Category Archives: Death Penalty

Amnesty International USA’s Campaign to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Maryland Death Penalty Repeal Pass First (And Biggest) Test

February 21, 2013 at 6:02 PM
Amnesty members and others protest the death penalty in Maryland

Amnesty member Stanford Fraser rallies supporters of death penalty repeal in Annapolis with Jane Henderson of MD CASE.

Death penalty abolition in Maryland is on the move!

Maryland’s Senate Judicial Proceeds Committee has voted 6-5 in favor of SB 276, the bill that repeals the death penalty. (Sadly, a provision that would have allocated some funds saved from abandoning capital punishment to support victims’ families was stripped from the bill.)

Passing repeal through this committee was a major hurdle, and one that had proved insurmountable in previous years. But a critical mass of support for abolishing capital punishment has been reached, both across the state and inside Annapolis, and the bill is now headed to the Senate floor.

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The Shameful Spectacle Of Georgia’s Death Penalty

February 20, 2013 at 2:56 PM
warren hill

Warren Hill

Less than half an hour before he was to be put to death, and after he had taken a sedative to prepare for his execution, Warren Hill was granted two simultaneous stays of execution – by a state court on a challenge to the method of his execution, and by the federal 11th circuit court of appeals on the substantive issue of his “mental retardation.”

Warren Hill has an IQ of 70 and has been declared by a state judge to be “mentally retarded” by a preponderance of the evidence. In other states, that would mean his execution would be an unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.  But not in Georgia, where a prisoner must prove his “mental retardation” beyond a reasonable doubt, a virtual impossibility given the inexact science of measuring mental disability.

Add to this the fact that the victim’s family and several of the jurors from his trial now oppose his execution, and one wonders: why is the state of Georgia – which is seeking to lift the stays – trying so hard to kill Warren Hill?  Who is this execution for?

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Maryland’s March Towards Death Penalty Repeal

February 15, 2013 at 2:43 PM
Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley and Lt. Governor Anthony Brown with Amnesty activists calling for death penalty repeal in Annapolis, Feb. 14, 2013.

Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley and Lt. Governor Anthony Brown with Amnesty activists calling for death penalty repeal in Annapolis, Feb. 14, 2013.

On Valentine’s Day, in overflowing hearing rooms in both the House and Senate, Maryland legislators heard testimony from victim’s family members, former prison wardens, religious leaders, an innocent man who once faced execution in Maryland, the state’s Lieutenant Governor, and Governor Martin O’Malley. And what they heard, over and over, is that the death penalty must be abolished.

As in past years, those testifying in favor of repealing capital punishment far outnumbered those speaking for retaining it. That’s nothing new, but in other ways this year has been different. The crowds that gathered to witness the hearings were larger. The high-level political engagement has been stronger and more focused.  And the understanding that the votes exist to pass death penalty abolition into law is now fully entrenched in the Annapolis political landscape.

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Saudi Arabia: Two Executions a Week is Two Too Many!

February 14, 2013 at 10:56 AM
Saudi Arabia applies the death penalty for a wide range of crimes, including drug offences, apostasy, sorcery and witchcraft. © Private

Saudi Arabia applies the death penalty for a wide range of crimes, including drug offences, apostasy, sorcery and witchcraft. © Private

Saudi Arabia is executing nearly two people per week this year: We say NO MORE!

A spree of executions that has sent 10 prisoners to their deaths since the beginning of the year in Saudi Arabia must be halted, Amnesty International said earlier this week.

The beheadings included Abdullah Fandi al-Shammari, who had originally been convicted of manslaughter, but was tried again on the charge of murder in proceedings that did not meet international fair trial standards, as well as Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan foreign domestic worker.

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Warren Hill Faces Execution In Georgia Again

February 13, 2013 at 10:09 AM

Georgia is set to carry out an unconstitutional execution while the prisoner’s case is still pending at the US Supreme Court. The high court, as a guardian of the rule of law in this country, must not let this happen. They must stay the execution.

warren hill

Warren Hill

In 2002, the US Supreme Court banned execution of prisoners with “mental retardation” as unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment. Warren Hill, with an IQ of 70, was ruled by a judge to be “mentally retarded” by a preponderance of the evidence. But in Georgia, as in no other state, prisoners must prove their “mental retardation” beyond a reasonable doubt. Defining and measuring “mental retardation” is not an exact science – even IQ scores can vary based on the type of test given – so proving it beyond a reasonable doubt is virtually impossible.

By using this unreasonable “reasonable doubt” standard, Georgia has found a way to evade the spirit of the Supreme Court’s important 2002 decision, and to continue killing intellectually disabled prisoners.

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Why Showing Up For Death Penalty Repeal Matters

February 12, 2013 at 11:41 AM
Amnesty members and others protest the death penalty in Maryland

Amnesty member Stanford Fraser rallies supporters of death penalty repeal in Annapolis with Jane Henderson of MD CASE.

As of this writing, 33 states in the U.S. still retain the death penalty (and two more still have inmates on death row). There is also a Federal death penalty and a death penalty in the U.S. military.  The kangaroo courts at Guantánamo can issue death sentences too.

Though we are definitely seeing a decline in support for the death penalty in the U.S., that’s still a lot of capital punishment. To truly and sustainably overcome this culture of casual killing we will need – and we are building – a powerful grass-roots movement.

That’s why a victory for abolition in a state like Maryland, if it happens, will be so important.  Change – lasting change – in the United States, where human rights are often ignored or dismissed, is going to come from the ground up … from the states, and even more locally from faith groups, campuses and communities. SEE THE REST OF THIS POST

Kirk Bloodsworth and the Demise of the Death Penalty

February 6, 2013 at 2:53 PM
Kirk Bloodsworth

Kirk Bloodsworth is the first American sentenced to death row who was exonerated by DNA fingerprinting. (Photo: MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP/GettyImages)

The New York Times today profiles Kirk Bloodsworth, a man who once faced execution for what he describes as “the most brutal murder in Maryland history.” He was innocent, and thanks to the development of DNA testing, was proven so and freed. Equally as important, the real killer was identified.

Kirk Bloodsworth was lucky. Many inmates sentenced to die in this country do not have scientific evidence like DNA with which to prove their innocence.  Only 18 of the 142 death row exonorees over the last 40 years have been set free due to DNA evidence.  During that time, many others have been executed despite doubts about their guilt, but without testable DNA evidence that could prove their innocence to the high standard our courts require.

As long as the death penalty exists, the risk of executing the innocent will be all too real. So Kirk Bloodsworth has made it his mission to abolish the death penalty, both in his home state and – as advocacy director for Witness to Innocence – throughout the country.

Success in Maryland seems closer than ever. And across the country, as people become more familiar with harrowing stories like Kirk’s, support for and use of the death penalty continues to decline.

Executing Women In the USA

January 30, 2013 at 12:04 PM
Teresa Lewis

Teresa Lewis, despite her low IQ and dependency disorder, was executed as the mastermind of a murder for hire. She was the last woman  put to death since the reinstatement of the death penalty in the United States.

Very few, or at least relatively few, women have been executed in the United States.  Kimberly McCarthy would have been the 13th woman put to death since reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976, had her execution not been delayed at the last minute to look into the question of improper jury selection at her trial. An African American woman, McCarthy was sentenced to die by a Dallas, TX jury that was predominantly (11-1) white.

So as it stand now, out of 1,321 executions in the U.S. only 12 (less than 1%) have been women. Interestingly, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, while women are responsible for roughly 10% of murders, they receive only 2.1% of death sentences and make up only 1.8% of current death row residents, but have received over 4% of clemencies granted. Perhaps this represents yet another way the death penalty is disproportionately applied.

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Our Death Penalty: Inciting Murder And Killing Arbitrarily

January 22, 2013 at 3:40 PM

Rally to abolish the death penaltyWhen Robert Gleason Jr. was put to death in Virginia on January 16 (he chose the electric chair) he became the 140th so-called “volunteer” for execution since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976.  In fact, over 10% of US executions have been “voluntary,” usually meaning that the prisoner has given up his appeals.

But in Gleason’s case it was more than that. He specifically killed to get the death penalty. He strangled his cellmate and vowed to keep on killing unless he was executed.  And this is not the first time someone has committed murder in order to get the state to kill him.  In Ohio in 2009, Christopher Newton was put to death for killing his cellmate. He had refused to cooperate with investigators unless they sought the death penalty.

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7 Ways for Obama to REALLY Earn that Nobel Peace Prize

January 18, 2013 at 10:01 AM
president obama

Photo: Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images

At the local level, Americans are demonstrating a strong commitment to advancing human rights. In recent elections, voters legalized marriage equality in nine states and passed the DREAM Act to expand educational opportunities for undocumented residents in Maryland. In addition, legislators in four states abolished the death penalty. The message to the nation’s leaders seems to be this: human rights still matter, and the task of “perfecting our union” remains incomplete.

As President Obama prepares to give his second inaugural address, he should embrace an ambitious rights agenda: enhancing our security without trampling on human rights; implementing a foreign policy that hold friends and foes alike accountable for human rights violations; and ensuring human rights for all in the United States without discrimination.

INCOMPLETE

Measured against international norms and his own aspirations, President Obama’s first term record on human rights merits an “incomplete.” While he made the bold move of issuing an executive order to close Guantánamo on his second day in office, he has yet to fulfill that promise. The U.S. government’s reliance on lethal drone strikes is growing steadily, but the administration has provided no clear legal justification for the program. Congress has abrogated its responsibility to exercise meaningful oversight of this most ubiquitous element of the “global war on terror,” a paradigm which is in and of itself problematic. Although President Obama has on occasion stood up for human rights defenders abroad — in China, Iran, Russia and Libya — his administration has often muted criticism when it comes to U.S. allies, in the Middle East, Africa and Europe.

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