Equal Justice USA is a secular grassroots organization that works to end the death penalty and redirect criminal justice resources toward crime prevention at the community and state levels. The group has a staff member who does outreach to religious conservatives, especially evangelicals. Shari Silberstein is executive director.

Heather Beaudoin is a national organizer for Equal Justice USA, a grassroots organization that focuses on repealing the death penalty. She handles the organization’s outreach to conservative religious groups and has experience with evangelicals. She is based in Kalamazoo, Mich.

Catholic Mobilizing Network to End the Use of the Death Penalty advocates for elimination of the death penalty because it conflicts with Catholic teachings about the sanctity of life. The organization has offices in Washington, D.C., and at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Md. Karen Clifton is executive director.

Read a July 23, 2014, Los Angeles Times story about Arizona’s execution of Joseph Rudolph Wood III. Wood’s lawyers thought he was gasping for breath for more than 90 minutes, while others said he was snoring.

Richard Land, president of Southern Evangelical Seminary, argues in this Feb. 1, 2012, essay that capital punishment is biblically and morally justified.

Joseph Bottum is an author based in South Dakota and a former editor of the conservative-leaning interfaith journal First Things. Contact through Random House publicist Katie Moore.

Erik C. Owens is an associate professor of the practice in theology at Boston College, where he also directs the international studies program. He is the co-editor of three books, including Religion and the Death Penalty: A Call for Reckoning and Gambling: Mapping the American Moral Landscape.