Collections : [National Death Penalty Archive]

Series 1 contains documents relating to the internal procedures and finances of Murder Victims' Families for reconciliation. While there are a few documents that provide evidence of how the organization was set up, the majority of documents focus on hiring, day to day finances, and committee meetings. There are also materials related to strategic planning and the creation of by-laws and organizational procedure. Although the series contains materials from 1977 to 2005, the bulk of the material is from 1996 to 2004. Contained in this series are meeting agendas, meeting minutes, meeting summaries, correspondence, annual reports, ballots, evaluation forms, applications, newsletters, fliers, budgets, financial reports, manuals, by-laws, pamphlets, drafts, notes, reports, contracts, forms, resumes, proofs, floppy disks, and cassettes.

This series contains information on the daily, monthly, and yearly operational duties of the Southern Coalition on Jails and Prisons. There is a general correspondence file containing information about the day-to-day operations of the Coalition, a specific file dedicated to correspondence with the Law Offices of Woods and Woods, and material from the various boards of directors within the Coalition (including meeting minutes). There are also documents related to updates made to the Coalition's by-laws in the late 1980s.

This series contains two large bibliographies of Ernest van den Haag's writings. The first bibliography covers his works from 1950-1982. The second includes his writings up to 1998. These bibliographies organize his writings alphabetically by topic and each publication includes an assigned number. These numbers do not reflect a strict, but rather general chronological order (i.e. number one was published in 1968 while number two was published in 1954). The numbering system probably reflects the order in which the articles were begun. Some were published quickly while others took longer. This series also contains van den Haag's curriculum vitae from 1973-1998 as well as short biographies from 1973-1989.

This series consists of correspondence, meeting minutes of the Board of Directors (1977-1985) and the Executive Committee (1971-1973, 1984), and committee files created or gathered by the executive director, chairman, president, general secretary, and committee chairs of the Association. It also contains biographical information about prospective board members gathered by the Nominating Committee (1963-1967, 1969, 1971-1972, 1974-1982, 1984). Other documents in the series include meeting agendas, memoranda, grant proposals, reports, membership statistics, and records concerning bequests and endowments made to the Association. This material concerns prison conditions, children of offenders, sentencing policies, court rulings concerning prisoners' efforts to form labor unions, construction of new correctional facilities, and the operations of the Association itself. Letters from inmates concerning living conditions in various correctional facilities, transfers from one facility to another, health issues, allegations of abuse by corrections officers, and post-release work arrangements and drug-rehabilitation programs are scattered throughout the series. One of the letters (1985) directed to Correctional Association President Robert Gangi was written by Jean Harris, who became interested in the special problems of female inmates and their children during her imprisonment for murder. Note that the files created by the Institution's Visiting Committee are housed in Series 3, Prison Visits Files, circa 1915-1985, and files created by the Narcotics Committee are housed in Series 4, Narcotics Committee Files, 1949-1975.

Watt Espy kept a series of index cards, grouped mainly by state, that records information about executions on American soil (colonies, states, territories) since the 1600s. Some cards contain lots of information, including name, place of execution, method, and details of the crime. Other cards have very little information aside from the fact that someone was executed. Sometimes there is not even a name—just "two slaves" or "pirate". There are additional categories for federal, military, and indigenous executions. There are two different card sizes; for the 3x5 inch cards, each state, territory, or other main division is identified with a manila tab. Subdivisions are marked with blue, unlined cards and are intended to mirror the arrangement of materials in Series #2 as closely as possible.

This series contains a file for every execution or sentence of death given to a woman or a juvenile that was known to Victor L. Streib. Some of the case study files are simply photocopies of Watt Espy's research cards, especially in cases where Espy's research is the sum total information available that particular execution. Many of these cards are from before 1976, when the death penalty was re-instated in America. Due to improved record-keeping in the modern era, case files from recent years, especially ones that Streib advised in some capacity, may contain significantly more information than others. Information pertinent to these cases vary greatly by individual depending on the state, the era, as well as media coverage of the case. The research collection is up-to-date as of 2012, so any executions, pardons, or reversals that went forward since that date will remain in the series they were in at the time these papers were acquired by the archives.

This series contains articles pertaining to specific cases, arranged by state and then by last name of the case subject. The list includes the District of Columbia and is missing four states: Alaska, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming. California is the most represented, carrying more extensive materials in the cases of Robert Alton Harris, Michael Morales, and Darrell "Young Elk" Rich. Similarly, Texas contains more material for Juan Garza and Thomas Miller-El. Federal cases are filed under "Federal" and then arranged alphabetically from there with the section consisting mainly of death penalty surveys, material on Timothy McVeigh, and a few other federal cases. Various surveys that have been conducted on the death penalty are included along with the articles.

The communications series encompasses mailings, newsletters, and events that Mr. Bonowitz participated in.

This series contains the correspondence directed to Bill Pelke, as well as a small amount of correspondence from Bill Pelke. This includes correspondence from death row inmates and fellow activists. Correspondence from activist groups is included in the Activism series; however researchers should note that because of the nature of activist groups, one individual may be involved in many groups. In the event of one individual with correspondence from many groups the correspondence has been assembled together under the activists name.

This series contains materials related to the various trials of Joseph Spaziano and represents material created or used by Michael Mello in Joseph Spazianos defense or during the writing of Michael Mellos book The Wrong Man: A True Story of Innocence and the Death Row; included in this series are legal materials, correspondence, notes, and research materials.