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CARDINAL BERNARDIN’S LASTING INFLUENCE
On Ash Wednesday (2011), after weeks of thought and prayer, Governor Pat Quinn signed the bill that abolished Illinois’ death penalty. Through much of his career, Quinn had been a supporter of the death penalty, although he did have reservations. When he signed the bill, as reported in the New York Times, “he cited one influence by name: (the late) Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago.” The two had met when Quinn was state treasurer and they joined forces on an economic justice issue affecting low-income people. The article points out that Bernardin’s advocacy of a “consistent ethic of life,” sometimes referred to as a “seamless garment,” had a profound influence on the Governor. “The bedrock of Catholic social teaching is that each life is a gift, created in the image and likeness of God,” said the Rev. Alphonse P. Spilly, who was the cardinal’s assistant for a dozen years. “It wasn’t just a theological principle for him. It was the way he dealt with every person, even the person who parked his car.”
Illinois Abolishes the Death Penalty…
“Illinois finally has faced up to the ugly truth of the death penalty,” declared the Chicago Sun-Times in an editorial applauding Governor Pat Quinn’s decision on March 9 to sign a repeal bill passed by the legislature in January. Quinn said that signing the bill, which made Illinois the 16th state to ban capital punishment, “was the most difficult decision he had made as governor,” according to the New York Times. Fifteen men on death row had their sentences commuted to life without the possibility of parole. In addition, the law also dedicates funds to law enforcement and to services for victims’ families, two causes that abolitionists have long championed as better uses of public money. “Illinois’ experience of trying to fix the death penalty, and finding it can’t be done, sends a real message to other states that are also grappling with the same problems,” said Shari Silberstein, executive director of Equal Justice USA, a group that opposes capital punishment.
…Will Ohio be Next?
On March 14 State Representatives Ted Celeste and Nickie Antonio announced legislation – the Execute Justice Not People Bill – that would abolish the death penalty in Ohio, one of the states targeted by the Issue Team. "This is a day of enormous opportunity. Today begins a thoughtful discussion around how to build a fairer, more equitable, and more efficient justice system," said Kevin Werner, Executive Director of Ohioans to Stop Executions. The legislators and Werner were joined at a press conference by Melinda Dawson, whose mother was murdered and whose then-husband was wrongly convicted and spent eight years in prison before the real killer was identified. Dale Johnston and Derrick Jamison, two men who not only were wrongly convicted but who also were sentenced to death, also spoke in favor of the bill. Ohio has already executed two men this year and has seven more scheduled between now and October. There are 157 inmates on Ohio’s death row.
Ohio Bishops and Others Speak Out Against the Death Penalty
Is momentum for abolition building in Ohio? On February 4 the Catholic bishops in Ohio released a joint statement urging an end to the death penalty. They joined a growing number of public officials in Ohio who have called for abolition. State Supreme Court Justice Paul E. Pfeifer who, as a state senator in 1981 co-authored Ohio’s death penalty law, has become a vocal critic; he has urged Ohio’s new governor, John Kasich, to commute all death sentences to life without parole. In his 32 year career Terry Collins, a retired director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, observed 33 executions, always wondering if each one might be a wrongful death. Citing financial costs to the taxpayer, and emotional costs to victims’ families, he concludes that “My experience tells me that our justice system can be even more effective and fair without death rows.”
Baltimore Sun to Gov. O’Malley: Now is the Time to Work for Repeal
Maryland has been under a temporary moratorium first imposed by the state Court of Appeals in 2006. The court was troubled by the procedures the state had used to adopt its lethal injection protocol and efforts to respond to the objections have not yet been successful. Now, as a result of the November 2010 elections, there have been changes in the state Senate. According to a January 30, 2011 editorial in the Baltimore Sun, this means “the General Assembly may be more receptive than it has been in years past to ending executions in Maryland, not just limiting their application.” The paper urged Governor Martin O’Malley to take advantage of the opportunity and work for repeal. The editorial closed by saying “As an instrument of justice, (the death penalty) is a moral abomination that can never be rendered humane expect by ending it altogether.”
THE DEATH PENALTY IN 2010: YEAR END REPORT
Just before Christmas the Death Penalty Information Center released its 2010 Year End Report, stating that “The death penalty continued to be mired in conflict in 2010, as states grappled with an ongoing controversy over lethal injections, the high cost of capital punishment, and increasing public sentiment in favor of alternative sentences. Executions dropped by 12% compared with 2009, and by more than 50% since 1999. The number of new death sentences was about the same as in 2009, the lowest number in 34 years. In a recent national poll conducted by Lake Research Partners, 61% of U.S. voters chose various alternative sentences over the death penalty as the proper punishment for murder. Only 33% chose the death penalty. A plurality of voters (39%) selected life in prison without parole coupled with restitution by the defendant to the victim's family as the most appropriate penalty. The economy clearly was on the public's mind, as fully 65% in the same poll supported replacing the death penalty and using the money saved for crime prevention.” Responding to the Report, the New York Times editorialized that “We can only hope the country is closer to putting its shameful experiment in state-sponsored death behind it.”
Will California Execute an Innocent Man?
Kevin Cooper is scheduled to be executed by the state of California in 2011 for a 1983 quadruple murder – Doug and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year old daughter and an 11-year old houseguest. But there is a problem. Cooper may actually be innocent, wrongly convicted due to police misconduct. A survivor of the attack who changed his account, faulty handling of forensic evidence, strong suspects whom police ignored – these things and more have led a handful of federal judges to argue that Cooper deserves a rehearing. But the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has refused. Nicholas Kristof, writing in the New York Times, calls the case “an illuminating window into the pitfalls of capital punishment” and “a disgrace that threatens not only the life of one man, but the honor of our judicial system.”
Retired Justice Stevens – Still Speaking Out
In 1976, in one of his first votes on the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice John Paul Stevens voted to reinstate the death penalty. Thirty-two years later he wrote, while still on the bench, that he now believes the death penalty is unconstitutional. Now retired, he continues to speak out, most recently in a review of a new book by David Garland, Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition. The evolution of Stevens’ thought from 1976 to 2008 parallels his summary of Garland’s book: “capital punishment once served the ‘rationalized state purpose of governing crime’ but is now a ‘resource for political exchange and cultural consumption.’” In his review, Stevens takes the reader on a scholarly tour of death penalty legislation, politics, and court cases, observing that Garland’s analysis addresses the “morality, wisdom, (and) constitutionality of capital punishment.” As Bob Herbert wrote in The New York Times, “You can only hope that you will be as sharp and intellectually focused as former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens when you’re 90 years old.”
Did Texas Execute an Innocent Man?
Claude Jones was convicted of murder in 1990, with a hair sample as “critical evidence,” according to Barry Scheck. On November 11 – almost ten years after his December 2000 execution – a court-ordered DNA test revealed that the hair belonged to the victim, Allen Hilzendager. Scheck’s Innocence Project, along with the Texas Observer, had filed the lawsuit that led to the testing. There was very little other evidence, and a star prosecution witness says he was coerced to testify against Jones. Jones’ conviction may very well have been reversed had his request to use this particular test, not available at the time of the trial but in use before his execution, been granted.
Ohio: Timeout for Death?
In August 2010 the Columbus (OH) Dispatch analyzed the clemency case of Kevin Keith, scheduled to be executed by Ohio in September, in the context of Ohio’s death penalty system. The case had drawn national attention, with Keith making a strong claim for innocence. (His August 11 clemency hearing lasted twelve hours, a record for Ohio, one of the states targeted by the Issue Team.) The Death Penalty Information Center, summarized the Dispatch article:
Although the number of executions in Ohio in the past two years is second only to those in Texas, there is considerable support in Ohio for a review of the entire system. Two former prison directors, Reginald Wilkinson and Terry Collins, agree that death row cases should be reviewed to decide whether they are the “worst of the worst.” Wilkinson, who was director from 1991 to 2006 and witnessed many executions, would take it even further: "I'm of the opinion that we should eliminate capital punishment," he said. "Having been involved with justice agencies around the world, it's been somewhat embarrassing, quite frankly, that nations just as so-called civilized as ours think we're barbaric because we still have capital punishment."
Texas: An Execution Based on Flawed Science?
The entire death penalty system in Texas (one of the states targeted by the Issue Team) has been called into question by an editorial in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Recently the Texas Forensic Science Commission made a preliminary finding that Cameron Willingham, executed in 2004 for setting a fire that killed his three daughters, may have been wrongly executed because it appears the fire was accidental. The editors are concerned that other convictions may have been obtained with faulty science: “If Texas used flawed science to convict criminal defendants of arson, why wouldn't it be imperative to re-examine the evidence to make sure that previous findings are accurate and to avoid recurrences?”
California’s Unofficial Moratorium to Continue
California, one of the states targeted by the Issue Team, has been under a de facto moratorium on the use of the death penalty for several years. Based on recent developments, the moratorium will continue. In 2006 a federal judge halted executions and ordered the state government to improve the lethal injection process to eliminate chances inmates would suffer cruel and unusual punishment during executions. In response, according to the Silicon Valley Mercury News, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) constructed a new death chamber at San Quentin Prison, revamped its training process and crafted proposed regulations. Approval of the new protocol “was seen as a mere formality”…but the state agency charged with approving such regulations, citing conflicts with state law and ambiguities in the proposal, issued a scathing "decision of disapproval of regulatory action."
The American Civil Liberties Union, which is challenging California's death penalty in federal court, called on Governor Schwarzenegger to abolish the death sentence. "We believe the flaws are too fundamental and at some point we have to stop," said the ACLU's Natasha Minsker. "This really demonstrates that the CDCR has not really taken the process seriously."
Troy Davis Update – May 2010
In a case that has garnered much attention, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP) reports that an evidentiary hearing for Troy Anthony Davis has been scheduled for June 23 in federal court in Georgia. Davis has been on that state’s death row since 1991, following his conviction for the 1989 murder of off-duty Savannah (GA) police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. The NCADP, citing a news account, says that “this marks the first time that Davis' claims of innocence and wrongful conviction…will be presented in a courtroom.” Seven of the original nine prosecution witnesses have recanted their testimony; in addition, Davis’ attorneys report they have nine new witnesses. The June 23 hearing is the result of a U.S. Supreme Court order that the lower court take testimony to determine whether this new evidence "clearly establishes (Davis') innocence."
Racial and Geographic Disparities in Ohio Executions
The Death Penalty Information Center recently posted the following analysis of the death penalty in Ohio, one of the Issue Team’s targeted states: “Over the past two years, Ohio has executed more inmates than any other state except Texas. Since resuming executions in 1999, Ohio has executed 38 people, more than any other state outside of the South in that time period. As in the South, race appears to play a significant role in who receives the death penalty. In the Ohio cases resulting in an execution, 75% of the victims in the underlying murder were white. Generally, in Ohio about 65% of murder victims are black (Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services-2005), but those cases are not resulting in a similar percentage of executions. Of the 57 victims in cases resulting in an execution, only 11 (19%) were black. Moreover, none of the 38 executions in Ohio involved a white defendant who killed a black victim. On the other hand, at least 7 black defendants have been executed for murdering a white victim. Geography also appears to play a key role in the death penalty in Ohio. Almost half (45%) of Ohio's executions have been from just 3 of the state's 88 counties: Hamilton (including Cincinnati), Cuyahoga (Cleveland), and Summit (Akron). These 3 counties comprise only about 23.4% of the state's population. (2006 U.S. Census estimate).”
Victims’ Social Status Plays a Role in Death Penalty Cases
Defendants are six times more likely to receive the death penalty when their victims are white, married, college-educated and without a criminal record than when their victims are black, single, with no college degree but with a prior criminal record. These are among the research findings of Scott Phillips, a sociology and criminology professor at the University of Denver, according to a recent news account. Phillips studied over 500 capital cases from Harris County, Texas (one of the states targeted by the Issue Team) between 1992 and 1999, a period when death sentences in the Houston area were reaching an historic high. In a related study, Phillips found that defendants with court-appointed counsel were more likely to receive the death penalty than those with private lawyers. According to Phillips, “legally irrelevant” factors are influencing the outcomes of these cases.
The Death Penalty in Texas: A Change of Heart?
“Something is afoot in America's most ‘law-and-order’ state,” wrote Jordan Smith in The Crime Report in early March. “The number of people sent to death row is declining.” In the late 1990’s as many as 48 people per year were being sentenced to death in Texas; in 2009 only nine new death sentences were handed down. As factors in the decline, she cites “concerns about wrongful convictions, the high cost of litigating death cases, and the availability of life in prison without parole, which has only been an option for Texas juries since late 2005.” She also points out that public opinion has changed, with (for example) capital punishment being supported by 59% of Houstonians in 2007, down from 79% in 1993.
Is the Tide Turning?
New Jersey abolished the death penalty in 2007; New Mexico did the same in 2009. So far in 2010 at least five more states are considering bills to abolish the death penalty: Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, South Dakota and Washington. In addition, New Hampshire has a legislative commission considering abolition. Other states, such as Indiana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas, are observing that prosecutors are seeking the death penalty less and less, with the trend being driven by concerns about the cost, the possibility of wrongful convictions, and the need for CSI-exposed juries to accept nothing less than stellar evidence in order to impose the death penalty. What is going on?
Consider Kansas, which became a state in 1861, joining the union as a free state near the outbreak of the Civil War. On January 29th, the anniversary of statehood, a state senator supporting abolition declared, “I'm reminded of what Kansas is, and what we stand for. We have values in this chamber, and as a state, that I hope we live up to."
Irretrievably Broken
“(T)he capital justice system in the United States is irretrievably broken.” That is how Adam Liptak, writing in The New York Times, translates some “dense lawyer talk” contained in a resolution recently adopted by the members of the American Law Institute (ALI). The ALI, considered the leading independent organization in the United States producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize, and otherwise improve the law, thus withdrew its support of the death penalty section of the Model Penal Code.
This is significant because the US Supreme Court, when it reinstated the death penalty in 1976, used the Model Penal Code as a basis. The Institute considered a number of factors in making this decision, including the “near impossibility” of removing racial bias, the excessive costs of the system, the very real possibility of wrongful executions, and the role that politics has come to play in judicial elections. However, as Liptak goes on to point out, the history of court decisions regarding the death penalty since it was reinstated makes it difficult to predict what the immediate or long-term consequences of the ALI’s action are.
Bipartisan Group Seeks Moratorium in Missouri
A bipartisan group of state legislators in Missouri – one of the states targeted by the Issue Team – introduced a bill last August seeking a study commission and a moratorium. The bill did not pass, but one of the co-sponsors said he will reintroduce the bill this year, according to an article in the Columbia Missourian. This news comes at a time when over 100 organizations, businesses and houses of worship in Columbia signed on to the Moratorium Now! campaign. To garner more support they are planning a “lobby day” on March 17 in Jefferson City.
New Report Shows States Can Save Hundreds of Millions
By Abolishing the Death Penalty
According to information from the Death Penalty Information Center, many states have been reexamining the death penalty and, in light of the current economy, this trend is expected to continue. In 2009, 11 state legislatures (Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Texas and Washington) considered abolition bills. New Mexico abolished the death penalty and Maryland narrowed its application with costs as an issue in both states. Both houses of the Connecticut legislature voted to end the death penalty and one house of the Montana and Colorado legislatures (where cost savings were to be allocated to solving cold cases) passed abolition bills.
Recently released results of a poll of 500 randomly selected police chiefs from across the country support these efforts. The police chiefs ranked the death penalty as the least efficient use of taxpayers' money. They rated expanded training and more equipment for police officers; hiring more police officers; community policing; more programs to control drug and alcohol abuse; and neighborhood watch programs as more efficient uses of taxpayers’ dollars. In addition, they ranked the death penalty last among their priorities for crime-fighting and they do not believe the death penalty deters murder.
Ohio and Texas – In the Spotlight
Events in Ohio and Texas, two of the states targeted by the Issue Team, have been making headlines recently. On September 15 in Ohio, the execution of Romell Broom had to be called off after the technicians tried for two hours – and failed – to keep an IV line open for delivery of the necessary drugs. This marks the third time since 2006 that Ohio has had trouble executing an inmate. In authorizing the postponement Governor Strickland immediately set a new date for just one week later, September 22; however, Broom’s attorneys filed an appeal and U.S. District Court Judge Gregory L. Frost has scheduled a hearing on November 30, 2009 to discuss the constitutional questions raised by a second attempt.
In Texas, a meeting of the Texas Forensic Science Commission was recently cancelled. What elevated this cancellation from sidebar to headline status was the reason for the cancellation and its timing. The Commission had been created in 2005 by the Texas Legislature to improve forensics in the state and to investigate specific cases, one of which was Cameron Todd Willingham’s, the subject of a recent – and much publicized – New Yorker article by David Grann. That article discussed a report prepared by Craig Beyler, a national arson expert hired by the Commission. Beyler concluded that the fire, in which Willingham’s three young children died, was accidental and NOT arson – in other words, that Texas had executed an innocent man.
Beyler was scheduled to discuss his findings at a public meeting of the Commission on October 2, but three days before that Governor Perry replaced the Chairman and two other members. The new Chairman immediately cancelled the meeting, spawning speculation about the Governor’s motives. Since Perry was governor at the time of Willingham’s execution, and had been given a report before the execution which challenged the forensic evidence, many people are outraged.
Notable reaction to Grann’s article included a statement by a conservative Republican and supporter of capital punishment that, in light of cases such as this, the death penalty should be repealed. And Diann Rust-Tierney, Executive Director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, citing Justice Antonin Scalia’s assertion that "[There has not been] a single case -- not one -- in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred in recent years, we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent's name would be shouted from the rooftops." has issued a call for death penalty opponents to – in effect – “Shout It From The Rooftops!”
Innocent, but Executed
“It was inevitable that some case in which a clearly innocent person had been put to death would come to light. It was far from inevitable that this case would be the one.” So writes Bob Herbert in the New York Times, describing his reaction to David Grann’s recent article in The New Yorker examining the case of Cameron Todd Willingham.
Willingham was executed in Texas in 2004 following a conviction for arson. The 1991 house fire killed his three small children. Lacking a motive but aided by a deeply flawed forensic analysis, the district attorney sought – and obtained – the death penalty. As Grann documents in the article, scientific evidence refuting the conclusion that the fire was arson was available before Willingham’s execution…but it was ignored.
Months after the execution, with doubts about the scientific evidence growing, Texas appointed a commission to examine allegations of misconduct in cases such as Willingham’s. The commission’s report has yet to be released. But reaction to Grann’s article has been quick, widespread and very eloquent. For example, The Houston Chronicle editorialized as follows: “At the time of his state-inflicted death, it appeared Willingham's fate was to be remembered as a monster who burned his children alive for no conceivable motive. With the release of a report by renowned arson expert Craig Beyler, commissioned by the Texas Forensic Science Commission, history may hold him in a very different light: the first person executed since capital punishment resumed in the United States in 1974 who was posthumously proven innocent.”
Troy Davis – Update -- August 2009
On August 17 the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a federal judge to consider Troy Davis' innocence claim. Time Magazine says that this decision raises lots of new questions.
Racial Bias and the Death Penalty
On August 11 North Carolina Governor Beverly Purdue signed the state's Racial Justice Act into law. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, “The law allows pre-trial defendants and death-row inmates to challenge racial bias in the death penalty system through the use of statistical studies. Prosecutors would then have the opportunity to rebut the claim that the statistical disparities indicate racial bias. If proven, a judge could overturn the death sentence or prevent prosecutors from seeking the death penalty.”
The long lead-up to passage and signing of the bill allowed critics to question the need for this law. David Baldus, Professor of Law at the University of Iowa, and George Woodworth, a fellow of the American Statistical Association, responded with an op-ed in The (Durham, NC) Herald-Sun. They wrote that "several studies, including one done at UNC-Chapel Hill several years ago, … found that a defendant's odds of getting the death penalty in North Carolina increased by 3.5 times if the victim is white."
Ohio is on a Record Pace of Executions
So far in 2009 Ohio has executed three inmates, all since June. Currently five more executions – one per month – are scheduled for the rest of the year. That would mean eight executions in seven months. The previous high was seven, covering all of 2004. And the pace is expected to be maintained in the opening months of 2010. This busy calendar of death is due to several factors, but the two primary reasons are 1.) inmates convicted over a decade ago are exhausting their appeals; and 2.) a temporary backlog was created when two separate Supreme Court cases led to a de facto moratorium.
But is this close scheduling good public policy? According to this article in The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, Ohio Public Defender Tim Young thinks not. "This should never become ordinary, it should never become run-of-the-mill, it should never be a normal happening like the turning of a calendar page," Young said. "There is an incredible amount of work that goes into one of these cases, and to ask people to do it faster than it is normally done is unacceptable," he said. "Shortcuts are going to happen."
“When Governments Kill”
Writing in Sojourners Magazine, Richard A. Viguerie (who has been called “one of the creators of the modern conservative movement” by The Nation magazine) says “because I am a follower of Jesus Christ, I oppose the death penalty….and because (of) my political philosophy…, I find it quite logical to oppose capital punishment.” To his consternation, he has drawn criticism from other conservatives for his position. He responds with a thoughtful argument, and joins “…in a coalition of liberals and conservatives calling for a national moratorium and conversation about the death penalty…” Click here to read his essay.
Death Penalty Leads to Miscarriage of Justice
The Death Penalty Information Center reports that “U.N. Special Investigator Philip Alston has submitted a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva criticizing the application of the death penalty in the U.S. Alston calls for the U.S. to enact more stringent safeguards to protect the innocent, saying the current application sometimes leads to miscarriages of justice. "It is widely acknowledged that innocent people have most likely been executed in the U.S," Alston said. "Yet, in Alabama and Texas, the 2 States that I visited, I found a shocking lack of urgency about the need to reform criminal-justice system flaws." Alston’s report encourages the U.S. Congress to enact legislation authorizing a review of state and federal death penalty cases.”
Is the death penalty worth what it costs us?
That provocative question might not be “news” when it is asked by a known opponent of the death penalty. However, when it is posed by a federal judge with thirty years on the bench it certainly merits attention. Judge Boyce Martin, Chief Justice of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, concurring in a capital case (Wiles v. Bagley) on April 14, wrote that the death penalty is “so fundamentally flawed at its very core that it is beyond repair.” He answers his own question by writing, “In my view, this broken system would not justify its costs even if it saved money, but those who do not agree may want to consider just how expensive the death penalty really is.” US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens recently called for 'a dispassionate, impartial comparison of the enormous costs that death penalty litigation imposes on society with the benefits that it produces.' Judge Martin echoed that call, adding that “Such an evaluation … is particularly appropriate at a time when public funds are scarce and our state and federal governments are having to re-evaluate their fiscal priorities."
Repeal bill passes Colorado House
On April 21 the Colorado House narrowly passed a bill to repeal the state’s use of the death penalty. According to the Denver Daily News the bill faces an uncertain future in the state Senate and, should it pass, on the Governor’s desk. Nevertheless opponents of capital punishment are heartened because similar legislation failed two years ago. The bill attempts to help close unsolved murder cases by shifting funds used to prosecute death penalty cases to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, currently facing over 1,400 unsolved murders across the state. Proponents believe the state would save close to $4 million by repealing the death penalty.
Maryland Commission Recommends Abolition
In November 2008 the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment voted to recommend the abolition of the state’s death penalty. The Commission cited racial and geographic disparities as well as the possibility that an innocent person might be executed in explaining its 13-7 vote. The Commission’s full report is due to be released by December 15. Observers are uncertain how the state legislature will react, but Governor Martin O’Malley has already said that he will sign repeal legislation if it reaches his desk.
According to WBAL-TV, Jane Henderson, executive director of Maryland Citizens Against State Executions, said the panel's findings strengthen arguments death penalty opponents have made for years. The panel found death penalty cases cost more and that there is "a real possibility" a mistake could cause an innocent person to be executed. "I think we now have a strong recommendation - that's factually based - that Maryland should ban the death penalty," Henderson said.
Newspapers in Two States Editorialize Against the Death Penalty
The Journal-Star in Lincoln, Nebraska and The Virginian-Pilot in Hampton Roads, Virginia have recently published editorials opposing their respective state’s use of the death penalty. Serious prosecutorial misconduct was the precipitating issue in Nebraska, while the seeming arbitrariness of the decision to pursue the death penalty as opposed to life without parole was what drew the response in Virginia. Due to the prevalence of human error in the system, The Journal-Star concluded "The death penalty should be abolished." And if life without parole is enough for the families of some victims then “It should be enough for the rest of us, too” wrote The Virginian-Pilot. Public discussion of these and other procedural problems can mobilize opposition and can recruit those who do not already oppose the death penalty on strictly moral grounds.
Former Warden Opposes Death Penalty
Jeanne Woodford, the former warden of San Quentin prison in California, has written an Op-Ed piece for the Los Angeles Times, "Death Row Realism, Do Executions Make Us Safer?" Her answer is “No.”
She writes that she “worked in corrections for 30 years, starting as a correctional officer and working my way up to warden at San Quentin and then on to the top job in the state -- director of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. During those years, I came to believe that the death penalty should be replaced with life without the possibility of parole.”
She reasons that “If we condemn the worst offenders … to permanent imprisonment, resources now spent on the death penalty could be used to investigate unsolved homicides, modernize crime labs and expand effective violence prevention programs, especially in at-risk communities. The money also could be used to intervene in the lives of children at risk and to invest in their education -- to stop future victimization.”
“To say that I have regrets about my involvement in the death penalty is to let myself off the hook too easily,” she concludes. “To take a life in order to prove how much we value another life does not strengthen our society. It is a public policy that devalues our very being and detracts crucial resources from programs that could truly make our communities safe.”
Murder Rate Declines in Every Region Except the South,
Where Executions Are Most Prevalent
In 2007 the South was the only region of the US that had a rise in its murder rate according to Crime in the U.S., 2007, released by the FBI on Sept. 15, 2008. Over the years the South has consistently had the highest murder rate when compared to the other three regions, the Northeast, the Midwest and the West. In response to the FBI report the Death Penalty Information Center observed that “The South also leads the country in executions: 100% of the executions carried out in 2008 have been in the South and 86% of those carried out in 2007 were in this region. By contrast, the Northeast has the lowest murder rate in the country and the fewest number of executions. The Northeast also experienced the sharpest decline in its murder rate among the four regions, while carrying out no executions in 2006-08.”
D.A. in Texas to Re-Examine Convictions and Possibly Halt Executions
When the current Dallas County, Texas, District Attorney took office he inherited nearly 40 death penalty convictions – cases awaiting execution – from his predecessor. Recent exonerations and problems with the prosecution in those cases has led Craig Watkins to announce that he will be reviewing all of those cases and that no execution will occur until he does. “I don’t want someone to be executed on my watch for something they didn’t do,” said Watkins to the Dallas Morning News. The newspaper added that Southern Methodist University Law Professor Fred Moss said he has never heard of another prosecutor in the country conducting such a review. “It’s really quite extraordinary,” said Moss.
Live Radio Show Covers Issues in Texas Executions
A unique public awareness and education tool has been launched in Texas. Starting at 6:00 pm Central Time on the days that an execution is scheduled in Texas, live coverage and commentary can be heard on the radio and streamed on the internet. Texas’ execution schedule and an archive of past shows are also available.
New Findings Regarding Racial Disparities
Over the years it has been well documented that defendants who kill whites are more likely to get the death penalty than defendants who kill blacks. So when Scott Phillips, a professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Denver, examined several years of court records in Harris County (Houston) in Texas and reached the same conclusion, Adam Liptak, writing in the New York Times (April 29, 2008) called that result “commonplace.” But Phillips, whose research will be published in The Houston Law Review later in 2008, also found what Liptak called a “surprising” result. In Phillips’ words, his findings “challenge conventional wisdom by suggesting that the race of the defendant and victim are both (emphasis added) pivotal…: death is more likely to be imposed against black defendants than white defendants, and death is more likely to be imposed on behalf of white victims than black victims.”
Another Prosecutor Speaks Out Against the Death Penalty
From the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty Web site: The ACLU of Northern California has unveiled a new YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-o_HWgatFM) taken from California's ongoing death penalty study commission hearings. The video tells the story of Aundre Herron, a former prosecutor who lost her older brother to murder in 1994. At first Herron wanted revenge; now she speaks out against the death penalty.
Number of Exonerations Reaches 128
The Death Penalty Information Center maintains a list of all those exonerated from Death Row since 1973. For inclusion, defendants must have been convicted, sentenced to death and subsequently either they were given an absolute pardon by the governor based on new evidence of innocence – OR – their conviction was overturned AND they were acquitted at re-trial or all charges were dropped. The average length of time between being sentenced to death and exoneration? 9.6 years!! To see the list please visit http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=6&did=110.
Maryland Considers the Cost of the Death Penalty
On March 6 the Urban Institute released a study revealing that the average cost to Maryland taxpayers for reaching a death sentence was $3 million, $1.9 million more than a non-death penalty case. The research, covering 162 murder cases between 1978 (when executions resumed in Maryland) and 1999, concluded that seeking the death penalty had cost $186 million more over those years than would have been spent seeking a lesser sentence. While the methods and conclusions were criticized by the top prosecutor in Baltimore County, the state’s busiest jurisdiction for capital cases, the study was praised by a researcher with the New York State Defenders’ Association for being the first of its kind to control statistically for confounding factors. In other words, "(t)he argument goes that ... death penalty cases might be worse or more heinous cases, so that even if they weren't death penalty cases, they still would be more expensive," said Andrew Davies. "But in this study, they've isolated the pure effect of the death penalty on inflating the cost of cases." (emphasis added) To read more visit http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.death06mar06,0,5961444.story or http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=2641&scid=64.
Maryland Senate Committee Hears From Murder Victims’ Families
The Judiciary Committee of the Maryland Senate is once again considering a bill that would repeal the death penalty. A similar measure failed – by one vote – to pass the Committee last year. This year, on the day that the Urban Institute study was released, the Committee heard testimony from some family members of murder victims. "My real life experience has taught me as long as the death penalty is still on the books, it would continue to harm families…There is no such thing as closure," said Kathy Garcia, whose nephew was murdered 20 years ago. To read more visit http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0801413.htm or http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=2649&scid=64 .
Religion and the Death Penalty
“Most Protestant churches and the Roman Catholic Church oppose capital punishment, though many of their members support it,” says a posting on the Death Penalty Information Center’s Web site, www.deathpenaltyinfo.org. In fact, according to a Pew Forum poll from 2007, the strongest supporters of the death penalty are white evangelicals, with 74% approval. This might help explain why overall support for the death penalty in the United States is at 62% according to that same poll. This also means that faith-based opponents of the death penalty have work to do in their own pews. A successful argument may be found in the results of “a January poll done by NationalChristianPoll.com (which found that) about two-thirds of active Christians who oppose capital punishment are troubled by mistakes in the legal system that could lead to the execution of innocent people.” (Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra in Christianity Today, February 19, 2008) Read her article and get insight from church leaders at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/march/6.20.html.
Will Nebraska Abolish the Death Penalty?
On Feb. 8, 2008, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that the electric chair was unconstitutional. Because Nebraska is the only state in which electrocution is the sole means of execution this means that – temporarily at least – Nebraska is without a death penalty. Two days later the Lincoln Journal Star editorialized that the Nebraska Legislature “should take this opportunity to finally get rid of the death penalty." "With the advent of more DNA testing, errors in sending people to death row were shown to be far more frequent than most people believed." Hence, the paper concluded, "the time is ripe to abolish capital punishment in the state.” The last execution to take place in Nebraska occurred in 1997.
(“Abolish the death penalty in Nebraska,” Lincoln Journal Star, February 10, 2008).
The Year of No Executions
2008 marks the 40th anniversary of 1968 – the 1st year in the history of the United States that not a single prisoner was executed. That got Vince Beiser, a California-based writer who often writes on criminal justice issues, thinking about what has happened since then. He observes that “just a few years later, the nation began an astonishing about-face. The Supreme Court reopened the door to capital punishment in 1976, launching an era in which the U.S. didn't just bring back the death penalty, it feverishly embraced it.” Find his essay, “Falling Out of Love with Death,” under Death Penalty Files.
Are death penalty juries fairly representative?
From the Web site of Catholics Against Capital Punishment http://www.cacp.org/whatsnew.html
In a nationwide public opinion poll of 1,000 U.S. adults, 47% of Catholic respondents said “yes” when asked if they believed they would be disqualified from serving on a jury in a death penalty case because of their moral beliefs. The percentages were even higher for two other subgroups of the population who were asked the same question - women (48%) and African Americans (68%).
“This points to a problem of skewed juries that do not represent the country’s diversity,” said Richard Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which commissioned the survey. "Jurors in capital cases," he explained, "must be interrogated about their positions on the death penalty. If they are opposed to it in all cases, they will not be permitted to serve. The resultant juries look different than society at large because they will have fewer minority members, fewer women, and none of those who represent one side on this divisive issue."
For more information, visit the Death Penalty Information Center's website at www.deathpenaltyinfo.org.
Supreme Court Case Attracts Much Interest
The Death Penalty Information Center reports that “several amicus curiae briefs have been filed in support of the inmates from Kentucky who are challenging the constitutionality of lethal injections as practiced in their state before the U.S. Supreme Court.”
The amicus (“friend of the court”) briefs have been submitted by law schools, policy institutes opposed tot the death penalty, professionals such as doctors, nurses and veterinarians – the latter argue that “Kentucky’s lethal injection protocol would not meet the minimum standards for the humane euthanization of animals” – and organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch.
The briefs filed by various amici, as well as the Petitioner's brief, are available here. (Source: Death Penalty Clinic, U.C. Berkeley School of Law, Nov. 13, 2007). Oral arguments in the case, Baze v. Rees, are scheduled for Jan. 7, 2008 with a ruling expected by June.
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Is there a de facto moratorium?
On October 30 the US Supreme Court granted a stay of execution to a Mississippi inmate nineteen minutes before he was scheduled to die by lethal injection. Does this decision signal a de facto moratorium on executions as many have suggested?
The question has been on observers’ minds since late September when the Justices agreed to hear a lethal injection case from Kentucky. In the intervening weeks lower courts had been struggling with requests from inmates to delay their executions pending the outcome of the Kentucky case, Baze v. Rees. Oral arguments in that case are scheduled for Jan. 7, 2008 with a decision likely by June, 2008.
As Linda Greenhouse wrote in the New York Times on October 31, discussing the Mississippi decision, “State and lower federal courts are likely to interpret the Supreme Court’s action as a signal that they should postpone executions in their jurisdictions. As a result, the justices will probably not have to consider any more last-minute applications from inmates while the de facto moratorium is in effect.”
Read her article and learn more about these cases under Death Penalty Files.
ABA seeks execution moratorium
After studying the death penalty systems in eight states over the last three years, The American Bar Association (ABA) “found so many inequities and shortfalls that the group is calling for a nationwide moratorium on executions” wrote the Chicago Tribune on October 30. The article points out that some have questioned the ABA’s neutrality. However, those critics have not directly addressed the substance of the ABA’s findings: racial inequities “in the imposition of the
death penalty, inadequate indigent defense programs, failures in crime laboratories and a lack of uniformity in implementing nationally recognized best practices in eyewitness identification procedures as well as the recording of interrogations of suspects.”
Read the Chicago Tribune article and learn more about this debate under Death Penalty Files. |
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American Bar Association Calls for Moratorium in Ohio
On September 24 the Ohio Death Penalty Assessment Team of the American Bar Association (ABA) called on Ohio Governor Ted Strickland to halt executions in Ohio. After 30 months of study the Team reported that Ohio fully meets only four of 93 standards the ABA developed to measure whether a state's death penalty system is thorough and just. At issue is whether the state does all it can to ensure justice is done before it takes a life, said Michael Grecko, past president of the ABA. Find a news account under Death Penalty Files.
Alberto Gonzales and the Death Penalty
Under new rules established by last year's USA PATRIOT Act revisions, America's chief prosecutor would be given the power to limit federal appeals based on inadequate counsel, reports the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. “But there is an obvious conflict of interest in giving Gonzales the power to determine whether a client has received inadequate counsel: He represents the prosecutors. And given how often death penalty verdicts are overturned on appeal due to inadequate counsel, given the fact that 205 prisoners have been exonerated on DNA evidence alone, it is difficult to see how this rule will not result in the execution of innocent defendants.” Learn more, including possible federal and state legislative remedies, under Death Penalty Files.
After Flawed Executions, States Resort to Secrecy
“In the wake of several botched executions around the nation, often performed by poorly trained workers, you might think that we would want to know more, not less, about the government employees charged with delivering death on behalf of the state,” wrote Adam Liptak in the New York Times (7/30/07). “But corrections officials say that executioners will face harassment or worse if their identities are revealed, and that it is getting hard to attract medically trained people to administer lethal injections, in part because codes of medical ethics prohibit participation in executions.” Find the article under Death Penalty Files.
Studies find Death Penalty Bias
Minnesota is one of 12 states without the death penalty. A writer for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder recently took “an in-depth look at why we as a nation continue to condone a form of punishment consistently applied so disproportionately by race and class.” The article was sub-titled “Is it time for a national moratorium?” Find the article under Death Penalty Files.
Supreme Court Blocks Execution of Mentally Ill Killer
In one of its final decisions of the 2006-07 term, the United States Supreme Court overturned the death sentence of a delusional murderer who insisted that he was being punished for preaching the Gospel. The justices ruled that the defendant had not been shown to have sufficient understanding of why he was to be put to death for gunning down his wife’s parents in 1992 and referred the case back to a federal district court to re-evaluate the defendant’s claims of insanity. While declining to lay out a new standard for competency in capital cases, it did find that existing protections had not been afforded. Read more about this case under “Death Penalty Files.”
US juries are increasingly reluctant to deliver death sentences
According to the International Herald Tribune: “In the mid-1990s, juries sentenced about 315 people to death every year. The number has been dropping ever since, and last year the number of death sentences barely broke 100. Those numbers say something profound about public attitudes toward capital punishment - not in the abstract but in the concrete circumstances of particular cases.” Read more under Death Penalty Files.
California’s Governor halts work on new death chamber
On April 20 Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger halted construction of a new death chamber at San Quentin State Prison. California is one of the five states currently targeted by the Issue Team. With 660 inmates, its death row is the largest in the U.S.
The halt has to do with requirements for the legislature’s approval and is expected to delay the project by several months. The Los Angeles Times called this “the latest setback for California's beleaguered capital punishment program” which has been at a standstill for 15 months after a federal judge halted the execution of Michael Morales. Read more under Death Penalty Files.
DNA clears 200th person
In April a man who spent nearly 25 years in prison for a rape he did not commit became the 200th person exonerated by DNA evidence. Collectively, the 200 wrongfully convicted people had served more than 2,400 years in prison. According to the Innocence Project, the pace of exonerations has quickened: the 100th exoneration occurred in January 2002, 13 years after the first exoneration; it took just more than five years for the number to double. Read more under Death Penalty Files.
Chicago Tribune: Abolish the death penalty
In 1976 the Chicago Tribune editorial page said, "The danger of executing an innocent person is often cited [as an argument against the death penalty], but we think unjustifiably." On March 25, 2007, the paper reversed its position, saying “That last sentence sounds chilling today, in light of evidence in recent years of scores of cases in which government has wrongfully convicted defendants and sentenced them to death. The evidence of recent years argues that it is necessary to curb the government's power. It is time to abolish the death penalty.” Read and/or download the editorial under Death Penalty Files.
Executions halted as doctors balk
”After 897 executions by lethal injection over the past 25 years, the role of doctors in carrying out the death penalty is surfacing as the latest ethical issue to force a re-examination of capital punishment in the United States,” writes Pauline Vu in Stateline.org. “A conflict between medical ethics and court orders that a doctor participate in lethal injections has halted executions in California, Missouri and North Carolina. But the ethical issue raised by doctors in the death chamber lurks beneath the surface in most of the 37 capital-punishment states that sanction chemical execution, a mode of death also facing separate constitutional challenges over whether it unduly inflicts pain on prisoners.” Read more, and download the article, under Death Penalty Files.
Present – and Former – Governors of Maryland Oppose the Death Penalty; Murphy Initiative for Justice and Peace Also Active in Maryland Debate
In an eloquent Op-Ed piece in the Washington Post (Feb. 21, 2007), Gov. Martin O’Malley asks two basic questions:
Is the death penalty a just punishment for murder?
Is the death penalty an effective deterrent to murder?
He is writing as part of the debate surrounding whether Maryland's criminal death penalty should be replaced with life without parole. He concludes that “…absent a deterrent value, the damage done to the concept of human dignity by our conscious communal use of the death penalty is greater than the benefit of even a justly drawn retribution.”
Former Governor Harry Hughes agrees and says “It's time to give up on this failed policy. My opinion is that executions demean us as a society.” Writing in a separate Washington Post Op-Ed (Feb. 18, 2007) he says “It's time for Maryland to take heed and end capital punishment here.”
An active participant in Maryland’s debate is the Murphy Initiative for Justice and Peace, a coalition of thirteen religious orders (including the Marianists) dedicated to becoming a common voice for justice and peace in the region. While staunchly opposed to the death penalty they point out that “(t)he mere substitution of ‘life without the possibility of parole’ for offenders convicted and sentenced to death, without carefully weighing and considering several critical implications, can and has created very problematic humanitarian conditions.”
Copies of both Op-Ed pieces, plus an update on the Murphy Initiative’s advocacy efforts (including links to further resources) are available under “Death Penalty Files.”
Is America ready to turn its back on the death penalty?
With the fewest executions in a decade, 53, and the fewest death sentences imposed since the restoration of capital punishment, 114, 2006 may well be seen as a turning point. In addition, 37 of the 38 states that retain the death penalty now have life without parole. As The Guardian says (Jan. 10, 2007), “Death penalty opponents say that such lifelong prison terms make it increasingly difficult to argue that the death penalty is the last defense against a convicted killer going free.” Read more from “America Turns its Back on the Death Penalty” by downloading “America and DP 1-07” under Death Penalty files.
Will the US oppose the UN’s move toward a moratorium?
According to The Irish Examiner (Jan. 23, 2007) Italy is leading an effort to establish a worldwide moratorium on the use of the death penalty. Ban Ki-moon, the new Secretary General of the UN, has already expressed his support, and the European Union is expected to follow suit. Member nations of the United Nations will be discussing the issue in the coming months. Read more by downloading “UN and DP 1-07” under Death Penalty files.
Executions on Hold in Ten States
List Includes Four Targeted by MSJC
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 2006 ended with most executions in ten states effectively on hold as aspects of their capital punishment laws are examined. Two states, Illinois and New Jersey, have a formal moratorium on all executions while the viability of the death penalty is considered. In eight other states, almost all executions are being stayed as the states grapple with the lethal injection issue. Those states are Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Ohio, and South Dakota. Note that four of the five states targeted by the Issue Team are on that list – California, Maryland, Missouri and Ohio. (The fifth state is Texas.) In addition, New York's death penalty law was declared unconstitutional in 2004 and New Hampshire has no one on death row, making executions unlikely in those places, as well. To learn more visit http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=2039&scid=64
Will New Jersey be First State to Abolish the Death Penalty?
2007 began with a New Jersey legislative commission recommending on January 2 that New Jersey abolish the death penalty. If the legislature concurs, the governor, a death penalty opponent, would undoubtedly agree. New Jersey would then become the first state to abolish the death penalty among those that reinstated capital punishment following the Supreme Court decisions of the 1970’s. The report found “no compelling evidence” that capital punishment serves a legitimate purpose, and increasing evidence that it “is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency.” New Jersey is currently under a legislatively enacted moratorium.
“Based on our findings, the commission recommends that the death penalty in New Jersey be abolished and replaced with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, to be served in a maximum security facility,” the report said. “The commission also recommends that any cost savings resulting from the abolition of the death penalty be used for benefits and services for survivors of victims of homicide.” The Report is available under Death Penalty Files.
Sloppy lawyers failing clients on death row
“For 11 years, top Texas court largely ignored shoddy work as 273 people were executed.”
Thus reads the headline of one of the articles in a series recently published in the Austin American-Statesman. David Elliot of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty called it “…arguably the most important death-penalty related journalism done in the United States this year.” According to legal blogger Andrew Cohen, “Either states like Texas will spend the time and money necessary to fix their problems or, ultimately, the Supreme Court will fix the problems for them.” You can read the whole series here. (Note: this takes a moment to download.)
Ohio’s New Governor and Attorney General Question the Death Penalty
One of the states targeted by the Issue Team elected a new governor and attorney general last month. Both have raised questions about how the death penalty is applied in Ohio According to a spokesman for Governor-elect Ted Strickland, he is "troubled that a number of people who spent significant periods of time on Death Row were exonerated after their innocence had been established." Read more about their views in an article from the Columbus Dispatch available under Death Penalty Files.
Federal Judges Express Doubts
Recently, the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and a Judge from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit have each spoken publicly about “doubts” and “concerns” regarding the death penalty and its application in the United States. Speaking to Furman University law students, William W. Wilkins, the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, expressed doubts about the value of the death penalty given its high costs and probable lack of deterrence. Judge Carolyn Dineen King of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the main speaker at the "Red Mass" on October 4 at the Catholic cathedral in Corpus Christi, Texas, spoke from her perspective as a judge and as a Catholic and raised strong concerns about the application of the death penalty in the U.S. More information on both of these speeches can be found at http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/
DNA Tests Prove Justice Has Failed
Since capital punishment was restored in the mid-1970's, according to an article on the Web site of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Northwestern University School of Law's Centre on Wrongful Convictions (CWC) has documented at least 38 executions carried out in the United States in spite of compelling evidence of innocence or serious doubt about guilt. A copy of the article is available under Death Penalty Files.
American Medical Association Urges Physicians
Not To Be Involved In Executions
William G. Plested, III, M.D., president of the American Medical Association, recently urged “all physicians to remain dedicated to (their) ethical obligations that prohibit involvement in capital punishment." He said that the AMA “is troubled by continuous refusal of many state courts and legislatures to acknowledge the ethical obligations of physicians, which strictly prohibit physician involvement in a legally authorized execution. The AMA's policy is clear and unambiguous - requiring physicians to participate in executions violates their oath to protect lives and erodes public confidence in the medical profession.” The full statement can be downloaded under Death Penalty Files.
Do healers have a place in the death chamber?
So asked the Dallas Morning News recently. In a thoughtful article looking at both sides of the question, they wrote, “Execution, which is hardly in the best interest of the patient, is not the practice of medicine, and doctors are sworn to save lives, not take them. With the latest court challenges to lethal injection - challenges that cite the possibility of significant pain for the immobilized prisoner - the criminal justice system might need medicine's help to keep the death penalty constitutional. Physicians could again find themselves at the nexus of two conflicting values: society's moral and legal obligation to execute without cruelty, and a doctor's sworn obligation to do no harm.” Download the entire article under Death Penalty Files.
Understanding the Criminal Justice System
Those opposed to the death penalty can always benefit by seeking a better understanding of the entire criminal justice system. A useful resource might be Achieving Justice: Freeing the Innocent, Convicting the Guilty, a 170-page report just released by the American Bar Association. It features recommendations and commentary on issues affecting those wrongfully convicted, such as false confessions, eyewitness identification procedures, use of forensic evidence, jailhouse informants, and compensation for the wrongfully convicted. Click here for more information.
“Medical” Procedure for Executions Being Challenged
In 2005 the British medical journal Lancet published an article saying lethal injection, employed by 37 U.S. states as presumably painless, may inflict unnecessary suffering because of a routine failure to use enough anesthesia, according to a study of autopsies of executed inmates.
Since then, the US Supreme Court agreed to stay two executions in Florida until it resolved the question of whether death row inmates can bring last-minute civil rights challenges that execution by lethal injection is cruel and unusual.
More recently, two anesthesiologists who had initially agreed to participate in a California execution changed their minds, saying it would violate their medical ethics. As a result, California has scheduled a full evidentiary hearing on its execution procedures in May.
Together, these actions mark a new wave in the efforts to turn the tide against the death penalty.
(Based on information from the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, http://www.ncadp.org.)
Majority of US Public Still Supports Death Penalty
An examination of recent Gallup surveys in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada found that Americans are more supportive of the death penalty than are either Britons or Canadians. An October 2005 poll of Americans measured support for the death penalty at 64%, a figure that was significantly higher than the 44% support measured in Canada and the 49% support found in Great Britain during December 2005 polls. Support for the death penalty recently declined in both Great Britain and Canada, but remained the same in the U.S. as in 2003. (Nevertheless, American support for the death penalty is equal to its lowest level in 27 years.) In all three nations, support for capital punishment was lowest among those who were 18-29 years old. (Gallup Poll press release, "Death Penalty Gets Less Support From Britons, Canadians Than Americans," February 20, 2006). (From the Death Penalty Information Center, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org.)
NEW JERSEY ARCHBISHOP HAILS PASSAGE
OF MORATORIUM BILL IN STATE
On January 12, outgoing New Jersey Governor Richard J. Codey signed a bill that suspends the death penalty in New Jersey while a task force studies its fairness and costs. The bill had been passed by New Jersey’s Senate in December (30-6) and by the Assembly on January 9 (55-21).
Enactment drew praise from Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark, president of the state’s Catholic Conference.
“The state of New Jersey took a giant step in affirming what the bishops have long stated: that a developed and civil society should examine alternative processes for protecting its citizens and punishing effectively those who have committed grave wrongs,” Myers said.
"The focus of our criminal justice system," he continued, "should not be revenge or retribution, but rather protection of its people, healing the physical and mental wounds of crime victims and their families, and repentance and rehabilitation for those who have committed crime."
New Jersey is the first state to impose a moratorium by legislative action and gives hope to moratorium efforts in other states.
Scientific American Looks at Flaws in the Death Penalty
In January Philip Yam, News Editor of Scientific American Magazine, posted an item on the magazine's Web site about the death penalty. After reviewing the use of DNA evidence, some recent studies from psychology regarding the reliability of witness testimony, and some other information he concludes:
“Science has shown that our death penalty system is deeply flawed. Now the U.S. public needs to see those flaws.”
(Scientific American, Blog: Sciam Observations, posted Jan. 5, 2006 by Philip Yam).
DPIC’s 2005 Report: An Extraordinary Year of Death Penalty Change
Report Reveals Record Low Death Sentences, Legislative Action, and Supreme Court Restrictions
“The year 2005 may be remembered as the year that life without parole became an acceptable alternative to the death penalty in the U.S.,” said Richard Dieter, Death Penalty Information Center's Executive Director, in releasing the DPIC's 2005 Report. “Death sentences are down dramatically while the use of life without parole has increased. More states are adopting this alternative as death penalty problems persist.” The Report, and a Washington Post year-end editorial about the current status of the death penalty, are available under "Death Penalty Files."
Death sentences reached modern-day low in 2004
News from the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty: The number of people sentenced to death last year fell to the lowest level since the Supreme Court reinstated the penalty in 1976. There were 125 people sent to death row in 2004, down from 144 the previous year and the sixth consecutive annual decline, according to figures compiled by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. In 1998, 300 people received death sentences. To read about this trend, see the NCADP article under Death Penalty links.
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