Anti-Death Penalty Project aims to raise awareness of, combat capital punishment

Juliana Bird doesn't think the state should have the power the kill someone.

“It's hypocritical, it doesn't make sense, it's not a productive way of healing,” they said. “And, of course, there's the side of the fact that we can never be sure that someone did what the state is accusing them of doing.” 

Bird is the president of the Anti-Death Penalty Project — a student-led organization at UNC aiming to further the conversation surrounding the death penalty. 

The group engages with anti-death penalty advocacy in a variety of ways. Their efforts include inviting guest speakers to campus, volunteering with local grass-roots organizations — such as the North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty — and engaging in pro bono work for organizations like the Center for Death Penalty Litigation. 

This year, Bird said the ADPP will host a book drive for incarcerated individuals in partnership with the Prison Books Collective, along with starting a pen pal program in the spring that connects with individuals on death row. 

The book drive is planned to start within the next couple of weeks. The ADPP will also collect donations at the UNC School of Law that will ultimately be delivered to incarcerated individuals throughout North Carolina and Alabama. 

“Providing books to people who are incarcerated is important to our organization because it is something tangible that we can do to improve the lives of folks on the inside,” Bird said in an email statement.

Bird, who is from Massachusetts where there is no death penalty, said moving to North Carolina made them want to become involved in anti-death penalty advocacy. They said that in North Carolina, the death penalty is still a “very real part” of the lives of people who are incarcerated and their family members. 

As it stands today, the death penalty remains a part of the legal framework in 27 of the 50 states. 

Capital punishment has been a piece of American history for centuries — dating back to 1608. The use of the death penalty in the United States has fluctuated over time, with numbers peaking in the early 20th century. 

The methods used to inflict capital punishment, like lethal injections, raise concerns among many people, including those who are a part of the ADPP. Sam Scheipers, the treasurer of the organization, said lethal injection is “not a humane way” of execution. 

Other concerns related to the death penalty include issues of race, gender and socioeconomic status. 

“The biggest predictor of whether or not you’re going to be sentenced for the death penalty is whether you’re a Black man that kills a white woman, and there’s a lot of underlying, deeply rooted racism that comes along with that,” Scheipers said. 

He also said he initially became involved with the Anti-Death Penalty Project after taking Political Science 203: Race, Innocence, and the Decline of the Death Penalty with professor Frank Baumgartner.

Baumgartner’s class, as well as his research, examines the correlation between race and gender within death penalty convictions. 

“It just fits into a historical narrative about the need to protect the flower of southern womanhood from ravaging Black men,” Baumgartner said. “It’s ridiculous — and the idea that it is still so apparent in the statistical patterns today — I think should give us all pause.” 

Baumgartner also said concerns regarding the death penalty can be seen through the way it potentially normalizes “other very harsh punishments.” 

“People will take a plea bargain to accept a punishment that, in other countries, is considered a human rights abomination — that’s life without the possibility of parole,” he said. 

Bird said the ADPP will continue to challenge the use of capital punishment in North Carolina, as well as the nation at large. 

“Just because it’s not as much of a hot topic or something that’s talked about a lot, I think it’s really important it not get swept aside,” they said. “So, that’s the goal of this organization campus-wide.”

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