Facing death
An Illinois governor's pardon of four death row inmates has highlighted the United States appalling human rights record, writes Negar Azimi
Last week's decision by Illinois Governor George Ryan to pardon four of the state's death row inmates and to commute the sentence of 167 others facing the death penalty has been heralded as an historic event by capital punishment opponents in the United States and abroad. Governor Ryan, once a fervent death penalty advocate, has since been presented as one of its most outspoken critics. His commutation announcement comes three years after he declared a moratorium on the use of the death penalty in his home state, due to its "shameful record" of wrongful convictions in a series of cases. A commission set up by Ryan concluded that the death penalty was administered disproportionately to the poor, individuals from minority groups and in cases in which informer evidence was employed.
"I'm going to sleep well tonight knowing that I made the right decision," he said. "Because the Illinois death penalty system is arbitrary and capricious, and therefore immoral, I shall no longer tinker with the machinery of death."
Ryan's historic decision echoes trends in American public opinion over the last five years. While support for the use of the death penalty remains overwhelmingly high, countless studies have shown that this support is waning, largely in the face of evidence that the capital justice system is not fail-safe.
In July 2001, a Harris poll found that 67 per cent of Americans favour capital punishment, up from 64 per cent in 2000, but still down from the 75 per cent who responded in the affirmative in 1997. When respondents were offered alternative sentences as options, public support for the death penalty dropped to below 50 per cent.
Joseph S Liebman, professor of law at Columbia University and an outspoken critic of the death penalty explained in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly that, "support for the death penalty has dropped substantially in the last four years. Still, of course, a majority of Americans support it if it can be carried out reliably. The bigger change is that most Americans believe currently that it is not being carried out reliably."
In May of last year, Maryland became the second state to declare a moratorium on the death penalty. Governor Parris Glendening made the decision pending the results of a study that was to determine whether the capital punishment process in Maryland is in fact tainted by racial bias. While the significant majority of murder victims in the US are black, most on death row have been convicted of killing whites. Of the 13 men currently on death row in Maryland, 12 were convicted in this fashion. Across the spectrum, the death penalty is administered disproportionately to black individuals who have killed whites. Since 1977, over 80 per cent of death row defendants have been executed for killing white victims.
Indeed, doubt over the capital justice system's evenhandedness seems paramount in explaining mounting public discomfort surrounding the use of the death penalty, and by extension, a significant nationwide drop in the number of death sentences. The number of new death row inmates in 2001, the most recent year for which comprehensive data is available, is at its lowest since 1973. While part of the drop is linked to a lower murder rate, legal pundits agree that public discomfort with the capital justice system's administration wields much explanatory power.
"Who among us is comfortable with executing the innocent? Who among us can confidently say that a system that has led to executing the innocent, is unlikely to have other egregious flaws?" Austin Serat, professor of political science and law at Amherst College and the author of When the State Kills: Capital Punishment and the American Condition, told the Weekly.
Serat, for his part, has coined the reassessment of capital punishment as a "new abolitionism". One that is less rooted in a quixotic moral opposition to the death penalty, but more concerned with the increasingly defective nature of the system.
According to the human-rights organisation Amnesty International, over 100 people have been released from death row throughout the US since 1973, many of whom have been exonerated because of DNA testing evidence.
A study by Columbia University's Liebman found that two-thirds of all capital convictions are overturned on appeal. Of the cases where courts ordered a new trial, seven per cent were acquitted, while 75 per cent were convicted but sentenced to lesser punishment. The most common bases for reversals were errors committed by incompetent defence lawyers, faulty instructions to juries or evidence withheld by law enforcement officials.
And then there is the question of efficacy. Countless studies have failed to prove that the death penalty serves as a deterrent. A survey conducted by The New York Times in 2000 indicated that the dozen states that have no death penalty have homicide rates that are well below the national average. Potentially confounding demographic discrepancies between states with and without the death penalty, such as poverty rates and population, were deemed insignificant.
Along similar lines, a 1995 Hart Research Poll of police chiefs in the US found that the majority of them placed the death penalty last on a list of effective means of controlling violent crime.
Meanwhile, vigorous proponents of the death penalty lambasted Governor Ryan's decision, with some, such as the California-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation (CJLF), dismissing the action as "an insult to the state's murder victims".
In an interview with the Weekly, CJLF President Michael Rushford presented the murderer, by his act, as having abandoned humanity. To allow such a person to live, even in a prison environment, and enjoy food, watch television and study art or literature, does not comport with the American concept of justice." In America, 38 states and the federal government uphold death penalty laws. Nevertheless, the vast majority of executions are concentrated geographically. Over half of the people on death row in 2001 hailed from four states: Texas, California, Florida and North Carolina.
Incidentally, President George W Bush's home state of Texas has led the country in number of executions since 1976. Bush has said in the past that he is "absolutely confident" that the process operates fairly in his home state.
Dialogue surrounding the use of the death penalty has also had resonance with global sensibilities. Since 2000, Pakistan, the Philippines and Saudi Arabia have all commuted the death sentences of groups of prisoners.
Worldwide, more than half of the world's nations have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. In 2000, 88 per cent of all known executions took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the US. Only two weeks ago, Iran hung a teenager for drinking alcohol, and six others for drug trafficking.
While the US has rarely been characterised by a concern for the dictates of supranationality and the bounds of international law, opponents of the death penalty are quick to point out that the US has repeatedly violated the Vienna Conventions (ratified in 1969) by executing foreign nationals without informing them of their right to consult their respective consular representatives. According to Amnesty International, 17 foreign nationals have been executed in the US since 1993.
Today, at least 121 foreign nationals are on death row in 15 US states. The majority are from Mexico, a country that abolished its own death penalty in 1937. Earlier this month, Mexico asked the World Court to resolve the case of 54 Mexicans on death row, who were allegedly denied their rights to consular representation. On the day of the Illinois decision, President Vicente Fox of Mexico called the governor to "express his profound appreciation for the historic decision".
Kenya's new government also hailed Governor Ryan's decision as a landmark, while its Justice Minister Kiraitu Murungi, announced that his country hopes to abolish its own death penalty within the next six months. Over 1000 Kenyans are on death-row, locked up in that country's notoriously overcrowded prisons. Also last week, arguments were raised in favour of abolishing the death penalty in China, a country that executes more people annually than the combined total for the rest of the world.
Questions have been raised as to whether the Illinois model will prove isolated in nature, or a harbinger of significant changes to come. Increasingly, the administration of the death penalty is finding itself part of a collective public discourse. Cases of figures such as award-winning journalist and former Black Panther party- member Mumia Abu-Jamal have been packaged and sold to the public as pressing human rights concerns.
But the debate is heated for both sides. In the US in particular, where tales of serial killers are plastered across front pages and television screens, the death penalty is often posited as the most effective route to emotional closure.
In the end, Illinois' problems are not isolated. The aforementioned Columbia University study found that, although Illinois ranked below the national average in capital punishment error rates it was not the state with the most inmates freed. Florida has released 22 inmates on death-row compared to Illinois' 13. No doubt, this month's decision has injected momentum into a country-wide reassessment of notions of justice and retribution. "Governor Ryan should be applauded for adding further impetus to the new abolitionism, and for highlighting evidence that suggest just how seriously broken the machinery of the death penalty system actually is," says Serat.
