-Caveat Lector-
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Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 10:00:34 +0000
From: ainews <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Subject: USA: Arbitrary, discriminatory, cruel,
futile -- 25 years of judicial killing
* News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty
International *
17 January 2002
AMR 51/007/2002
7/02
A quarter of a century of executions in the USA has offered no
constructive contribution to the country's efforts to combat
violent crime and has caused serious damage to its international
reputation, Amnesty International said today as it issued a new
report to mark the 25th anniversary of the resumption of
executions in the United States.
The report, "Arbitrary, discriminatory, and cruel: An
aide-mémoire to 25 years of judicial killing", recalls some 200
illustrative cases of the men and women put to death since Gary
Gilmore was shot by a Utah firing squad on the morning of 17
January 1977 -- the first execution after the US Supreme Court
lifted the moratorium it had imposed on the death penalty in
1972.
"The USA likes to see itself as a champion of human rights,"
Amnesty International said. "However, its relentless pursuit of
the death penalty in an increasingly abolitionist world starkly
gives the lie to that claim."
"In a period that has seen more than 60 countries legislate
against the death penalty, the USA has shot, gassed,
electrocuted, hanged or poisoned more than 750 prisoners, 600 of
them since 1990," the organization continued. "What is more, it
has frequently violated internationally-agreed safeguards in
getting the individual to the execution chamber.
"We urge US politicians to answer the question -- what measurable
benefit to society have these killings achieved?," stated Amnesty
International, whose report provides cases to illustrate the
cruelty, futility and brutalizing effect of capital punishment as
well as its rejection of the possibility of rehabilitation.
The report gives examples of the arbitrary way in which the death
penalty is applied in the USA, its politicized nature, and the
fact that this is a punishment that diverts attention and
resources from constructive responses to violent crime.
The report points to numerous cases of people put to death since
1977, including:
-- 18 prisoners executed, in violation of international law, for
crimes committed when they were children;
-- scores of individuals with mental retardation or histories of
mental illness;
-- dozens of African Americans convicted by all-white juries in
cases which show a pattern of prosecutors removing prospective
black jurors during jury selection;
-- more than 25 individuals whose guilt remained in doubt to the
end;
-- numerous defendants denied their right to adequate defence
representation, including those sentenced to death by juries
presented with little or none of the available mitigating
evidence;
-- 17 foreign nationals who were denied their right to consular
assistance after arrest.
"The USA should finally end its relationship with the
executioner," Amnesty International said. "The past 25 years of
judicial killing has provided ample evidence that no amount of
tinkering with the machinery of death can rid this cruel,
brutalizing and irrevocable punishment of its fundamental flaws."
"It is time for the USA to finally join the modern world by
abolishing the death penalty," the organization concluded.
Background
In 1972, the US Supreme Court overturned the country's capital
laws because of the arbitrary way in which death sentences were
being handed out. Four years later it gave the green light for
executions to resume after ruling that newly-enacted capital
statutes would cure the system of its capricious tendencies. The
execution of Gary Gilmore went ahead six months later after he
fought every attempt to stop it. He was the first of more than
90 prisoners who have dropped their appeals and "consented" to
their execution.
Racial and geographic bias remains widespread. Eighty per cent of
the more than 750 prisoners executed since 1977 were convicted of
killing whites, even though blacks and whites are the victims of
murder in almost equal numbers. Eighty per cent were executed in
the southern US states, a third in Texas alone. More than 60 were
prosecuted in a single Texas jurisdiction, Harris County.
The US capital justice system is error-prone. Since Gary Gilmore
was shot, more than 90 prisoners have been released from death
rows after evidence of their innocence emerged. Many had spent
years on death row and some had come close to execution. Factors
contributing to their wrongful convictions include inadequate
legal representation, prosecutorial misconduct and false
confessions given under duress.
Read the report:
http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/recent/AMR510032002?OpenDocument
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