Search

This collection is predominantly composed of Ernest van den Haag's publications from 1950-2000, including articles in published form, drafts, and related correspondence.

For over six decades, Eugene G. Wanger created or collected the materials about capital punishment that comprise the Eugene G. Wanger and Marilyn M. Wanger Death Penalty Collection. The collection includes a wide range of materials on the death penalty documenting its history, efforts to abolish or reinstate the practice, its psychological impact, compatibility on religious, moral or ethical grounds, and its operation.

The Henry Ehrmann Papers are focused on Ehrmann's scholarly career as a political scientist and a professor of law and his participation in the program of re-education of German prisoners-of-war in the 1940s. The material also documents Ehrmann's association with other universities and institutions in the United States and Europe. The correspondence from and to the former German prisoners-of-war who met Ehrmann during the reeducation program organized by the War Department include letters - in several cases written by the prisoners' family members as well - almost entirely dating from the period immediately subsequent to the POWs' release and their return to Germany. Therefore, they are a valuable source of information about the living conditions in occupied Germany, the country's political transformation, and the correspondents' adaptation to new circumstances. Letters in the general correspondence subseries are, for the most part, related to Ehrmann's contacts with his fellow scholars and with academic or political institutions. Also included are speeches, lectures, lecture notes, and newspaper articles, 1941–1984. Ehrmann was a professor of political science at the University of Colorado, the University of California at San Diego, and Dartmouth University, and worked on French politics, labor relations, and comparative government.

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.

The Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (ICADP) formed in 1976 as the Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty by Mary Alice Rankin and other activist groups and organizations to try to prevent passage of capital punishment legislation in Illinois. After the state adopted the death penalty in 1977, ICADP expanded its grassroots legislative, education, and communication activities to try to inform the public about flaws and injustices in the Illinois capital punishment system and promote humane alternatives to the death penalty.

The Leigh Bienen Papers include the records of the New Jersey Proportionality Review Project, the Illinois Capital Punishment Reform Study Commission, and the academic research papers of legal scholar Leigh Bienen. The New Jersey records contain material from New Jersey Public Defender Homicide Study directed by Bienen in the mid-1980s. The collection also includes the records from Bienen's involvement with the New Jersey Proportionality Review Project headed by Special Master David C. Baldus. Also present is material from Leigh Bienen's tenure on the Illinois Capital Punishment Reform Study Commission which resulted in the abolition of the death penalty in that state in 2011. Finally the collection contains Leigh Bienen's scholarly research material during her career teaching at both Princeton University and Northwestern University. Her research focused on proportionality review, the death penalty's monetary costs, and the role of prosecutor discretion.

This collection documents the death penalty abolitionist work of Marie McFadden Deans. A smaller amount of personal materials, such as Deans' poetry and writing, also is included.

The collection contains materials from three separate national criminal justice task forces all from the National Advisory Committee on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals.

The Robert Corliss Papers contain reports and other publications pertaining to criminal justice.

The files of the School of Criminal Justice consist primarily of records kept by Deans Richard Myren 1966-1976, and Donald Newman, 1977-84. They document the organization and formation of the School, particularly during the critical years of development (1963-1969).