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For more than three decades, Abraham J. Bonowitz has worked to educate the public about human rights problems, in particular the death penalty and the need for alternatives to the death penalty. During this time he served in numerous director, consultant, managerial, and activist roles with leading advocacy and death penalty abolitionist organizations.

This collection documents the seventeen-year period (1974-1991) concerning the Florida capital punishment case of Alvin Ford. The collection primarily contains the court records and research material of Ford's attorney, Laurin A. Wollan, Jr., as well as other members of the Ford defense team who began work on the case in 1981. The legal records include official court proceedings from the initial trial in 1974, appeals, attempts at clemency, and several cases by Ford against the Florida Department of Corrections. Other legal records include psychological reports, background reports, biographies of Ford, as well as his prison and medical records.

The Bill Babbitt Collection documents nearly ten years of legal efforts to spare Manny Babbitt's life from execution, and two decades of advocacy activities to try to abolish the death penalty.

Bill Pelke is a leader in the national death penalty abolition movement. This collection documents Bill Pelke's involvement with Journey of Hope...from Violence to Healing, Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation (MVFR), National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP), Amnesty International, and other organizations committed to ending capital punishment in the United States.

The Capital Defender Office (1995-2008) (CDO) was established as part of New York States 1995 death penalty legislation which took effect on September 1, 1995. Under the new law, the State expanded the crime of first degree murder and introduced two new penalties, death and life in prison without possibility of parole, for those convicted. Working from offices in Albany, New York City, and Rochester, the CDO sought to ensure that defendants being tried by the State, who could not afford representation, receive skilled counsel in capital cases. The CDO closed its Rochester office in 2005, and, as no state death penalty cases remain, the Albany and New York City offices in 2008. This collection consists of news clips (filed by subject), subject files, bound records of appeal in the cases of the People v. Cahill, Harris, LaValle, Mateo, McCoy, and Taylor, notebooks with appellate briefs, New York county court papers arranged by county, government studies, reports and debates on capital punishment, annual reports, and a small number of VHS tapes recording court proceedings. There are defendant case files, some with correspondence, court papers, and news clips and others with just news clips.

The Capital Jury Project (CJP) was started in 1991 under the direction of principal investigation, William J. Bowers. The project was funded by an NSF grant to conduct surveys of juror who participated in capital trials. There are three phases to the project.

An artificial collection of over 150 clemency petitions filed by inmates from across the United States for the lessening of their death sentence.

The Catholics Against Capital Punishment Records is a small collection that contains several articles, statements, and pamphlets making a case against the death penalty from a Catholic standpoint.

The Correctional Association of New York Records includes records from the Board of Directors, annual reports, prison visit files, Narcotics Committee files, program and bureau files, project files, subject files, and publications. The only records of the organization available from the nineteenth century are the annual reports, which have been microfilmed and are available in the University Library.

The David C. Baldus Papers document the distinguished legal research career of David C. Baldus, which includes the most sophisticated challenges to capital punishment in the United States since the reinstatement of the Death Penalty in 1976. Included is material from the Georgia Charging & Sentencing Study, which was used as evidence in the McCleskey v. Kemp (1987) decision. Similar studies involving capital sentencing in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the U.S. Military are also detailed, as is Baldus's formal reports to the supreme courts of a number of other states. Also present is material documenting Baldus's long career as the Joseph B. Tye Professor of Law at the University of Iowa Law School. This includes teaching material, presentations, publications, and material documenting faculty service.