It’s Oscar season.  And that’s great, because I like movies.  I’m not a buff or anything, which is why I wrote “movies” and not “film” or “cinema”.  But I enjoy a good flick.  As someone who campaigns for death penalty abolition, I’m especially interested this year because there is a death penalty film, Paradise Lost 3, nominated for Best Documentary.

Movies can be a powerful tool for raising awareness about an issue, or even inspiring people to take action.  In our death penalty abolition work, we have tried to promote movies we think will do that.

But what do we know?

That’s where you come in.  Please go to our Abolish the Death Penalty Facebook page and give us your pick for the best death penalty movie of all time (definition: a movie about capital punishment, or featuring it in some significant way).  Some of our favorites include The Green Mile, Dead Man Walking, In Cold Blood, The Exonerated, and of course the 1957 classic 12 Angry Men.

Unlike the Oscars, we won’t arbitrarily segregate documentaries and works of fiction.  And we don’t care about released in theaters versus made for TV.  Just tell us whatever you think is the best.

Tyrone Noling

Following the news of the nation’s 140th death row exoneration, which was also Ohio’s 6th, comes a story in The Atlantic about another disturbing case in the Buckeye State.  Tyrone Noling remains sentenced to die despite:

• No physical evidence against him
• Recanting witnesses who may have been coerced
• An alternative suspect who seems to never have been thoroughly investigated
• The state refusing to support a DNA test that might shed light on the accuracy of the conviction.

You know, the usual stuff.

Ohio has 13 executions scheduled, but wrongful death sentences, botched executions like that of Romell Broom which have led the courts to harshly admonish Ohio officials, expressions of concern from a state Supreme Court judge and a former Attorney General (authors of Ohio’s death penalty law), and from a warden who oversaw 33 executions, all suggest that the state could use a time-out.

A task force is currently studying how Ohio administers capital punishment. Shouldn’t Ohio, at the very least, suspend executions while this study is underway?  If you think so, you should let Ohio Governor John Kasich know.

2010 SABAH ARAR/AFP/Getty Images

‘If you don’t, we won’t either.’

That’s the agreement the Saudi and Iraqi government found on the matter of executing prisoners each is holding from the other country.

Arab News reported Friday that government officials of both countries came to a consent, at least in principle, to put executions of Saudi and Iraqi prisoners on death row on hold. This ‘in principle’ agreement reportedly will last two months until a final agreement to swap prisoners is reached. Currently, there are 138 Iraqi nationals imprisoned in the Saudi Kingdom, most of whom were charged with involvement in terrorist operations.  Eleven Iraqis were sentenced to death.

The news of Friday’s ‘in principle’ agreement to put executions on hold until any further consent has been reached to swap prisoners, may appear as a step forward toward decreasing the shockingly accumulating numbers of executions posed on prisoners in the Kingdom. However, in reality it’s only a band-aid solution to a larger problem: Since March 2011, the Saudi Arabian authorities have launched a new wave of repression in the name of security, including attacks on political opponents, religious minorities and even foreign nationals.

Sentences based upon alleged terrorist affiliation are common in Saudi Arabia. The country is in the process of passing a new anti-terror law that provides for the prosecution of acts of peaceful dissent as ‘terrorist crimes’ such as ‘harming the reputation of the state or its position.’ If the law is passed as written, questioning the integrity of the king or the crown prince would be punishable by a minimum of 10 years in prison.

The human rights threats of the new anti-terror law are vast according to the Amnesty International report, ‘Saudi Arabia: Repression in the name of security’, published last month. The vague and broad definition of terrorism offenses, the unlawful restrictions of freedom of expression, as well as the violations of rights of detainees are just a few of many key parts of the new law that pose tremendous threats to human rights in Saudi Arabia.

The prisoner swap with Iraq is good news, but it’s not enough.  The Saudi government must radically amend the anti-terror law draft to bring it into line with international human rights law and standards and fair treatment for foreign nationals within its border.

During last month’s Amnesty International’s Write for Rights campaign, we focused on a Sudanese man, Hamad al-Neyl Abu Kassawy, who has been held in Saudi Arabia without charge or trial since 2004.

To take action on his case, click here.

Lara Zuzan Golesorkhi, Saudi Arabia country specialist for AIUSA, contributed to this article. 

Joe D’Ambrosio is free.  He spent more than 20 years on death row, and almost two more years waiting while the state of Ohio – whose prosecutors had withheld key evidence from his defense – tried to go after him again.  Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court closed the book on his case.  Joe D’Ambrosio is the 140th person exonerated from U.S. death rows since 1973, and the 6th from Ohio.

Is this exoneration an example of the system working?  Hardly.  Mr. D’Ambrosio’s exoneration came about because of a chance meeting with a Catholic priest who was visiting another inmate.  The priest, Rev. Neil Kookoothe, happened to have legal training and decided to look into the case himself.  As Kevin Werner, executive director of Ohioans to Stop Executions, put it: “Coincidence is not the standard we should be comfortable with when our justice system is seeking to execute people.”

Ohio is the 2nd executingist state in the land, but problems with botched executions and wrongful convictions have triggered a serious debate about the future capital punishment in the Buckeye State. Recently, the Supreme Court judge who, as a legislator, helped write Ohio’s current death penalty law called forcefully for its repeal.   A study is underway questioning how Ohio administers capital punishment.  Given that the answer is likely to be “not very well”, Ohio should at least halt executions while this study is going on.

Over the past year numerous pharmaceutical companies have tried to distance themselves from lethal injections (sometimes voluntarily, sometimes under pressure).  Until now, all these efforts involved the use of an anesthetic, the first drug in 3-drug execution protocols, or the only drug in one-drug protocols.  First Hospira, then Novartis, Lundbeck, Kayem and Naari have all objected to the use of their anesthetic products in U.S. executions.

Now, Hospira is under fire for pancuronium bromide, which is the second drug in all 3-drug execution protocols in the U.S.  Hospira is the sole provider of this drug for executions; it’s a muscle-relaxant that in executions is used to induce paralysis.  Paralysis during executions makes the condemned look like he’s peacefully falling asleep even if he’s in excruciating pain.  This makes the witnesses to the execution feel better.  Ironically, this masking of possible pain is why pancuronium bromide is widely banned in the euthanizing of animals.

Twenty-four doctors have now published an open letter in the medical journal The Lancet, calling on Hospira to prevent its drug from being used in executions.  Pancuronium bromide of course has legitimate medical uses, and so far Hospira has resisted restricting access to the drug for fear of “jeopardizing the health of patients.”

Lethal injection has medicalized executions, undermining the “do no harm” philosophy at the core of medical ethics.  Now, resistance to medicalized executions may result (indeed has already resulted) in drug shortages that harm totally innocent patients.  It’s a no-win situation for the medical profession, and that won’t change as long as legitimate drugs are used for the illegitimate purpose of executions.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be eighty-two years old this year had he not been assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee in the middle of a campaign for the human rights of sanitation workers.

Volumes have been written about his powerful life and legacy.  Innumerable awards and tributes have been paid to this giant for justice.  Many often imagine how much more he would have accomplished had he not been killed at such a young age.

I have no doubt that Dr. King, if he were alive today, would be an outspoken critic of the U.S. criminal justice system and a bold and authoritative voice for an end to the death penalty (below are ways you can act to end the death penalty too).

When Dr. King was alive, he addressed the issue directly:

I do not think God approves the death penalty for any crime – rape and murder included. Capital punishment is against the best judgment of modern criminology and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God.

Just a few years after King’s death, in the 1970s, lawmakers started to reorient the U.S. criminal justice system.  Harsher punishments were introduced, not because crime was becoming an uncontrollable crisis, but because politicians found that fear of crime could be exploited for political gain.  Investments in rehabilitation and prevention were eroded by a cynical “tough on crime” approach that made monsters out of “criminals,” but did not actually result in greater public safety.

The result today is a system of human warehousing at a scale never before seen.  With over 2 million people locked up in its prisons and jails, the U.S. has established itself as the greatest incarcerator in the world. And those leaving prisons after serving their sentences face social and economic barriers that trap them in a permanent cycle of marginalization.

Dr. King would likely call our society out for allowing this silent human rights crisis to continue.  The lives of millions of people of color and the poor are being destroyed figuratively and literally with no practical or moral gain.  The death penalty, both in the U.S. and around the world, is discriminatory and is used disproportionately against the poor, minorities and members of racial, ethnic and religious communities.

The death penalty is one of the worst symptoms of this terrible system that also puts the U.S. in a shameful light.  Country after country started abandoning capital punishment in the decades following King’s death.  Only a small handful were abolitionist in King’s day, but now 139 countries have stopped using capital punishment.  In the U.S., death sentences and executions at first continued to grow in number, peaking in the 1990s.  Fortunately this trend has now reversed, giving us hope that we will see an end to this outmoded and inhuman practice.

Dr. King applied the ethic of non-violence to social change.  At its essence was a deep respect for the human dignity in all people, including the oppressor and the perpetrator of violence.  This is not to excuse those who commit crimes or to ignore the need for accountability and justice.  What is important is how we, as a society, go about meeting the needs of victims so that we raise up rather than damage our values.

King understood that “violence is … a descending spiral,” and that “returning violence for violence multiples violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.”  A system that asks public servants who work in prisons to actively carry out homicides on behalf of the people is fundamentally violent.  The use of the law, precise protocols, medical equipment and polite behavior may create an appearance of legitimacy, but those who carry out the act of killing a human being are damaged by this inhuman act and we are all damaged because it is done in our name.

In the wake of the outrageous execution of Troy Davis, African American human rights leaders have found new passion to define the death penalty as a major justice issue for our day.  We are proud to stand with the NAACP and other civil rights leaders to bring this issue to the American public with more vigor in 2012.  Lawmakers in Maryland and Connecticut have the votes to end their death penalties this year if we can mobilize the needed pressure from their constituents.

Join us, as Dr. King would have, by taking action and spreading the word:

• Sign up for the Death Penalty Action Weeks (Feb. 27-Mar. 11).
• Take action for for Reggie Clemons, whose case has so many similarities to Troy’s and who is at risk of execution this year.
• On King Day (Monday, January 16), take Dr. King’s message to Facebook and Twitter by sharing the photo above on your Facebook wall and tweeting Dr. King’s quotes below.

We know that Dr. King would be front and center in this cause if he were with us today.  Help us build on the human rights legacy that he helped create by taking action to end the death penalty!

Tweets you can use on January 16 (King Day):

#MLK: “I do not think God approves the #DeathPenalty for any crime – rape and murder included.” http://bit.ly/Aiwzo7 via @amnesty [CLICK HERE TO TWEET]

#MLK: The #deathpenalty is against “modern criminology and…the highest expression of love in the nature of God.” http://bit.ly/Aiwzo7 [CLICK HERE TO TWEET]

#MLK: “Capital punishment is society’s final assertion that it will not forgive.” http://bit.ly/Aiwzo7 via @amnesty [CLICK HERE TO TWEET]

#MLK: “The old law of an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.” End the #deathpenalty! http://bit.ly/Aiwzo7 [CLICK HERE TO TWEET]

#MLK: “Returning violence for violence multiplies violence.” http://bit.ly/Aiwzo7 [CLICK HERE TO TWEET]

#MLK: “Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation.” http://bit.ly/Aiwzo7 [CLICK HERE TO TWEET]

Amir Hekmati

By now I can write the script in my sleep: Foreign citizen (but usually Iranian in origin) picked up and slapped into detention; family told to be quiet about it and things will “go well”; implausible televised confession to acts of espionage or involvement in plot to undermine the Iranian government made by weary-looking defendant is aired on Iranian television; unfair trial in Revolutionary Court; harsh sentence handed down; media fire-storm ensues.

Yes, I have been ticking off each item on my check list again. The only “surprise” in the case of Iranian-American Amir Mirzaei Hekmati is the severity of the sentence.  The death sentence imposed on him is the first time that a U.S. citizen has been condemned to be executed in Iran since the Iranian Revolution took place 33 years ago.

Iran maintains an enormous security apparatus. In order to justify its existence and reinforce its hold on power, the minions in Iran’s security agencies need to constantly ferret out and expose “enemies”— spies, traitors and conspirators who aim to overthrow the Iranian government, or slowly undermine it through a “velvet revolution.” The ongoing tensions with the United States and other western countries over Iran’s nuclear program and other issues provide a never-ending opportunity for Iran’s security machine to trot out its latest trophy.

Amir Hekmati, a former U.S. Marine, was, according to his family, in Iran visiting his elderly grandmother when he was arrested in August. He was shown on Iranian television in December, confessing to be a CIA operative sent to infiltrate Iran’s Intelligence Ministry. The Iranian authorities routinely broadcast orchestrated confessions that are obtained through coercion and sometimes torture. They then use the confessions in legal proceedings in lieu of any real evidence. This was sadly, but predictably, also the case in Mr. Hekmati’s trial.

Amnesty International has consistently criticized the proceedings of Iran’s Revolutionary Courts that miserably fail to adhere to international standards for fair trials. The presiding judge in Revolutionary Court number 15 where Amir Hekmati was tried, Abolghassem Salavati, is notorious for harsh sentences—including several death sentences—handed down to political prisoners and peaceful dissidents.

Mr. Hekmati’s family was not allowed to procure a lawyer of their choice and Mr. Hekmati was only allowed to meet with the court-appointed lawyer for the first time on the very day of his trial. He was also denied access to visits from Swiss officials, who represent U.S. interests in Iran in the absence of diplomatic relations between the countries.

The imposition of this death sentence comes at a time when Iran has been carrying out an alarming number of executions. Iran executed at least 600 people in 2011, most for drug-related offenses. The execution of Zahra Bahrami, a dual Dutch-Iranian national, just about a year ago was both surprising to many and a sobering reminder that the death sentence against Mr. Hekmati cannot be simply dismissed as political brinkmanship.

Mr. Hekmati is not the only person in peril of suffering serious repercussions stemming from charges of being an American spy. Iranian physicist Omid Kokabee, who was doing research at the University of Texas, has been detained in Iran for nearly a year and is currently on trial on charges of espionage.

Sign our online action to stop the execution!  Or write to Iran’s Supreme Leader urging that the death sentence against Amir Hekmati be set aside:

Ayatollah Sayed ‘Ali Khamenei
The Office of the Supreme Leader
Islamic Republic Street – End of Shahid Keshvar Doust Street
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran

Fortunately, the Iranian authorities eventually released most of those Americans and Iranian-Americans—such as Roxana Saberi and the three hikers– accused of spying for the U.S. or plotting to overthrow the government. But this only occurred after an international outcry and months of persistent activism by Amnesty International and other human rights organizations. Please send your appeal today.

When, last September, Ohio’s Republican Governor John Kasich stopped the execution of Joseph Murphy and granted him clemency, he reasoned that a childhood of “severe and sustained verbal, physical and sexual abuse from those who should have loved him” had left Murphy “destined for disaster.”

In that statement, Governor Kasich acknowledged our society’s cycle (really, progression) of violence – from child abuse to murder to execution – and acted to stop it.  (At least for this one case – Ohio has 14 more executions scheduled between now and January 2014.)

Delaware’s Board of Pardons and Governor face a similar choice in the case of Robert Gattis, who is slated to be put to death on January 20.  Gattis suffered through a childhood experts have described as “catastrophic to his development.”  Beginning as a small child, he was raped and molested and otherwise physically abused, by multiple abusers, including close family members.  This seriously impaired his ability to function as an adult.

In 1990, at the age of 27, Robert Gattis committed a terrible crime, murdering his girlfriend Shirley Slay.  The jury and judge that sentenced him to die in 1992 were never told about his traumatic childhood.  Now, 20 years later, he faces another, final act of violence – his execution.

The horrible abuse of children, if unchecked, may seem to leave them “destined for disaster”, but the cycle, or progression, of violence is not inevitable.  It can be broken.  Four Delaware corrections officers support clemency for Robert Gattis because, after two decades in the structured world of prison, Robert Gattis has become a source of support for fellow inmates and his own family including his two sons.  As one expert put it: “His current adjustment provides a glimpse of the person Robert could have been.”

Killing Robert Gattis now makes no sense.  In the case of Robert Gattis, Delaware’s Governor and Pardon Board can avert disaster.  They can grant clemency.

© Scott Langley

Given the dramatic events of the “Arab Spring” and “Occupy Wall Street”, Time Magazine has dubbed “The Protester” as its Person of the Year for 2011. Seems fitting enough, but someday we may also look back on this past year as a turning point in the history of death penalty abolition in the U.S.

On September 21, the crowds amassed around the world to protest the killing of Troy Davis were the most visible sign that opponents of capital punishment were turning up the volume.  But that wasn’t the only sign. Throughout the year more and more voices from across the U.S. spoke out against the death penalty.

To be sure, executions continued.  There were 43 executions in 13 states, though this was about half as many as there were in the year 2000.  But death sentences were 30% lower than they have ever been since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. And beginning in January, when Missouri Governor Nixon commuted the death sentence of Richard Clay, all the way through December, when prosecutors decided to drop their efforts to seek death for Mumia Abu-Jamal, commitment to the death penalty, even on the part of its supporters, was on the wane, and there were many signs that momentum for ending executions was on the rise:

SIGN #1:  DOUBTS RISE IN OHIO

Ohio in recent years has executed more people than any state except Texas.  But in January, Paul E. Pfeifer, a Republican Ohio Supreme Court Justice who as a legislator had helped write Ohio’s current death penalty law, called for its repeal. Terry Collins, a former prison warden who had overseen 33 Ohio executions, did likewise.

Later in the year, Ohio’s Republican Governor John Kasich commuted two death sentences. And the year in the Buckeye State concluded with Justice Pfeifer testifying to the legislature that Ohio has a “death lottery” not a death penalty, adding “Ohio is no longer well served by our death-penalty statute. It should be repealed.”

SIGN #2: VICTIMS AND THEIR FAMILIES SPEAK OUT

In early February, families of Connecticut murder victims submitted a letter urging that state to stop killing in their name.  The letter now has over 80 signers.  The letter said, succinctly, “Connecticut’s death penalty fails victims’ families.” Though Connecticut did not pass an abolition bill this year, state legislators should be persuaded to honor the wishes of these dozens of victims’ family members in 2012.

In Texas, Rais Bhuiyan sought tirelessly to prevent the July execution of Mark Stroman, a white supremacist who tried to kill him and did kill two others because of their Middle Eastern appearance.  Rais was unsuccessful, but his voice became yet another to declare that “At some point we have to break the cycle of violence. It brings more disaster.”

SIGN #3: TROY DAVIS

Disaster came in September with the execution of Troy Davis in Georgia.  But the injustice of his execution, despite serious doubts about his guilt, generated an unprecedented flood of opposition both to his execution and to the death penalty itself.  Troy Davis was named one of Time Magazine’s People Who Mattered in 2011, and the story became a Time Magazine top ten U.S. news story of the year. It was also the second most Tweeted story in 2011 (based on Tweets-per-second).

Six former prison wardens who have collectively overseen 65 executions called for a halt to Troy’s.  Hundreds of thousands signed petitions opposing the execution, and took the Pledge to work for abolition of the death penalty after the death sentence was carried out.  A Gallup poll released shortly afterwards showed death penalty support at its lowest since 1972.   Conservatives like Kathleen Parker called capital punishment an “abomination”. She wrote:  “When we join together to administer death, we become something other than a civilized community of men and women. No matter how we frame the arguments or justifications, we become executioners.”

SIGN #4:  MORE STATES MOVE TOWARDS ABOLITION

Just as the Troy Davis drama was heating up, Californians launched an effort to prevent the 37 million residents of their state from becoming executioners. The SAFE California initiative, if placed on the November 2012 ballot and passed, will replace the death penalty with life without parole and use some of the millions of dollars saved to address California’s dismal unsolved murder rate.

Colorado, Connecticut, Kansas, Maryland and Montana also remained close to repealing their capital punishment laws, and in November the Governor of Oregon declared that he would not allow any executions to be carried out under his watch.  And of course, Illinois became the 16th state to ban capital punishment when, on March 9, Governor Pat Quinn signed an abolition bill into law.  As he signed the bill he said: “Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.  I think it’s the right, just thing to abolish the death penalty.”

SIGN #5:  DRUG COMPANIES DISTANCE THEMSELVES

Throughout 2011, pharmaceutical companies were scrambling (usually unsuccessfully) to prevent executions from being carried out with their drugs.  In January, Hospira stopped production of sodium thiopental. In February Novartis announced it would not allow its version of sodium thiopental to be exported to the U.S.  And by June, Lundbeck, the maker of the anesthetic pentobarbital, was taking increasingly proactive steps (with the considerable encouragement of European campaigners like Reprieve) to try to stop its drug from being used to kill prisoners.

Though executions were carried out with Lundbeck’s drug, the company’s more active approach has caused at least a couple of states to look elsewhere, and now a fourth company, Naari, has been dragged into the U.S. execution business, without its knowledge or consent. Its spokesman stated recently:  “We’re not in the business of helping to execute people. We were lied to and cheated.”

Throughout 2011, public and even political enthusiasm for playing the role of executioner was dwindling.  And rejection of participation in executions was growing.  In the Year of the Protester, more people than ever before stepped up and spoke out against the death penalty. In 2012, support for death penalty abolition is likely to become  louder and more visible than ever.

Get the latest death penalty news by following our Abolish the Death Penalty page on Facebook.

Gary Drinkard was on death row in Alabama for 6 years before he was exonerated. © Scott Langley

As we approach the end of another year, the time for annual reports is at hand.  For the death penalty, this means the yearly report from the Death Penalty Information Center, as well as the year-end report from the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.   Both reports show that in 2011 the downward trends we have been observing for several years in the United States continued or even accelerated.

Texas carried out its lowest number of executions (13) since 1996.  Nationwide, the 43 executions carried out represented about half the number that were put to death in the year 2000, and U.S. death sentences dropped well below 100 for the first time since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.

Death sentences remained historically low in Texas too, with just 8 sentenced to die.  Somewhat disturbingly, however, as death sentences have declined in Texas, racial disparities have become more pronounced: 72% of all those sentenced to death in Texas in the last 5 years (including 6 out of the 8 in 2011) have been people of color.

This years’ abolition in Illinois, moratorium in Oregon, and even the slow, albeit uneven, decline in Texas, all point to a growing repudiation of capital punishment.  The unprecedented scale of the response to Georgia’s execution of Troy Davis (one of Time Magazine’s 2011 People Who Mattered) was not only a product of this trend but a sign that it is likely to intensify in the years to come.

Of the 78 death sentences this year, only one took place in Georgia.