Why is USA still imposing DP
By David Usborne in New York for the Independent UK
Thursday, 7 August 2008
Why are we asking this now?
What America does in its own prisons is its own business, most of the
time. That was not true on Tuesday night, however, when a lethal
injection was administered to a Mexican national in Huntsville
prison, Texas, convicted in a case of gang rape and strangulation of
two teenage girls in Houston 15 years ago.
The death of Jose Medellin brought an instant diplomatic protest from
Mexico, which had demanded that he and 50 other Mexicans on death row
in America be allowed consular access, as required by a treaty to
which the US is a signatory.
The International Court of Justice in The Hague has twice in the past
five years ruled that the US should hold hearings on the status of
foreign nationals on death row. The White House had asked Texas at
least to delay the execution. But on Tuesday night, Texas defied
George Bush and the world after a last-minute appeal to the US
Supreme Court on behalf of Medellin was turned down.
Are there other foreign nationals on death row?
As of the end of last year, there were 123 foreign nationals awaiting
execution in the US. Although Mexicans make up the largest single
contingent, 38 other countries are represented, including Germany and
France, but not, according to the Death Penalty Information Center,
any currently from the United Kingdom. Most are in California.
Most countries, Britain included, balk at allowing the extradition of
prisoners to the US where a possible capital offence is involved and
if the state seeking extradition has the death penalty on its books.
The British citizen Neil Entwistle was extradited and recently
convicted of murdering his wife and daughter in Massachusetts, one of
a minority of US states which do not execute prisoners.
So it's not just southern states that have the death penalty?
No. Currently 36 states in the US have the death penalty on their
books, including liberal states such as New York and Maryland, while
only 14 are without death rows (plus Washington, DC). Since 1976,
when a ruling by the US Supreme Court allowed states to begin
reintroducing capital punishment, a total of 1,115 people had been
executed in the country as of 1 August this year. Of those, 38 per
cent were African-Americans, far disproportionate to their share of
the population (about 13 per cent). The busiest year for executioners
was 1999, when 98 condemned men and women were dispatched.
Texas has executed four times more inmates over the past three
decades than any other single state. (The second most assiduous has
been Virginia.) It's true that the region loosely termed the South is
far more likely to execute than other parts of the country. Not every
state that has the option of killing its prisoners actually exercises
it. New Hampshire is a capital punishment state but has not executed
anyone in decades.
Isn't there a move to scrap it?
Yes, fuelled in part by a growing acknowledgement that the risk of
sending an innocent person to the death chamber cannot be ignored.
This, in turn, has been spurred by rapid improvements in forensic
technologies and the use of DNA to prove guilt and innocence.
While death row inmates were exonerated at a rate of 3.1 a year until
1999, the rate has since leaped to about five a year today. Opponents
of the death penalty have also underscored the heavy cost to the
taxpayer of every capital case.
But it's going too far to suggest that there has been a real change
of heart.
What are opponents doing?
Death-penalty opponents seem to take one step back for every two
steps forward. They were disappointed most recently when in April the
US Supreme Court ended a brief nationwide moratorium on executions
while it debated whether death by lethal injection (overwhelmingly
the preferred method of execution) constituted cruel and unusual
punishment. It said it did not, and Texas became the first state to
resume executions. But even the fact of the short hiatus might be
considered a sign of progress. But most polls show most Americans
still support the death penalty even though the strength of that
support is slipping some.
So executions carry on as normal?
Not quite. An important moment came in 2003 when the outgoing
Governor of Illinois, George Ryan (since convicted on corruption
charges) commuted the death sentences on all inmates on the state's
death row. He had earlier declared a moratorium on executions, citing
mistakes and unfair racial discrimination in the process. Hopes,
however, that Illinois would then move to abolish the death penalty
have not been answered.
But in an important milestone, New Jersey last December became the
first state officially to remove the death penalty from its books
since the Supreme Court reinstated it in 1976. Legislatures in four
other states – Maryland, New Mexico, Montana and Nebraska – have also
debating ending the death penalty in the past year. Maryland just
this month announced the formation of a special panel to report on
the feasibility of ending executions to the governor.
Isn't America ashamed of the company it keeps?
China tops the world's executions league table (officially it used
the death penalty 470 times last year, though Amnesty International
believes the true figure is far higher), followed by Iran and Saudi
Arabia. Among developed industrialised nations, only the US, Japan
and South Korea persist in retaining capital punishment. None of the
United States' European allies entertain it nor do its neighbours,
Mexico and Canada.
Persuading the US to drop capital punishment has become a major issue
for human rights activists worldwide. But as this week's execution of
Medellin demonstrates, what the rest of the world thinks is not
something many Americans lose sleep over.
Could a Democrat in the White House bring change?
There is still no way a candidate for the White House, even one as
liberal (by American standards) as Barack Obama, can come out in
favour of abolishing the death penalty and not lose the election. If
elected, however, Mr Obama could influence the debate around the
edges and indeed had a record as a state senator in Illinois of
forcing through reforms of the state's death penalty laws to guard
against the killing of the innocent.
Will the US abolish capital punishment soon?
Yes...
*The tide has changed as individual states move to end state-
sponsored killings
*A Democratic White House and a more liberal Supreme Court could
change things fast
*Fresh evidence of mistakes and racial bias are making capital
punishment untenable
No...
*Most Americans still support it and believe that it is effective
against violent crime
*The eye-for-an-eye mentality still holds firm in the conservative
heartland
*Unless opinion shifts quickly, most leaders will shy away from
supporting a repeal
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-big-question-why- is-the-united-states-still-imposing-the-death-penalty-887145.html
