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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 12:54 am
Time: 12:54 am
Results for death row
6 results foundAuthor: American Civil Liberties Union Title: A Death Before Dying: Solitary Confinement on Death Row Summary: We know that the death penalty system is broken. Racial bias, junk science, underfunded public defense, and other serious breakdowns in our legal system can mean that people – sometimes innocent people – will languish on death rows for years while pursuing appeals. Spending these years in extreme isolation can erode mental health to the point that some will “volunteer” to die rather than continue to live under such conditions. Many prisoners die a slow and painful psychological death before the state ever executes them. Using the results of an ACLU survey of death row conditions nationwide, this briefing paper offers the first comprehensive review of the legal and human implications of subjecting death row prisoners to solitary confinement for years. Details: New York: ACLU, 2013. 14p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 5, 2013 at: http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/deathbeforedying-report.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United States URL: http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/deathbeforedying-report.pdf Shelf Number: 129534 Keywords: Capital PunishmentDeath PenaltyDeath RowSolitary Confinement |
Author: Amnesty International Title: Growing Up on Death Row: The Death Penalty and Juvenile Offenders in Iran Summary: Between 2005 and 2015, Amnesty International recorded the execution of 73 juvenile offenders (people younger than 18 at the time of the crime), including at least four in 2015. A UN report issued in 2014 stated that more than 160 juvenile offenders were on death row. In 2013, Iran adopted a new Islamic Penal Code granting judges discretionary power to replace the death penalty with an alternative punishment if they find that a juvenile offender convicted of murder or certain other capital offences did not understand the nature of the crime or its consequences or there are doubts about his or her "mental maturity and development". Hopes were reinforced by a 2014 decision from Iran's Supreme Court that all juvenile offenders on death row could seek retrial. However, over the past two years the authorities have continued to carry out executions of juvenile offenders, failing to inform them of their right to file an "application for retrial". Also worryingly, several juvenile offenders who had been granted a retrial have been resentenced to death. These cases highlight, yet again, the urgent need for Iran to comply with its international obligations by abolishing completely the use of the death penalty against juvenile offenders. Details: London: AI, 2016. 110p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 28, 2016 at: http://www.amnestyusa.org/sites/default/files/growing_up_on_death_row_-_the_death_penalty_and_juvenile_offenders_in_iran_final.pdf Year: 2016 Country: Iran URL: http://www.amnestyusa.org/sites/default/files/growing_up_on_death_row_-_the_death_penalty_and_juvenile_offenders_in_iran_final.pdf Shelf Number: 137700 Keywords: Capital PunishmentDeath PenaltyDeath RowExecutionsJuvenile JusticeJuvenile Offenders |
Author: Pettigrew, Mark N. Title: Incarceration on Death Row: A Microcosm of Communication? Summary: Death row is a space across the United States that continues to expand, not only in numbers, but in the length of time inmates spend confined there. Fewer and fewer inmates are executed and death row is now increasingly the only punishment of capital convicts. This thesis examines the retributive and punitive treatment of death-sentenced offenders within that space and, by viewing that form of imprisonment as part of a communication process, it assesses the contribution it makes to the death penalty more generally in the USA to argue that death row imprisonment is crucial in sustaining the distinction of capital offenders, and the death penalty itself.Just as death row receives images from wider culture, it simultaneously generates images that complement and validate those it receives, of death sentenced offenders as dangerous monsters. These images, of offenders who require punitive detention, align with the dominant supportive rationale of capital punishment, retribution, and provide a basis for continued death penalty support in an era of declining executions.In the "hidden world" of death row, prisoners are left to be abused, mistreated, and denied privileges and opportunities available to other prisoners. The capital offender is presented by his death row incarceration as different from all other offenders serving other sentences, even life without parole. Death row incarceration communicates the worth and status of the condemned, presenting him as a dangerous, and dehumanised other, who needs to be securely detained, and restricted. Thus death row validates and justifies the cultural needs of capital punishment. Just as wider culture, including, specifically, the legal community, dictates a requirement for punitive detention, death row corroborates that image with its own in a self-affirming loop. Death row is therefore functional beyond the mere holding of offenders, it affirms cultural descriptions of the condemned and thus justifies, and provides support for, the very continuation of capital punishment itself. Details: Manchester, UK: University of Manchester, 2013. 215p. Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed February 29, 2016 at: https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/uk-ac-man-scw:201596 Year: 2013 Country: United States URL: https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/uk-ac-man-scw:201596 Shelf Number: 137987 Keywords: Capital PunishmentDeath PenaltyDeath RowIncarceration |
Author: Yale Law School. The Arthur Liman Public Interest Program Title: Rethinking "Death Row": Variations in the Housing of Individuals Sentenced to Death Summary: In 2015, individuals sentenced to death in the United States were housed in varying degrees of isolation. Many people were kept apart from others in profoundly isolating conditions, while others were housed with each other or with the general prison population. Given the growing awareness of the debilitating effects of long-term isolation, the placement of deathsentenced prisoners on what is colloquially known as "death row" has become the subject of discussion, controversy, and litigation. This Report, written under the auspices of the Arthur Liman Public Interest Program at Yale Law School, examines the legal parameters of death row housing to learn whether correctional administrators have discretion in deciding how to house death-sentenced individuals and to document the choices made in three jurisdictions where death-sentenced prisoners are not kept in isolation. Part I details the statutes, regulations, and policies that govern the housing of those sentenced to death and reviews prior research on the housing conditions of death-sentenced prisoners. Part II presents an overview of decisions in three states, North Carolina, Missouri, and Colorado, where correctional administrators enable death-sentenced prisoners to have meaningful opportunities to interact with others. Given the discretion that correctional officials have over housing arrangements, these states provide models to house capital-sentenced prisoners without placing them in solitary confinement. Details: New Haven, CT: Yale Law School, 2016. 87p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 23, 2016 at: https://www.law.yale.edu/system/files/documents/pdf/Liman/deathrow_reportfinal.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: https://www.law.yale.edu/system/files/documents/pdf/Liman/deathrow_reportfinal.pdf Shelf Number: 139808 Keywords: Capital PunishmentDeath PenaltyDeath RowPrisoner IsolationPrisons |
Author: Dieter, Richard C. Title: The 2% Death Penalty: How a Minority of Counties Produce Most Death Cases At Enormous Costs to All Summary: Contrary to the assumption that the death penalty is widely practiced across the country, it is actually the domain of a small percentage of U.S. counties in a handful of states. The burdens created by this narrow but aggressive use, however, are shifted to the majority of counties that almost never use it. The disparate and highly clustered use of the death penalty raises serious questions of unequal and arbitrary application of the law. It also forces the jurisdictions that have resisted the death penalty for decades to pay for a costly legal process that is often marred with injustice. Only 2% of the counties in the U.S. have been responsible for the majority of cases leading to executions since 1976. Likewise, only 2% of the counties are responsible for the majority of todays death row population and recent death sentences. To put it another way, all of the state executions since the death penalty was reinstated stem from cases in just 15% of the counties in the U.S. All of the 3,125 inmates on death row as of January 1, 2013 came from just 20% of the counties. Each decision to seek the death penalty is made by a single county district attorney, who is answerable only to the voters of that county. Nevertheless, all state taxpayers will have to bear the substantial financial costs of each death penalty case, and some of the costs will even be borne on a national level. The counties that use the death penalty the most have some of the highest reversal rates and many have been responsible for errors of egregious injustice. As their cases are reversed, more money will be spent on retrials and further appeals. For example: - Maricopa County in Arizona had four times the number of pending death penalty cases as Los Angeles or Houston on a per capita basis. The District Attorney responsible for this aggressive use was recently disbarred for misconduct. - Philadelphia County, with the third largest number of inmates on death row in the country, ranked lowest in the state in paying attorneys representing those inmates. - During the tenure of one district attorney in New Orleans, four death row inmates were exonerated and freed because of prosecutorial misconduct, bringing a stinging rebuke from four Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. Some states have recently chosen to opt out of this process altogether, greatly limiting their obligations for its high costs and disrepute. As the death penalty is seen more as the insistent campaign of a few at tremendous cost to the many, more states may follow that course. Details: Washington, DC: Death Penalty Information Center, 2013. 35p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 9, 2017 at: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/TwoPercentReport.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United States URL: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/TwoPercentReport.pdf Shelf Number: 131160 Keywords: Capital Punishment Costs of Criminal Justice Death Penalty Death Row |
Author: Cornell Law School’s Avon Global Center for Women and Justice and International Human Rights Clinic Title: Judged for More Than Her Crime: A Global Overview of Women Facing the Death Penalty Summary: We estimate that at least 500 women are currently on death rows around the world. While exact figures are impossible to obtain, we further estimate that over 100 women have been executed in the last ten years - and potentially hundreds more. The number of women facing execution is not dramatically different from the number of juveniles currently on death row, but the latter have received a great deal more attention from international human rights bodies, national courts, scholars, and advocates. This report aims to shed light on this much-neglected population. Few researchers have sought to obtain information about the crimes for which women have been sentenced to death, the circumstances of their lives before their convictions, and the conditions under which they are detained on death row. As a result, there is little empirical data about women on death row, which impedes advocates from understanding patterns in capital sentencing and the operation of gender bias in the criminal legal system. To the extent that scholars have focused on women on death row, they have concluded that they are beneficiaries of gender bias that operates in their favor. While it is undeniable that women are protected from execution under certain circumstances (particularly mothers of infants and young children) and that women sometimes benefit from more lenient sentencing, those that are sentenced to death are subjected to multiple forms of gender bias. Most women have been sentenced to death for the crime of murder, often in relation to the killing of family members in a context of gender-based violence. Others have been sentenced to death for drug offenses, terrorism, adultery, witchcraft, and blasphemy, among other offenses. Although they represent a tiny minority of all prisoners sentenced to death, their cases are emblematic of systemic failings in the application of capital punishment. Women in conflict with the law are particularly vulnerable to abuse and other rights violations, either at the police station, during trial, or while incarcerated. Women are more likely than men to be illiterate, which affects their ability to understand and participate in their own defense. For example, of the 12 women on India's death row in 2015, six have never attended school. Illiteracy also increases their vulnerability to coercion, heightening the risk of false confessions. In certain countries, particularly in the Gulf states, most death-sentenced women are foreign migrant workers who are subject to discriminatory treatment. Mental illness and intellectual disability are common among women facing the death penalty. In Pakistan, Kanizan Bibi has been on death row since 1989, when she was only 16-years-old. Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, she cannot care for herself in the most basic ways and has lost all awareness of her surroundings. Although she is now confined in a psychiatric hospital, she remains under sentence of death. Many women enter prison as long-term survivors of gender-based violence and harsh socioeconomic deprivation. We have documented several cases of women convicted of crimes committed while they were minors, often in the context of child marriage. These factors receive little attention from lawyers and courts. In many death penalty jurisdictions, gender-based violence is not considered at sentencing. Few lawyers present such evidence, and even where they do, the courts often discount it. In mandatory death penalty jurisdictions, a woman's prior history as a survivor of physical or sexual abuse is simply irrelevant, since the death penalty is automatically imposed for death-eligible offenses without consideration of the offender's background or the circumstances of the crime. Our research also indicates that women who are seen as violating entrenched norms of gender behavior are more likely to receive the death penalty. In several cases documented in this report, women facing the death penalty have been cast as the "femme fatale," the "child murderer," or the "witch." The case of Brenda Andrew in the United States is illustrative. In her capital trial, the prosecution aired details of her sexual history under the guise of establishing her motive to kill her husband. The jury was allowed to hear about Brenda's alleged extramarital affairs from years before the murder, as well as details about outfits she wore. The trial court also permitted the prosecutor to show the underwear found in the suitcase in her possession after she fled to Mexico, because it showed that she was not behaving as "a grieving widow, but as a free fugitive living large on a Mexico beach." As one Justice of the Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma noted, Brenda was put on trial not only for the murder of her husband but for being "a bad wife, a bad mother, and a bad woman." Death row conditions around the world are harsh and at times life-threatening for both men and women. In China, for example, all death row inmates, including women, are shackled at all times by their hands and feet. Women face certain deprivations, however, that do not affect the male population to the same extent. Some death sentenced women must also care for infants or young children who are incarcerated alongside them. Meriam Ibrahim, sentenced to death in Sudan for apostasy in 2014, was shackled to heavy chains in prison while eight months pregnant and caring for a young child. In Thailand and Myanmar, inmates have reportedly given birth alone in prison. In many countries, it is challenging or impossible for women to access sanitary pads or other menstruation products. In Zambia, for example, women must make do with rags that they struggle to clean without soap. The social stigma associated with women who are convicted and imprisoned, paired in some cases with restrictive family and child visitation rules, means that many female death row inmates around the world suffer an enduring lack of family contact, contributing to the high levels of depression suffered by women prisoners. Women on death row may also be denied access to occupational training and educational programs. For instance, the general female prison population in Thailand has access to work programs, but death row inmates do not. One woman in Ghana explained, after being denied educational opportunities while on death row: "I don't do anything. I sweep and I wait." Our country profiles aim to provide a snapshot of women facing the death penalty in several major regions of the world. The stories of women on death row provide anecdotal evidence of the particular forms of oppression and inhumane treatment documented in this report. It is our hope that this initial publication, the first of its kind, will inspire the international community to pay greater attention to the troubling plight of women on death row worldwide. Details: Ithaca, NY: Cornell Law School, 2018. 62p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 23, 2018 at: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/7202 Year: 2018 Country: International URL: http://www.deathpenaltyworldwide.org/pdf/judged-for-more-than-her-crime.pdf Shelf Number: 153113 Keywords: Capital PunishmentDeath PenaltyDeath RowExecutionsFemales Gender Based PunishmentGender Based ViolenceGender BiasGender IssuesImprisonmentIntellectual DisabilityMental Health IssuesPrisonPrisoners |