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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
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Results for capital punishment (kentucky)
1 results foundAuthor: American Bar Association Title: Evaluating Fairness and Accuracy in State Death Penalty Systems: The Kentucky Death Penalty Assessment Report - An Analysis of Kentucky's Death Penalty Laws, Procedures, and Practices Summary: Fairness and accuracy together form the foundation of the American criminal justice system. As the United States Supreme Court has recognized, these goals are particularly important in cases in which the death penalty is sought. Our system cannot claim to provide due process or protect the innocent unless it provides a fair and accurate system for every person who faces the death penalty. Over the course of the past thirty years, the American Bar Association (ABA) has become increasingly concerned that capital jurisdictions too often provide neither fairness nor accuracy in the administration of the death penalty. In response to this concern, on February 3, 1997, the ABA called for a nationwide moratorium on executions until serious flaws in the system are identified and eliminated. The ABA urges capital jurisdictions to (1) ensure that death penalty cases are administered fairly and impartially, in accordance with due process, and (2) minimize the risk that innocent persons may be executed. In the autumn of 2001, the ABA, through the Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, created the Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project (the Project). The Project collects and monitors data on domestic and international death penalty developments, conducts analyses of governmental and judicial responses to death penalty administration issues, publishes periodic reports, encourages lawyers and bar associations to press for moratoriums and reforms in their jurisdictions, convenes conferences to discuss issues relevant to the death penalty, and encourages state government leaders to establish moratoriums, undertake detailed examinations of capital punishment laws and processes, and implement reforms. To assist the majority of capital jurisdictions that have not yet conducted comprehensive examinations of their death penalty systems, the Project began in February 2003 to examine several U.S. jurisdictions’ death penalty systems and preliminarily determine the extent to which they achieve fairness and minimize the risk of executing the innocent. It undertook assessments examining the administration of the death penalty in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee and released reports on these states’ capital punishment systems from 2006 through 2007. A summary report was also published in 2007 in which the findings of the eight reports completed to date were compiled. Due in large part to the success of the state assessments produced in the eight jurisdictions described above, the Project began a second round of assessments in late 2009. In addition to this report on Kentucky, the Project also plans to release reports in, at a minimum, Missouri, Texas, and Virginia. The assessments are not designed to replace the comprehensive state-funded studies necessary in capital jurisdictions, but instead are intended to highlight individual state systems’ successes and inadequacies. Past state assessment reports have been used as blueprints for state-based study commissions on the death penalty, served as the basis for new legislative and court rule changes on the administration of the death penalty, and generally informed decision-makers’ and the public’s understanding of the problems affecting the fairness and accuracy of their state’s death penalty system. All of these assessments of state law and practice use as a benchmark the protocols set out in the ABA Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities’ 2001 publication, Death without Justice: A Guide for Examining the Administration of the Death Penalty in the United States (the Protocols). While the Protocols are not intended to cover exhaustively all aspects of the death penalty, they do cover seven key aspects of death penalty administration: defense services, procedural restrictions and limitations on state post-conviction and federal habeas corpus proceedings, clemency proceedings, jury instructions, an independent judiciary, racial and ethnic minorities, and mental retardation and mental illness. Additionally, the Project added five new areas to be reviewed as part of the assessments in 2006: preservation and testing of DNA evidence, identification and interrogation procedures, crime laboratories and medical examiners, prosecutors, and the direct appeal process. Each assessment has been or is being conducted by a state-based assessment team. The teams are comprised of or have access to current or former judges, state legislators, current or former prosecutors, current or former defense attorneys, active state bar association leaders, law school professors, and anyone else whom the Project felt was necessary. Team members are not required to support or oppose the death penalty or a moratorium on executions. The state assessment teams are responsible for collecting and analyzing various laws, rules, procedures, standards, and guidelines relating to the administration of the death penalty. In an effort to guide the teams’ research, the Project created an Assessment Guide that detailed the data to be collected. The Assessment Guide includes sections on the following: (1) death-row demographics, (2) DNA testing, and the location, testing, and preservation of biological evidence, (3) law enforcement tools and techniques, (4) crime laboratories and medical examiner offices, (5) prosecutors, (6) defense services during trial, appeal, and state post-conviction and clemency proceedings; (7) direct appeal and the unitary appeal process, (8) state post-conviction relief proceedings, (9) clemency, (10) jury instructions, (11) judicial independence, (12) racial and ethnic minorities, and (13) mental retardation and mental illness. The findings of each assessment team provide information on how state death penalty systems are functioning in design and practice and are intended to serve as the bases from which states can launch comprehensive self-examinations, impose reforms, or in some cases, impose moratoria. Because capital punishment is the law in each of the assessment states and because the ABA takes no position on the death penalty per se, the assessment teams focused exclusively on capital punishment laws and processes and did not consider whether states, as a matter of morality, philosophy, or penological theory, should have the death penalty. This executive summary consists of a summary of the findings and proposals of the Kentucky Death Penalty Assessment Team. The body of this Report sets out these findings and proposals in more detail, followed by an Appendix. The Project and the Kentucky Death Penalty Assessment Team have attempted to describe as accurately as possible information relevant to the Kentucky death penalty. The Project would appreciate notification of any factual errors or omissions in this Report so that they may be corrected in any future reprints. Details: Washington, DC: American Bar Association, 2011. 520p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 3, 2012 at http://www.abanow.org/wordpress/wp-content/files_flutter/1323199256kydeathpenaltyreport_120711.pdf Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: http://www.abanow.org/wordpress/wp-content/files_flutter/1323199256kydeathpenaltyreport_120711.pdf Shelf Number: 124371 Keywords: Capital Punishment (Kentucky)Court ProceduresDeath Penalty (Kentucky)Due ProcessEvaluative Studies |