INDEX

The accounts of the “anonymous execution teams” who implement the death penalty are chilling, and rarely reach the public sphere, because their identities are protected by stringent state laws. Rare interviews from retired corrections officers, wardens, and prison chaplains, as well as those included in the 2000 Peabody Award winning radio documentary “Witness to an Execution” give us glimpses of executioners and their experiences.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Methods of Execution, Lethal Injection, Electrocution, Death Penalty,

Two decades after Iran ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the authorities continue to show contempt for one of its core principles – the prohibition of the death penalty for juvenile offenders (people younger than 18 at the time of the crime). Indeed, Iran tops the grim global table of executioners of juvenile offenders.The report analyses the Iranian Penal System with regard to juvenile offenders, acknowledges the reforms, presents the recent trends and points out the major shortcomings that still need to be addressed in view of a full compliance of the Islamic Republic of Iran with the international standards.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Juveniles, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages Iran: Synthèse et les conclusions du rapport sur la peine de mort en Iran.

While the death penalty remains, persons with mental disabilities are at risk of being sentenced to death and executed in breach of international standards. This briefing paper provides concrete examples of what can be done to address this risk, including by ensuring that all states have laws that embed international protections in their domestic legislation and by extending protection to those with [serious] mental illness not covered by existing proscriptions against executing persons affected by “insanity”.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Mental Illness, Intellectual Disability,
• Available languages Fiche pratique pour les parlementaires

In this report, Mai Sato and Paul Bacon go beyond the simple results of opinion polls conducted
recently by the Japanese government, which show very high levels of support for the death penalty.
Using a similar methodology and sample, the authors reveal that the majority of the population form
their views on the death penalty with limited information and based on often inaccurate perceptions
– for example, believing that the crime rate is increasing. Sato and Bacon also demonstrate that
people have a relatively low level of ‘psychological ownership’ when it comes to the future of the death
penalty: the majority think that the government and experts should decide. Furthermore, discussions
about the death penalty among participants increased tolerance towards those with different views –
which, in turn, facilitated potential reform and change.

• Document type Academic report

• Document type Arguments against the death penalty
• Themes list Public opinion, Networks, Member organizations,

Simandjuntak’s article comes back to the death sentences part of the “war against drugs” conducted by President Widjojo in Indonesia. In 2015, 14 drug convicts – mostly foreign nationals – have been executed. The article also comes back to the wide support to the death penalty in the country, on the debate on the presumed deterrent effect of the death penalty and on the political function of the capital punishment in Indonesia.

• Document type Article
• Countries list Indonesia
• Themes list Public opinion, Deterrence , Drug Offences, Foreign Nationals, Country/Regional profiles,

Featuring experts from Europe, Australia, Japan, China, and the United States, this collection of essays follows changes in the theory and policy of China’s death penalty from the Mao era (1949–1979) through the Deng era (1980–1997) up to the present day. Using empirical data, such as capital offender and offense profiles, temporal and regional variations in capital punishment, and the impact of social media on public opinion and reform, contributors relay both the character of China’s death penalty practices and the incremental changes that indicate reform. They then compare the Chinese experience to other countries throughout Asia and the world, showing how change can be implemented even within a non-democratic and rigid political system, but also the dangers of promoting policies that society may not be ready to embrace.

• Document type Arguments against the death penalty
• Themes list Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

Drawing on his own extensive advocacy experience in individual death row cases, Knowles traces the history of capital punishment in the UK, and in particular, the sequence of events that led to its abolition and analyses the impact that domestic and international law would have on any attempt to reintroduce it.Many lessons can be learnt from the United Kingdom’s experience. The movement to abolition was brought about by a combination of factors, including Parliamentary campaigning; changing attitudes towards social and penal affairs; and significantly, public disquiet over three controversial executions in the 1950s and a shocking series of miscarriages of justice cases that came to light in subsequent years.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition, Country/Regional profiles,

Confronting the Death Penalty: How Language Influences Jurors in Capital Cases probes how jurors make the ultimate decision about whether another human being should live or die. Drawing on ethnographic and qualitative linguistic methods, this book explores the means through which language helps to make death penalty decisions possible – how specific linguistic choices mediate and restrict jurors’, attorneys’, and judges’ actions and experiences while serving and reflecting on capital trials. By focusing on how language can both facilitate and stymie empathic encounters, the book addresses a conflict inherent to death penalty trials: jurors literally face defendants during trial and then must distort, diminish, or negate these face-to-face interactions in order to sentence those same defendants to death. The book reveals that jurors cite legal ideologies of rational, dispassionate decision-making – conveyed in the form of authoritative legal language – when negotiating these moral conflicts. By investigating the interface between experiential and linguistic aspects of legal decision-making, the book breaks new ground in studies of law and language, language and psychology, and the death penalty.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Public opinion, Public debate, Death Penalty,

Joint statement calling on the government to immediately commute all death sentences; to investigate all allegations of torture made by persons sentenced to death, and to dismiss any and all convictions made on the basis of confessions obtained under conditions of torture; to re-impose a moratorium on the death penalty with a view towards abolishing the practice.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list Bahrain
• Themes list Country/Regional profiles,