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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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