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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.

This collection contains project plans, designs, and recommendations. The materials discuss plans for cities and towns in New York's Capital Region as well as for the state overall.

This collection is made up of the inactive records of the Capitol Region Center for Arts in Education (CRCAIE).

This collection contains the business records and correspondence of a late 19th century Maine sea captain.

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.

The M. Watt Espy papers chronicle the extensive research efforts that led to the creation of the Capital Punishment Research Project and the database known as the Espy File. Espy spent three decades gathering and indexing documentation of legal executions in the United States. His papers contain both primary and secondary sources used to catalog thousands of instances of capital punishment in the United States and its territories since the 1600s. The collection includes material from corrections records, newspapers, county histories, legal proceedings, and books. In addition to the records pertaining specifically to the death penalty, there is also a selection of magazines collected by Espy that cover true crime stories as well as life in the American Old West.

Contains the records of the Career Education Institute, which was a professional development program that ran from 1974-1976 for secondary school teachers in the Capital District aimed at helping integrate career education into secondary school curricula. The collection consists of administrative correspondence, financial documents, and informational materials from the program.

This collection is made up of materials related to the changes that took place at the University At Albany in the mid-1980s across the uptown and downtown campuses. This included a reorganization of the library and integration of new digital systems.

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.

The Victor Streib Papers contain research materials and legal case files on the death penalty in the United States with a focus on how it has been applied to women and juveniles.

The NCADP collection is comprised mainly of case files. Files include newspaper clippings, publicity materials, and correspondence between the NCADP, inmates, lawyers, and family and friends. Some artwork, court transcripts, and death warrants are also present. Each folder represents a death penalty case that the organization was interested in or involved with.

Since 1976 the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty has been working to educate the public about the failings and inconsistencies of capital punishment in the United States. Founded after the Gregg v. Georgia Supreme Court decision in 1976, the NCADP has emerged as one of the more influential national anti-death penalty organizations. The collection contains the group's internal case files, administrative material, publications, petitions, photographic materials, video tapes, and audio cassettes.

Death row inmates over the age of 17

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.

Elisabeth Semel's papers primarily consist of articles published from the 1990s to early 2000s used by Semel in her research and work concerning the death penalty.