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This series contains files associated with Michael Mellos research for his publications, his legal work, or his classroom work. The research files cover a range of topics including juveniles on death row, jury override, and the adequate representation for indigent inmates and represent legal materials, academic articles, newspaper articles, and correspondence regarding various cases and legal issues.

The Watt Espy subject files contain a variety of materials that supplement information in the other series without necessarily being directly related. Researchers will find background information on the history of capital punishment, death penalty statistics, and a few files on crime in general. There are folders devoted to crime and punishment in many individual states and territories, though not all of them are represented. The subject files also contain information on the various methods of execution employed across the country, mainly hanging, gassing, electrocution, and lethal injection. Additionally, there are death penalty-related topics such as physician participation, editorial pieces dealing with ethics of capital punishment, execution of prisoners with low IQs, background materials on the death penalty in early America, and a few assorted death penalty research projects that Espy followed. There are also assorted photos, many of which feature inmates and prisons. Images of identified and unidentified individuals executed are presumed to be the ones that filled the walls of Espy's house.