capital Punishment Research Project. Espy was the only full-time employee of this organization although he worked with paid graduate assistants while at the University of Alabama School of Law.

Through correspondence, this series recounts Espy’s work at the university, including the tribulations of his work on the National Science Foundation grant to produce a dataset of executions in the United States and relations with his academic partner on the grant. Espy writes often of his difficulties with the dataset, outlining errors committed by others during the data entry process, such as using the wrong code for type of execution, misspelling prisoner names, and typing in incorrect dates. There are numerous computer printouts of the dataset.

The series also contains Espy’s work from his home in Headland. There are his hard-copy and handwritten ledgers listing the executions he researched and their particulars. Files document administrative activities, including issuing invoices, paying bills, and submitting a copyright registration request. Date books from 1986-1990 and 1995 describe research requests, appointments, talks, meetings and telephone conversations.