Tag Archives: u.s. death penalty facts

Who Plays By the Rules? Not Rick Perry

January 9, 2014 at 1:42 PM
Texas Governor Rick Perry may put our relations with other countries at risk if he does not grant Edgar Arias Tamayo clemency before his execution (Photo Credit: Stewart F. House/Getty Images).

Texas Governor Rick Perry may put our relations with other countries at risk if he does not grant Edgar Arias Tamayo clemency before his execution (Photo Credit: Stewart F. House/Getty Images).

By Andrea Hall, Mid Atlantic Regional Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator 

Let’s hope that Texas Governor Rick Perry was paying attention in kindergarten. Most likely, that’s where he first learned to play by the rules.

The rule, in this case, is article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR), to which the U.S. is a party. That document requires that foreign nationals who are arrested or detained be given notice “without delay” of their right to have their embassy or consulate notified of that arrest. Foreign officials can then assist defendants with their legal proceedings.

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The State of Missouri Has a Secret…

November 19, 2013 at 9:32 AM
Missouri law provides members of an execution team with anonymity, and the pharmacy for Joseph Paul Franklin’s execution has been added to the team. Without knowing which pharmacy is providing the execution drugs, the drugs’ efficacy cannot be guaranteed (Photo Credit: Joe Raedle/Newsmakers).

Missouri law provides members of an execution team with anonymity, and the pharmacy for Joseph Paul Franklin’s execution has been added to the team. Without knowing which pharmacy is providing the execution drugs, the drugs’ efficacy cannot be guaranteed (Photo Credit: Joe Raedle/Newsmakers).

Legend has it that more than a century ago, a Missouri Congressman stated at a banquet that he was not impressed by fancy speeches or “frothy eloquence,” concluding “I am from Missouri. You have got to show me.” Since then, Missouri has been known as the “Show Me” State.

One thing the people of Missouri are not being shown is how their state is killing prisoners.

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Who’s Really Using the Death Penalty?

October 8, 2013 at 8:15 AM
Just 2 percent of U.S. counties are responsible for 52% of all executions and 56% of the country's current death row population(Photo by FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images).

Just 2 percent of U.S. counties are responsible for 52% of all executions and 56% of the country’s current death row population(Photo by FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images).

We know that, in the U.S., there are large differences in the enthusiasm with which the death penalty is applied. Currently, there are 32 states that still allow the use of the death penalty: some use it a lot, some barely at all. But what is less well known is the disparity that exists within states, at the county level.

The Death Penalty Information Center has released a report which illustrates these disparities. For example, out of the 3,143 counties in the U.S., 62, or just 2% (representing just 15.6% of the total U.S. population), are responsible for 52% of all executions and 56% of the current U.S. death row population. Even in states known for their vigorous use of the death penalty, many counties have never handed down a death sentence. Nationally, an overwhelming majority (85%) of counties have never produced an execution.

These disparities have serious implications for fairness (the Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty is supposed to be applied based on the severity of the crime, not its location), and for taxpayers, who must pay to support the criminal justice money pit of capital punishment even though the majority of them live in counties where the death penalty is largely irrelevant.

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BREAKING: Supreme Court Rejects Warren Hill Petition

October 7, 2013 at 9:36 AM
Warren Hill

Warren Hill

Georgia authorities continue to pursue the execution of Warren Hill despite the fact that:

  • The victim’s family opposes the execution
  • Several jurors from the trial now object to the execution
  • All 7 doctors who have examined him now agree that Hill is intellectually disabled
  • The U.S. Supreme Court banned execution of the intellectually disabled in 2002

With an assist from the U.S. Supreme Court, which today rejected Warren Hill’s petition for relief, Georgia may get its way.

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Which U.S. State Has the Most Error-Prone Capital Punishment System?

September 3, 2013 at 12:00 PM

It is an affront to human rights that the state, any state, should have to power to kill a prisoner; and it is an affront to common sense that this irreversible punishment can be imposed by a system as unreliable and fraught with error as the U.S. criminal justice system.

In most states, a jury must at least be unanimous before issuing a sentence of death. But in the state of Florida, the state that leads the nation in number of wrongfully convicted prisoners exonerated from death row, only a bare majority of jurors is required. In the Sunshine State, although judges ultimately decide the sentence, a jury by a 7-5 vote can recommend execution.

No other state allows this.

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BREAKING: Judge Issues Findings in Reggie Clemons Case

August 6, 2013 at 4:20 PM

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Judge Michael Manners, the Special Master reviewing the case of Reggie Clemons, has submitted his findings to the Missouri Supreme Court.

He finds that prosecutors suppressed evidence (a “Brady violation”) and writes that he believes the statement Reggie Clemons gave to police was coerced. He also writes that he does not believe that Clemons has established a “gateway claim of actual innocence.” It is a complex case, and serious allegations of misconduct by prosecutors and police appear to have been affirmed.

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U.S. Death Penalty: Botched Executions And Suicide Attempts

August 5, 2013 at 3:35 PM
Billy Slagle died in a holding cell, like the one in the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility featured here, three days before the state of Ohio was to execute him (Photo Credit: Mike Simons/Getty Images).

Billy Slagle died in a holding cell, like the one in the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility featured here, three days before the state of Ohio was to execute him (Photo Credit: Mike Simons/Getty Images).

Back in 2010, the cruelty – and absurdity – of the death penalty was on full display when Brandon Rhode tried to commit suicide just days before he was to be executed by the state of Georgia. The state rushed him to the hospital and saved his life – only to execute him a week later.

The suicide attempt reportedly left Rhode brain damaged. He was shackled to a restraint chair for the next 7 days, and then the execution proceeded. The lethal injection may have been botched, as Rhode’s eyes remained open the entire time.

This weekend, Billy Slagle was found hanged in his cell on Ohio’s death row. Slagle died three days before the state of Ohio was to execute him. The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction has promised a “complete investigation.”

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The Cruel And Pointless Effort To Execute John Ferguson

August 1, 2013 at 10:36 AM
Despite several diagnoses of paranoid schizophrenia and even though the Supreme Court has declared executing the severely mentally ill unconstitutional, John Ferguson is scheduled to be executed in Florida on August 5th (Photo Credit: Joe Raedle/Newsmakers).

Despite several diagnoses of paranoid schizophrenia and even though the Supreme Court has declared executing the severely mentally ill unconstitutional, John Ferguson is scheduled to be executed in Florida on August 5th (Photo Credit: Joe Raedle/Newsmakers).

John Ferguson, a 65-year-old man with a long history of mental illness, including several diagnoses of paranoid schizophrenia by prison doctors, and who refers to himself as the “Prince of God,” is set to be executed in Florida on August 5th. His crimes were horrific, no question. Ferguson was convicted of a total of eight murders committed near Miami, earning him a total of eight death sentences.

But executing the severely mentally ill, or “the insane,” has been unconstitutional since 1986 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled so in Ford v. Wainwright (a Florida case, as it turns out). In its decision, the Court, led by Thurgood Marshall, reasoned that it is cruel and pointless to put prisoners to death who don’t understand why (or in some cases even that) they are being killed.

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Warren Hill Execution Stay Extended

July 19, 2013 at 4:54 PM
Warren Hill

Warren Hill

A challenge to Georgia’s “Lethal Injection Secrecy Act“ has led the Fulton County Superior Court in Atlanta to extend Warren Hill’s stay of execution. An appeal from the state of Georgia won’t be filed in time and his execution warrant will expire.

The secrecy law, which went into effect July 1, allows the state to withhold from the courts information about the drugs they intend to use in executions. This, of course, makes it impossible for the courts to determine if said drugs will be effective enough to prevent excessive pain and suffering that would render the execution a “cruel and unusual punishment” in violation of the constitution.

There is also a “separation of powers” question: can the executive and legislative branches of government set up a system that keeps the judicial branch in the dark about the most awesome and extreme power the state can wield? In other words, is it OK that the public and the courts are denied information they need to ensure that the law is upheld and that human rights and constitutional rights are protected?

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Texas’ 500th Execution Highlights Need for Change

June 26, 2013 at 2:00 PM
The Wynne Unit in Huntsville, one of the seven prison units in Walker County, Texas. Texas is preparing to execute its 500 convict since the death penalty was restored in 1976, a record in a country where capital punishment is elsewhere in decline. (Photo Credit: Chantal Valery/AFP/GettyImages).

The Wynne Unit in Huntsville, one of the seven prison units in Walker County, Texas. Texas is preparing to execute its 500 convict since the death penalty was restored in 1976, a record in a country where capital punishment is elsewhere in decline. (Photo Credit: Chantal Valery/AFP/GettyImages).

By MbaLuka Michael Mutinda, Youth Activist and AIUSA Ladis Kristof Fellow.

On Wednesday, Kimberly McCarthy may eat her last meal. Barring a last-minute stay, she will be led down the hallways of Huntsville Penitentiary, make a last statement, and be given a lethal injection that will stop first her breathing and then her heart. She will be Texas’ 500th execution.

The death penalty is emblematic of the many problems still prevalent, not only in the American justice system, but in society as a whole. Capital punishment is racially and economically biased. It places more value on some victims over others. Since 1976, 260 black defendants have been executed for murdering white victims, but only 20 white defendants have received the same sentence for murdering black victims. Death sentences also depend more on geography than the severity of a crime.

And yet, death sentences can be wrong. In the last 40 years, 142 death row inmates have had their innocence proven. This margin of error alone should awaken us to the deep flaws in the system. You cannot have absolute punishment without absolute certainty.

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