PULLMAN – The death penalty will be the topic of a talk 11 a.m.-noon Thursday, Feb. 24, in Smith CUE 518, part of the Coffee & Politics Series sponsored by WSU’s Foley Institute. Please RSVP to relgar@wsu.edu.
Since 1996 the number of death sentences in the U.S. has declined by approximately two-thirds, despite continuing popular support for capital punishment. This talk will focus on the “discovery of innocence” – the understanding that, as a government program, the death penalty is prone to mistakes and errors.
Speaker Frank R. Baumgartner is the Richard J. Richardson Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His most recent books include “Lobbying and Policy Change” (Chicago, 2009), “The Decline of the Death Penalty and the Discovery of Innocence” (Cambridge, 2008), and “Agendas and Instability in American Politics,” 2nd edition (Chicago, 2009).