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This series comprises the bulk of Watt Espy's primary and secondary research and is therefore the largest in the collection. Initially, approximately half of these documentation of execution records were arranged in an organized fashion alphabetically by state, or by federal, military, tribal or international categories and then alphabetically by an individual's name. The others were not arranged in any discernable scheme with a significant amount of materials kept as unorganized loose documents in boxes. Espy marked some files as "not written up," but it was ultimately unclear how these differed from other records. After careful review, the archivists decided to combine all of the documentation of executions together, divided the records into five subseries for executions conducted by all 50 states and the District of Columbia, federal executions, military executions, indigenous executions, and international executions, and subsequently arranged and inter-filed all the loose materials.

This series contains various materials that Manley used for his research. It includes court transcripts and briefs, photocopies of manuscripts, reports, notes, news clippings, correspondence, publications, and photographs. Some of this material was used in the writing of Manley's book, The Treaty of Fort Stanwix, 1784. The majority of the material relates to Native American issues, which was an important focus in Manley's legal career. A good portion of this series does have some relationship to legal issues, but it was not included in the Legal Papers Series either because it was not directly related to legal cases or Manley was not directly involved in the relevant cases.

July 1995 article in Iowa Law Review a,d 1996 Larry Kramer book: Reforming the Civil Justice System

Series 1 contains materials Dr. Blanchard published while at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and the State University of New York at Albany as well as after his retirement. The topics covered by these publications include the history of science, water-to-air transfer, aerobiology, sea salt aerosols, volcanic electricity, and surface charge. There are also materials covering his studies of bubbles, water droplets, and rain. Along with his scientific publications, Dr. Blanchard also wrote letters to editors, comments and replies to articles, book reviews, obituaries, and autobiographical articles. Dr. Blanchard published materials from the early 1950s to the early 2000s but the majority of materials in are from 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

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.