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Detailed factsheet on the link between torture and the death penalty, to mark the 21st World Day against the Death Penalty.Detailed factsheet on the link between torture and the death penalty, to mark the 21st World Day against the Death Penalty.

• Document type Campaigning / World Coalition
• Available languages Fiche détaillée - Journée mondiale 2023

The European Union (EU) is a family of democratic European countries working together to improve life for their citizens and to build a better world. The following chapters describe the Treaties, the EU institutions and the other bodies and agencies, explaining what each entity does and how they interact.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Networks,
• Available languages Comment fonctionne l'Union européenneEl Funcionamiento de la Unión Europea: Guía del Ciudadano sobre las Instituciones de la UE

Ohio’s aggravated felony-murder rule and felony-murder death penalty specification provisions apply where a death occurs “while committing or attempting to commit” certain enumerated felonies. In a line of cases beginning in 1996, the Ohio Supreme Court broadly interpreted this statutory language to include situations where the intent to commit the underlying felony was formed subsequent to the death, as a complete afterthought. With these cases, the Ohio Supreme Court departed from the majority view that the intent to commit the underlying felony must precede or co-exist with the death. The author argues that this new statutory interpretation represents an unwarranted expansion of the felony-murder rule that disregards the statutory language, ignores the underlying purpose of the rule, and dispenses with traditional safeguards designed to ameliorate its harshness. The author further argues that applying this new statutory interpretation to the felony-murder death penalty specification potentially selects for death those who are not necessarily the most deserving of this ultimate punishment. The author suggests that the solution must be a legislative one.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Capital offences, Arbitrariness,

In her paper, Professor Kimberly J. Cook uses statistics to illustrate the role the Christian Right plays in the public discourse over two issues permeated with religious overtones: abortion and the death penalty. She shows how the Christian Right’s approach to these issues is based on an ideological notion of ‘Justice ” that is primarily focused on vengeance and punishment, to the exclusion of forgiveness. Professor Cook’s exploration of the modern roots of this ideology leads to a movement dating from the 1960s known as Christian Reconstructionism, which advocates using state action to enforce its unique interpretation of “God’s Will.” This interpretation not only advocates an expansive view of the death penalty, but also patriarchal gender roles backed by force of law, religious intolerance, and the manifest goal of establishing a global Christian theocracy. Though it has been publicly disavowed by mainstream Christian Fundamentalists, Professor Cook argues that Reconstructionism has become the cornerstone of the Christian Right. To support this assertion, she compares current Christian Right socio-political goals with Reconstructionist theology. Professor Cook concludes with a warning that the Christian Right’s political power, coupled with its Reconstructionist influenced ideology, places our constitutional protections at risk.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Religion ,

The purpose of the Report is to assist the Honourable Court by describing the criminal justice process in Trinidad as it applies to those accused of murder. As a criminal defence and constitutional law attorneys in Trinidad, we have been asked to address, in particular, some of the shortcomings apparent in the Trinidadian criminal justice system and certain related constitutional issues. The Report deals with the following issues: a. The constitutional history and sources of law in Trinidad; b. The law of murder in Trinidad; c. An overview of criminal procedure; d. The stages of the criminal process in murder cases; e. The mandatory death penalty; f. The prerogative of mercy.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Networks,

This document provides state by state information in the United States regarding laws that govern the death penalty.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Networks,

In 1998 Richard A. Leo and Richard J. Ofshe published a study of false confession cases entitled, The Consequences of False Confessions: Deprivations of Liberty and Miscarriages of Justice in the Age of Psychological Interrogation, which drew a response from Paul Cassell (1999), The Guilty and the Innocent : An Examination of Alleged Cases of Wrongful Conviction from False Confessions. In this article, the authors demonstrate that Cassell s article misreports the research and analysis contained in Leo and Ofshes 1998 article, and that Cassell s attempt to challenge Leo and Ofshes classifications of nine out of sixty false confessions is erroneous because Cassell excludes or presents an incomplete picture of important facts in his case summaries, selectively ignores enormous inconsistencies, implausibilities and/or contradictions in the prosecution s cases, and fails to acknowledge the existence of substantial exculpatory, if not dispositive, evidence. To illustrate the problems and biases in Cassell s commentary, this article discusses at length one of Cassell s challenges, the Barry Lee Fairchild case, in the main body of the article and in a detailed appendix analyzes the eight other cases (Joseph Giarratano, Paul Ingram, Richard Lapointe, Jessie Misskelley, Bradley Page, James Harry Reyos, Linda Stangel, and Martin Tankleff). Leo and Ofshe provide a point by point refutation of Cassell s assertions in all nine cases, demonstrating that all nine individuals were, as originally classified, almost certainly innocent of the crimes to which they had confessed.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

The number of death sentences reached a new peak in 2018 in India.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Public debate, Death Penalty, Statistics,

Quizz on the death penalty by the Asia Pacific Youth Network

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Networks,

Twenty-three years of murder and death sentence data show how murder demographics help explain death row populations. Nevada and Oklahoma are the most death-prone states; Texas’s death sentence rate is below the national mean. Accounting for the race of murderers establishes that black representation on death row is lower than black representation in the population of murder offenders. This disproportion results from reluctance to seek or impose death in black defendant-black victim cases, which more than offsets eagerness to seek and impose death in black defendant-white victim cases. Death sentence rates in black defendant-white victim cases far exceed those in either black defendant-black victim cases or white defendant-white victim cases. The disproportion survives because there are many more black defendant-black victim murders, which are underrepresented on death row, than there are black defendant-white victim murders, which are overrepresented on death row.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

Reviews the use of the death penalty on juveniles in light of contemporary standards.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Juveniles,

In Death by Design, research psychologist Craig Haney argues that capital punishment, and particularly the sequence of events that lead to death sentencing itself, is maintained through a complex and elaborate social psychological system that distance and disengage us from the true nature of the task. Relying heavily on his own research and that of other social scientists, Haney suggests that these social psychological forces enable persons to engage in behavior from which many of them otherwise would refrain. However, by facilitating death sentencing in these ways, this inter-related set of social psychological forces also undermines the reliability and authenticity of the process, and compromises the fairness of its outcomes. Because these social psychological forces are systemic in nature –built into the very system of death sentencing itself –Haney concludes by suggesting a number of inter-locking reforms, derived directly from empirical research on capital punishment, that are needed to increase the fairness and reliability of the process.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

Detailed information on the death penalty and mental health.

• Document type Academic report
• Themes list Mental Illness, Intellectual Disability,
• Available languages Fiche sur la peine de mort et la santé mentale

The State of Texas stands today as one of the most extensive utilizers of the death penalty worldwide. Consequently, inmate living conditions on Texas’ death row are ripe for review. This report demonstrates that the mandatory conditions implemented for death row inmates by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice(TDCJ) are harsh and inhumane. Particular conditions of relevance include mandatory solitary confinement, a total ban on contact visits with both attorneys and friends and family, substandard physical and psychological health care, and a lack of access to sufficient religious services.

• Document type Academic report
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Death Row Conditions, Death Row Phenomenon, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

The racial dimensions of the death penalty are well-documented. Many observers assume this state of affairs derives from bias—often implicit and occasionally explicit—against black defendants in particular. Research points to an even more alarming factor. The race of the victim, not the defendant, steers cases in the direction of death. Regardless of the perpetrator’s race, those who kill whites are more likely to face capital charges, receive a death sentence, and die by execution than those who murder blacks. This short Essay adds a contemporary gloss to the race-of-victim effect literature, placing it in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement and showing how it relates to the broader, systemic devaluation of African-American lives.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Discrimination,

THE PHANTOM tells the story of one of the darkest episodes in the long history of American justice. A story of how the State of Texas knowingly sent an innocent man to his death and left a serial killer at large. A case in which – for the first time – it can be conclusively proven that the US courts executed a blameless man.

This film uncovers the shocking truth behind a tale of murder, corruption and lies that unfolded in the dusty, desperate streets of a Texas oil town nearly thirty years ago.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence / Public Opinion 

The fundamental task of the mitigation specialist is to conduct a comprehensive social history of the defendant and identify all relevant mitigation issues. The 2003 revised edition of the American Bar Association Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases recognizes the mitigation specialist as an “indispensable member of the defense team throughout all capital proceedings.” What are the particular responsibilities and contributions of a mitigation specialist and what makes them so essential to the capital defense team as to warrant this long overdue recognition by the ABA Guidelines?

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Legal Representation,

This report has been prepared for Governor Ryan’s Commission on Capital Punishment to provide additional information on those who have been wrongfully convicted of murder and subsequently incarcerated. It is hoped that this information is useful in the Commission’s consideration of possible improvements in the way criminal justice agencies and allied entities meet the needs of those who have been wrongfully convicted.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Networks,

General comment No. 36 on article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, on the right to life.

• Document type United Nations report
• Themes list International law, Right to life, Death Penalty,

• Document type Book
• Themes list Death Penalty,

Renowned capital defense attorney Stephen Bright discusses the death penalty in light of recent Supreme Court decisions.

• Document type Arguments against the death penalty
• Themes list Networks,

This video explores the story of Leonel Herrera who was sentenced to death for the murder of a police man. A statement from his nephew came many years later that shed light on Leonels innocence.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,
• Available languages Death Penalty - Mistake (Leonel Herrera)

This book tells the story of Alfred Dewayne Brown, a man who spent over twelve years in prison (ten of them on Texas’ infamous Death Row) for a high-profile crime he did not commit, and his lawyer, Brian Stolarz, who dedicated his career and life to secure his freedom. The book chronicles Brown’s extraordinary journey to freedom against very long odds, overcoming unscrupulous prosecutors, corrupt police, inadequate defense counsel, and a broken criminal justice system. The book examines how a lawyer-client relationship turned into one of brotherhood.Grace And Justice On Death Row also addresses many issues facing the criminal justice system and the death penalty – race, class, adequate defense counsel, and intellectual disability, and proposes reforms.Told from Stolarz’s perspective, this raw, fast-paced look into what it took to save one man’s life will leave you questioning the criminal justice system in this country. It is a story of injustice and redemption that must be told.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence, Death Row Conditions, Death Penalty,

MYTH: Death penalty trials are a fair process. Trials and appeals are closely scrutinised. The defendant’s basic rights are protected. FACT: People are executed around the world every day because they did not have a fair trial.

• Document type Academic report
• Themes list Fair Trial,

What would you do if your child was murdered?
What would you do if your child was convicted of murder?

Alice Goodman has known great loss. Since the brutal murder of her daughter Madeline decades earlier, she has tirelessly fought to see the killer pay for his crime. Now, after twenty years, the day has arrived that she will witness his long-delayed execution. Will justice finally be done? Will she finally find the peace that has long eluded to her?

Lori Williams knows she was not the perfect mother, but she never believed her son Mark could be guilty of the crime that placed him on death row. Confronting every challenge along the way, she refused to give up her pursuit of the truth—a truth she believed would set her son free. Will it be enough?

Both women are fighting for a justice they believe has been denied their children. Now, their lives are on a collision course with each other. Is either woman prepared for the truth?

• Document type Book
• Countries list Canada
• Themes list Right to life, Clemency, Death Penalty,

Life in the Balance: a book on the Billy Wayne Sinclair Story, A Journey from Murder to Redemption Inside America’s Worst Prison System. The New York Times Book Review called it a “numbing tale of crime, punishment, and redemption.”

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence, Country/Regional profiles,

Presentation of Madalyn Wasilczuk and Sharon Pia Hickey, Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide, for the Fact-finding workshop focused on the socioeconomic status of people on death row which took place during the 2017 General Assembly of the World Coalition

• Document type Multimedia content
• Themes list Death Row Conditions, Death Row Phenomenon, World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Death Penalty, Statistics,

Presentation of Lin Hsinyi, Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty for the Fact-finding workshop focused on the socioeconomic status of people on death row which took place during the 2017 General Assembly of the World Coalition

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list Taiwan
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition, Death Row Conditions, Death Row Phenomenon, World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Death Penalty, Statistics,

This study is about the question of whether the death penalty is a more effective deterrent than long-term imprisonment has been debated for decades or longer by scholars, policy makers, and the general public. In this Article the authors report results from a survey of the world’s leading criminologists that asked their expert opinions on whether the empirical research supports the contention that the death penalty is a superior deterrent.

• Document type Article
• Themes list Deterrence ,

In Abolishing the Death Penalty: Why India Should Say No to Capital Punishment, Gopalkrishna Gandhi asks fundamental questions about the death penalty. Is taking another life a just punishment or an act as inhuman as the crime that triggered it? Does having capital punishment in the law books deter crime? His conclusions are unequivocal: Cruel in its operation, ineffectual as deterrence, unequal in its application in an uneven society, liable like any punishment to be in error but incorrigibly so, these grievous flaws that are intrinsic to the death penalty are compounded by yet another—it leaves the need for retribution unrequited and simply makes society more bloodthirsty.Examining capital punishment around the world from the time of Socrates onwards, the author delves into how the penalty was applied in India during the times of Asoka, Sikandar Lodi, Krishnadevaraya, the Peshwas and the British Raj, and how it works today.

• Document type Book
• Countries list India
• Themes list Public debate, Deterrence , Trend Towards Abolition, Right to life, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

The 2014 Activity Report displays the overall situation of the death penalty in different geographical areas of the world: Africa, Middle East and North Africa, Asia-Pacific, Americas and Europe. The report shows the developments, as well as the challenges, in the struggle against the death penalty. Finally, it presents the new strategies that the World Coalition against the Death Penalty is going to develop in the next years.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list World Coalition Against the Death Penalty,

The European Court of Human Rights is an international court set up in 1959. It rules on individual or State applications alleging violations of the civil and political rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights. Since 1998 it has sat as a full-time court and individuals can apply to it directly.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Networks,
• Available languages German : Der in Kürze GerichthofLa Cour en Bref

In addition to reporting on the principal initiatives undertaken in 2006 to address the scourge of extrajudicial executions around the world, this report focuses on four issues of particular importance: (a) the mandate of the Special Rapporteur in armed conflicts; (b) “mercy killings” in armed conflict; (c) the “most serious crimes” for which the death penalty may be imposed; and (d) the international law status of the mandatory death penalty.

• Document type International law - United Nations
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition,
• Available languages تقرير المقرر الخاص المعني بحالات الإعدام خارج نطاق القضاءДоклад Специального докладчика по вопросу о внесудебных казнях, казнях без надлежащего судебного разбирательства или произвольных казнях Филипа АлстонаRapport du Rapporteur spécial sur les exécutions extrajudiciaires, sommaires ou arbitraires, M. Philip Alston法外处决、即审即决或任意处决问题特别报告员菲利普·奥尔斯顿的报告法外处决、即审即决或任意处决问题特别报告员菲利普·奥尔斯顿的报告Informe del Relator Especial, Philip Alston, sobre las ejecuciones extrajudiciales, sumarias o arbitrarias

This file is relevant to the US, giving a list of states where governors can grant clemency, where the governor must have recommendations of clemency and where governors recieve a non-binding recommendation of clemency.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Networks,

This page contains videos and documents on issues dealing with the death penalty.

• Document type Arguments against the death penalty

The report “Sentenced to oblivion. Fact-finding mission on death row. Cameroon”, which was officially launched on 21 June at the Delegation of the European Union from Yaoundé to Cameroon, is the result of an unprecedented fact-finding mission, conducted from May to October 2018 in five Cameroonian prisons by the Cameroonian Lawyers’ Network against the Death Penalty (Racopem) and the association ECPM (Ensemble contre la peine de mort).

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Death Row Conditions, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages Condamnés à l'oubli. Mission d'enquête dans les couloirs de la mort. Cameroun

This article examines, from a legal perspective, why executions in Taiwan declined from 78 in 1990 to zero in 2006. The inquiry focuses on three considerations: the number of laws that authorized employment of the death penalty; the code of criminal procedure; and the manner in which executions were carried out, including the manner in which amnesty was granted. The article argues that the ratification of international covenants and constitutional interpretations did not play a significant role in the decline, and that several factors that did play a role included the annulment or amendment of laws, changes in criminal procedure, establishment of and further amendments to guidelines for execution and two laws for reducing sentences. This article maintains that the absence of executions in 2006 is a unique situation that will not last because some inmates remain on death row, meaning that executions in Taiwan will continue unless the death penalty is abolished. However, the article concludes that the guarantee of the utmost human right, the right to life, can be sustained in Taiwan through the demands of democratic majority rule.

• Document type Article
• Countries list Taiwan
• Themes list Networks,

As the number of post-conviction DNA exonerations mounted and the Innocence Project undertook to treat these exonerations as a data set indicating the principal causes of wrongful conviction, the absence of fingerprint cases in that data set could have been interpreted as soft evidence that latent print evidence was unlikely to contribute to wrongful convictions. That situation changed in 2004 when Stephan Cowans became the first – and thus far the only – person to be exonerated by DNA evidence for a wrongful conviction in which fingerprint evidence was a contributing factor. Cowans’s wrongful conviction in Boston in 1997 for the attempted murder of a police officer was based almost solely on eyewitness identification and latent print evidence. The Cowans case not only provided dramatic additional support for the already established proposition that wrongful conviction by fingerprint was possible, it also demonstrated why the exposure of such cases, when they do occur, is exceedingly unlikely. These points have already been made in a comprehensive 2005 study of exposed cases of latent print misattributions. In this article, I discuss some additional things that we have learned about the prevalence and potential causes of wrongful conviction by fingerprint in the short time since the publication of that study.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence,

As a young girl Rita was so self-conscious she would only sweep the floor inside the house. Nonetheless, poverty drove her to work overseas. Learning she was coming home one day, an acquaintance – Eka – pressed her to bring back a suitcase with some clothes. Rita was too afraid to refuse. The bag was lined with drugs. Eka is still out there. Rita’s only hope is that Malaysia revises its death penalty policy.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Themes list Juveniles, Death Row Phenomenon, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

Sentenced to death in Uganda for murder, Susan Kigula never stopped to claim her innocence. Creator of a death row inmates’ choir and law graduate from the University of London, she finally obtained her release after 15 years in prison. In Uganda, she became a real symbol of the fight against the death penalty. She continues the fight with us, and created the Susan Kigula African Child Foundation.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Death Row Conditions, Death Penalty,

Published on Real Stories YouTube channel, this documentary casts a penetrating look at the consequences of the death penalty through three powerful stories – the rare perspective of a former state executioner who comes within days of executing an innocent person; a Boston Marathon bombing victim who struggles to decide what justice really means; and the parents of a murder victim who choose to fight for the life of their daughter’s killer. As the battle to overturn capital punishment comes to a head in the U.S., this provocative film challenges viewers to question their deepest beliefs about justice.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Public debate, Death Row Conditions, Death Penalty,

The report covers the period from January to December 2010, though some key events in early 2011 have also been included. It highlights the important progressbeing made, serious concerns that we have, and what we are doing to promote our values around the world. It will rightly be studied closely by Parliament, NGOs and the wider public. There is a chapter dedicated to the death penalty, as well as 2010 figures on the death penalty in target countries.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Afghanistan
• Themes list Networks,

This work honours William A. Schabas and his career with essays by luminary scholars and jurists from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. The essays examine contemporary, historical, cultural, and theoretical aspects of the many arcs of global justice with which Professor Schabas has engaged, in fields including public international law, human rights, transitional justice, international criminal law, and capital punishment.Table of Contents (regarding information on the death penalty)II. Capital PunishmentChapter 5: International Law and the Death Penalty: A Toothless Tiger, or a Meaningful Force for Change?Sandra L. BabcockChapter 6: The UN Optional Protocol on the Abolition of the Death PenaltyMarc BossuytChapter 7: The Right to Life and the Progressive Abolition of the Death PenaltyChristof Heyns and Thomas Probert and Tess BordenChapter 8: Progress and Trend of the Reform of the Death Penalty in ChinaZhao Bingzhi

• Document type Book
• Themes list International law, Death Penalty,

Activists have embraced the life-without-parole alternative because the availability of parole is often a key factor for jurors deciding whether of not to impose a sentence of life or death.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Sentencing Alternatives,

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Deterrence , Member organizations, Death Penalty,

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Deterrence , Member organizations, Death Penalty,

They undertake this “cultural voyage” comparatively—examining the dynamics of the death penalty in Mexico, the United States, Poland, Kyrgyzstan, India, Israel, Palestine, Japan, China, Singapore, and South Korea—arguing that we need to look beyond the United States to see how capital punishment “lives” or “dies” in the rest of the world, how images of state killing are produced and consumed elsewhere, and how they are reflected, back and forth, in the emerging international judicial and political discourse on the penalty of death and its abolition.

• Document type Book
• Countries list China
• Themes list Networks,

This report covers the judicial use of the death penalty for the period January to December 2016. As in previous years, information is collected from a variety of sources, including: official figures; information from individuals sentenced to death and their families and representatives; reporting by other civil society organizations; and media reports. Amnesty International reports only on executions, death sentences and other aspects of the use of the death penalty, such as commutations and exonerations, where there is reasonable confirmation.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition, Death Penalty, Statistics, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages condamnations à mort et exécutions en 2016Condenas a muerte y ejecuciones 2016

There is a lack of research on attitudes toward capital punishment in China, and there is even less research on cross-national comparisons of capital punishment views. Using data recently collected from college students in the United States and China, this study finds that U.S. and Chinese students have differences in their views on the death penalty and its functions of deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation. This study also reveals that the respondents’ perspectives of deterrence, rehabilitation, retribution, and incapacitation all affect their attitudes toward the death penalty in the United States, whereas only the first three views affect attitudes toward capital punishment in China. Furthermore, retribution is the strongest predictor in the United States, whereas deterrence is the strongest predictor in China.

• Document type Article
• Countries list China
• Themes list Public opinion, Public debate,

This report covers the judicial use of the death penalty for the period January to December 2013. Amnesty International records figures on the use of the death penalty based on the best available information.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Death Penalty, Statistics,
• Available languages أحكام الإعدام وعمليات الإعدام في عام 2013احکام اعدام و اجرای مجازات اعدام در سال 2013Смертные приговоры и казни в 2013 годуCondamnations à mort et exécutions en 2013Condenas a muerte y ejecuciones en 2013

Poster for the world day against the death penalty 2003

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition

In 1981, Mumia worked as a cab driver at night to supplement his income. On December 9th he was driving his cab through the red light district of downtown Philadelphia at around 4 a.m. Mumia testifies that he let off a fare and parked near the corner of 13th and Locust Streets. Upon hearing gunshots, he turned and saw his brother, William Cook, staggering in the street. Mumia exited the cab and ran to the scene, where he was shot by a uniformed police officer and fell to the ground, fading in and out of consciousness. Within minutes, police arrived on the scene to find Officer Faulkner and Mumia shot; Faulkner died. Mumia was arrested, savagely beaten, thrown into a paddy wagon and driven to a hospital a few blocks away (suspiciously, it took over 30 minutes to arrive at the hospital). The trial began in 1982 with Judge Sabo (who sent more people to death row than any other judge) presiding. Mumia wished to represent himself and have John Africa as his legal advisor, but before jury selection had finished, this right was revoked and an attorney was forcibly appointed for him. Throughout the trial, Mumia was accused of disrupting court proceedings and was not allowed to attend most of his own trial.

• Document type Legal Representation
• Themes list Networks,

The goal of our bill is simple, but profoundly important: to reduce the risk of mistaken executions. The Innocence Protection Act proposes basic, common-sense reforms to our criminal justice system that are designed to protect the innocent and to ensure that if the death penalty is imposed, it is the result of informed and reasoned deliberation, not politics, luck, bias, or guesswork. We have listened to a lot of good advice and made some refinements to the bill since the last Congress, but it is still structured around two principal reforms: improving the availability of DNA testing, and ensuring reasonable minimum standards and funding for court-appointed counsel.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence,

The summer issue of International Foreign Affaires focuses on the topic of capital punishment around the world. It collects articles and interviews dealing with the issues of death penalty, the path towards abolition, and the situation of capital punishment in the world.

• Document type International law - Regional body
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Death Row Conditions, Death Penalty,

The ABA concluded in 1997 that pervasive unfairness in capital punishment regimes warranted a halt to executions unless all of the systemic problems the ABA identified were corrected. Four years later, with those problems still pervasive, the ABA’s Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities issued protocols designed to facilitate the evaluation of the fairness—or lack thereof—of a jurisdiction’s capital punishment system. The protocols are particularly timely because many state legislative bodies are authorizing, or considering authorizing, studies of death penalty implementation. The protocols provide an overview, a list of questions to consider, and recommendations with regard to each topic area they cover. While these are not exhaustive, and are not fully applicable in every death penalty jurisdiction, they should prove invaluable to any group seeking to seriously evaluate the manner in which capital punishment is actually administered today.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

More than 1,000 men and women have been put to death in the USA since executions resumed there in 1977. Dozens of these people had histories of mental impairment, either from before the crimes for which they were sentenced, or at the time of their execution. The report discusses many cases and includes an illustrative list of 100 people. It does not attempt to answer the complex question of precisely which defendants should be exempt from the death penalty on the grounds of mental illness at the time of the crime.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Mental Illness, Intellectual Disability,

The World Day Against the Death Penalty is aimed at political leaders and public opinion in both retentionist and abolitionist countries.

For the 19th year in a row, the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty is calling for local initiatives and world-wide actions that shine a spotlight on the abolition of the death penalty.

The goal of this Mobilization Kit is to inform of this year’s objectives as well provide ideas of activities that boost the global abolitionist goal. This year the World Day is dedicated to women who risk being sentenced to death, who have received a death sentence, who have been executed, and to those who have had their death sentences commuted, have been exonerated or pardoned.

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Women
• Available languages رزمة التعبئةKit de mobilisation Journée mondiale 2021動員資料包

Factsheet for the media – World Day Against the Death Penalty 2018.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Death Row Conditions, Death Row Phenomenon, World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Death Penalty,
• Available languages Fiche pratique pour les médias

Working with the United Nations Human Rights Programme: A Handbook for Civil Society is addressed to the civil society actors who, every day in every part of the world, contribute to the promotion, protection and advancement of human rights. Developed following a survey among users of the first edition of the Handbook—Working with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights: A Handbook for NGOs (2006)—this comprehensively updated and revised second edition puts United Nations human rights bodies and mechanisms at its centre. Speaking to all civil society actors, including but not only non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the Handbook explains how civil society can engage with various United Nations human rights bodies and mechanisms. It is the hope of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) that this Handbook will enable more people to enjoy and make claim to their human rights through these bodies and mechanisms.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Networks,
• Available languages Как работать по Программе ООН в области прав человека Справочник для гражданского обществаTravailler avec le Programme des Nations Unies pour les Droits de l’Homme: Un Manuel pour la Société Civile参与联合国人权事务 民间社会手册Trabajando con el Programa de las Naciones Unidas en el ámbito de los Derechos Humanos Un manual para la sociedad civil

This is the fourth consecutive year that Hands off Cain is publishing its report on the death penalty. The events registered in 2000 reveal a positive trend towards abolition.As of 31/12/2000, there were 123 abolitionist countries of various types: 77 were fully abolitionist, 12 were abolitionist for ordinary crimes, 30 were de facto abolitionist (they haven´t carried out a death sentence in at least ten years), 2 were engaged in abolishing the death penalty as members of the Council of Europe, 2 had a legal moratoria on executions. Seventy three states retained the death penalty.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Statistics,
• Available languages Italian : Sintesi dei fatti più rilevanti del 2000

A Comparative Analysis of Capital Punishment provides a concise and detailed history of the death penalty. Incorporating and synthesizing public opinion data and empirical studies, Simon and Blaskovich’s work compares, across societies, the types of offenses punishable by death, the level of public support for the death penalty, the forms the penalty takes, and the categories of persons exempt from punishment.

• Document type Book
• Themes list Public opinion,

The worldwide situation to date: The worldwide trend towards abolition, underway for at least a decade, was again confirmed in 2004 and the first half of 2005. There are currently 138 countries that to different extents have decided to renounce the death penalty. Of these: 86 are totally abolitionist; 11 are abolitionist for ordinary crimes; 1 (Russia) is committed to abolishing the death penalty as a member of the Council of Europe and currently observing a moratorium on executions; 5 have a moratorium on executions in place and 35 are de facto abolitionist (i.e. no executions have taken place in those countries for at least ten years). Since the beginning of 2004, 3 countries have passed from retention to an extent of abolition, whereas 5 countries have advanced within the categories of the abolitionist group.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Statistics,
• Available languages Italian : SINTESI DEI FATTI PIU’ IMPORTANTI DEL 2004 (e dei primi mesi del 2005)LES FAITS LES PLUS IMPORTANTS DE 2004 (ET DES PREMIERS NEUF MOIS DE 2005)

There are two puzzles that confront observers of American capital punishment at the start of the 21st century. One concerns the legal and administrative arrangements through which it is enacted, which strike many commentators as irrational, or at least poorly adapted to the traditional ends of criminal justice. The other concerns the persistence of capital punishment in the USA in a period when comparable nations have decisively abandoned its use. In this essay, I will address both of these two questions, beginning with the first and offering conclusions that bear upon the second.The historical struggles around issues of capital punishment, structured as they have been by the American polity with its distinctive mix of federalism, sectionalism, and democratic populism, form the necessary basis for understanding the American present and for comparing America’s current practices with those of other western nations. Any explanation of American capital punishment ought to begin by focusing attention on these structures and these struggles.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

The use of the death penalty is frequent in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. In 2009, the government reduced the number of offences punishable by death from 29 to 22. Capital punishment is applied for crimes including murder, armed robbery, drug trafficking, rape, sexual abuse of children, and a range of economic crimes. Execution is by firing squad. A draft law was introduced in November 2009 proposing the use of two methods of execution, either by firing squad or by lethal injection. Statistics on the number of death sentences and executions are not made public. Indeed, following criticisms by international human rights organisations, in January 2004, Vietnam adopted a decree classifying death penalty statistics as “state secrets”. According to the Vietnamese and international press, at least 100 people are executed each year in Vietnam. In 2007, 104 death sentences were pronounced, including 14 women. In 2010, the official legal magazine Phap Luat (Law) reported 11 death sentences for the month of January alone.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Viet Nam
• Themes list Death Row Conditions, Firing Squad,

This volume provides up-to-date and nuanced analysis across a wide spectrum of capital punishment issues. The essays move beyond the conventional legal approach and propose fresh perspectives, including a unique critique of the abolition sector. Written by a range of leading experts with diverse geographical, methodological and conceptual approaches, the essays in this volume challenge received wisdom and embrace a holistic understanding of capital punishment based on practical experience and empirical data. This collection is indispensable reading for anyone seeking a comprehensive and detailed understanding of the complexity of the death penalty discourse.

• Document type Book
• Themes list Death Penalty,

The essays selected for this volume develop conventional abolition discourse and explore the conceptual framework through which abolition is understood and posited. Of particular interest is the attention given to an integral but often forgotten element of the abolition debate: alternatives to capital punishment. The volume also provides an account of strategies employed by the abolition community which challenges tired methodologies and offers a level of transparency previously unseen. This collection tackles complex but fundamental components of the capital punishment debate using empirical data and expert observations and is essential reading for those wishing to comprehend the fundamental issues which underpin capital punishment discourse.

• Document type Book
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition, Death Penalty,

The worldwide situation to date: The practice of the death penalty has drastically diminished in the past few years. Today the countries or territories that have abolished it or decline to apply it number 130. Of these: 78 are totally abolitionist; 14 are abolitionist for ordinary crimes; 2 are committed to abolition as members of the Council of Europe and in the meanwhile observe a moratorium; 6 countries are currently observing a moratorium and 30 are de facto abolitionist, not having executed any death sentences in the past ten years.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Statistics,
• Available languages Italian : I FATTI PIU´ IMPORTANTI DEL 2002

English version starts at 15 minutes and 59 seconds. ‘Words beyond death row’, extracts from testimonies of death row prisoners illustrated by a photo screening, in partnership with PhotoEspaña. This movie was presented during the 5th World Congress against the death penalty in Madrid in June 2013, by Ensemble contre la peine de mort – ECPM (Together against the death penalty) #Abolition201

• Document type Multimedia content
• Themes list Death Row Conditions, Death Penalty,
• Available languages Des mots par-delà le couloir

Forty-three years after the Supreme Court reversed course and reinstated the death penalty, reliable data on the individuals sent to death row is maddeningly difficult to obtain. The Intercept set out to compile a comprehensive dataset on everyone sentenced to die in active death penalty jurisdictions since 1976. The findings show that capital punishment remains as “arbitrary and capricious” as ever.

• Document type International law - Regional body
• Themes list Statistics, Country/Regional profiles,

“The Punishment” is a short film that takes place in 1978 at a Texas State Penitentiary. The story follows inmate Randle Kohler’s last hours on Death Row leading up to his execution. The only human being he’s able to communicate with is the Prison Guard assigned to bring him his last meal. As their conversation develops we begin to see more and more layers of Kohler’s past and the events that led him to the prison cell.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Death Row Conditions, Electrocution, Death Penalty,

The report covers the judicial use of death penalty for the period January to December 2012.It summarises Amnesty International’s global research on the death penalty. Information was gathered from various sources including official statistics (where available), non-governmental and inter-governmental organizations, human rights defenders, the media and interviews with survivors of human rights violations

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Death Penalty, Statistics,
• Available languages أحكام الإعدام وما نُفذ منها في عام 2012

The attached Log gives available details of death sentences and executions occurring in China throughout 1999.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Statistics,

OTSE is a coalition of individuals and organizations working to reduce use of and ultimately end capital punishment in Ohio. The purpose of the report is to provide information and analysis to the media, members of the general public, legislators and state leaders.The death penalty in Ohio has become increasingly rare and is relegated to just a few high-use,outlier counties.Indeed, although Ohio has set an execution schedule unmatched by any state in the country up to the year 2023, it seems doubtful, based on its history of litigation and execution drug shortages, that Ohio will execute all those individuals.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Death Row Conditions, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

Scott Panetti was accused of killing his parents in law and convicted. Scott suffered from severe mental illness for many years, Schizophrenia. He dismissed his legal counsel and represented himself at trial wearing a cow boy suit and asking irrelavent questions. This video tells the story of Scott Panetti’s case and questions whether he was mentally stable to attend trial and represent himself.

• Document type Legal Representation
• Themes list Networks,

The Advocates for Human Rights, in collaboration with the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty and the Iraqi Coalition Against the Death Penalty, submitted a joint stakeholder report to the U.N. Human Rights Council for its October-November 2014 Universal Periodic Review of Iraq. This submission describes Iraq’s international human rights obligations with regard to its use of the death penalty.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Minorities, Due Process , Fair Trial, International law, Transparency, Torture, Discrimination, Legal Representation, Most Serious Crimes, Hanging, Death Penalty, Statistics, Country/Regional profiles,

Article 51. Every human being has the inherent right to life.2. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.Article 6Sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes inaccordance with the laws in force at the time of commission of the crime and pursuant to a final judgement rendered by a competent court. Anyone sentenced to death shall have the right to seek pardon or commutation of the sentence.Article 71. Sentence of death shall not be imposed on persons under 18 years of age, unlessotherwise stipulated in the laws in force at the time of the commission of the crime.2. The death penalty shall not be inflicted on a pregnant woman prior to her deliveryor on a nursing mother within two years from the date of her delivery; in all cases, the best interests of the infant shall be the primary consideration.

• Document type Regional body report
• Themes list International law, Right to life, Most Serious Crimes,
• Available languages الميثاق العربي لحقوق الإنسانCHARTE ARABE DES DROITS DE L’HOMME

State legislatures principally have been responsible for the acceptance and evolution (and even sometimes the abandonment) of capital punishment in the American criminal justice system from the colonial and founding eras, through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and now into the twenty-first century. A number of colonial legislative enactments, though influenced by England’s embrace of the punishment of death, uniquely defined and often significantly confined which crimes were to be subject to capital punishment.[1] State legislatures further narrowed the reach of the death penalty through the early nineteenth century as states, prodded often by vocal abolitionists and led by developments in Pennsylvania, divided the offense of murder into degrees and provided that only the most aggravated murderers would be subject to the punishment of death. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries also saw states, as the product of legislative enactments, move away from mandating death as the punishment for certain crimes by giving juries discretion to choose which defendants would be sentenced to die. Throughout all these periods, statutory enactments have also played a fundamental role in the evolution of where and how executions are carried out.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

A new study by the Brennan Center for Justice examined several possible explanations for the dramatic drop in crime in the U.S. in the 1990s and 2000s. Among the theories studied was use of the death penalty, which the report found had no effect on the decline in crime.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Deterrence ,

The release of Sierra Leone’s longest serving female death row prisoner.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Sierra Leone
• Themes list Innocence,

Victim impact evidence is presented during sentencing hearings to convey the harm experienced by victims and victims’ relatives as a result of a crime. Its use in capital cases is highly controversial. Some argue that the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the admission of victim impact statements (VIS) during capital sentencing proceedings (Payne v. Tennessee, 1991) invites prejudice and judgments based on emotion rather than reason. Others reason that it provides an important voice for survivors and affords the jury an opportunity to learn about the victim. The authors outline the chief psychological issues that arise in the context of VIS, including their relevance to jurors’ judgments of blameworthiness, concerns that the social worth of the victim will influence jurors’ sentencing decisions, and issues related to the emotional appeal of VIS. Psycholegal research on the influence of VIS on mock jurors is reviewed, and implications of this work for capital sentencing policy and suggested directions for future research are discussed.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Fair Trial, Murder Victims' Families,

The late, great Ren Osugi (Hana-bi) stars as a prison chaplain working on death row in this thought-provoking chamber drama—his final film as an actor and first as a producer. Visiting with a regular roster of inmates who await their final sentence—including a converted ex-yakuza and a philosophy-spouting mass murderer—the newly appointed clergyman gradually learns of their circumstances and is forced to confront his own understanding of life, death and salvation. Featuring unforgettable characters and a restrained visual style, Dai Sako’s searching film takes on the rarely-addressed topic of Japan’s death penalty in order to question the state of the country’s soul.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list Japan
• Themes list Retribution, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

Regularly denounced by human rights associations, violations of the right to a fair trial and inequality before the law for prisoners who face the death penalty are flagrant. Most prisoners belong to the most disadvantaged social classes or to ethnic or religious minorities. Involved in often questionable circumstances, with confessions extracted under frequent beatings and torture, many litigants are not given an adequate defence. To defend these cases, lawyers appointed ex officio receive 200 rupees per hearing (less than 5 U.S. dollars). Often young and inexperienced to deal with procedures not respecting the minimum fair trial guarantees, these lawyers are not in a position to ensure the mandate entrusted to them.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Due Process , Discrimination, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages Pakistan, une longue marche pour la démocratie et l'etat de droit

On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the full text of which appears in the following pages. Following this historic act the Assembly called upon all Member countries to publicize the text of the Declaration and “to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories.” Article 3 – Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

• Document type United Nations report
• Themes list International law, Right to life,
• Available languages المتحدة الإعلان العالمي لحقوق الإنسانВсеобщую декларацию прав человекаDéclaration universelle des droits de l'homme世界人权宣言Declaración Universal de Derechos Humanos

Article 37States Parties shall ensure that:(a) No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age.

• Document type United Nations report
• Themes list Juveniles, International law,
• Available languages اتفاقية حقوق الطفلКонвенция о правах ребенкаConvention relative aux droits de l'enfant儿童权利公约Convención sobre los Derechos del Niño

More than 720 men and 11 women are under sentence of death in Nigeria’s prisons. They have one thing in common, beyond not knowing when they will be put to death. They are poor. From their first contact with the police, through the trial process, to seeking pardon, those with the fewest resources are at a serious disadvantage. This text describes the treatment of the death penalty in Nigeria.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Due Process , Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages Nigéria: Pour qui vient le bourreau?

This book provides an introduction to socio-legal forms of mitigation in capital sentencing. It helps mitigation specialists, defense investigators, social scientists, and lawyers in developing socio-cultural themes of mitigation. It examines scientific formulations, concepts, and frameworks for structuring social history investigations and assessments of moral culpability. A fundamental aim of this handbook was to provide mitigation professionals not only with an understanding of the context of mitigation in criminal justice thinking, but also ways of contextualizing issues of blame and culpability.

• Document type Book
• Themes list Due Process ,

يق |ناسنلإا قوقحل ةيماسلا ةدحتملا مملأا ةيضوفم بتكم / | |2013||externe | | http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/AboutUs/CivilSociety/OHCHRFundsGuide_ar.pdf|OHCHR-2013|Academic report|International law, Networks, |
en12671|OHCHR Practical Guide for Civil Society: Human Rights Funds, Grants and Fellowships|This Practical Guide – the fourth in the series of practical guides for civil society – provides a brief description of funding sources, grants and fellowships administered by or with the participation of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). |Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights / | |2013||externe | | http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/AboutUs/CivilSociety/OHCHRFundsGuide_en.pdf|OHCHR-2013|Academic report|International law, Networks, |
en12670|Fighting for Their Lives: Inside the Experience of Capital Defense Attorneys|How do attorneys who represent clients facing the death penalty cope with the stress and trauma of their work? Through conversations with twenty of the most experienced and dedicated post-conviction capital defenders in the United States, Fighting for Their Lives explores this emotional territory for the first time|Susannah Sheffer / Vanderbilt University Press / | |2013|United States|externe | | http://www.susannahsheffer.com/fighting-for-their-lives.html||Book|Country/Regional profiles, |
en12669|Invers Theatre Company presents A Cry Too Far From Heaven”

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Academic report

Un regard déchirant sur la vie des femmes condamnées et les failles du système judiciaire américain. Aux Etats-Unis, 54 femmes « attendent » l’exécution de leur peine. Linda Carty et Melissa Lucio sont emprisonnées au Texas, Shawna Forde en Arizona. Elles se livrent. Parmi les prisonnières, certaines espèrent la révision de leur procès.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Death Row Conditions  / Gender / Women

The American Medical Association is among many medical professional organizations that prohibit the participation of physicians in the physical act of execution. Despite these clear guidelines, debate remains regarding physician involvement in various aspects of death penalty cases. This article outlines different positions that physicians and specifically forensic psychiatrists have taken on this issue. Our position is that given the overwhelming secondary duty related to their physician role—specifically to do no harm—forensic psychiatrists should not use their expertise if they believe their involvement will be used for the primary purpose of obtaining a death penalty.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Intellectual Disability,

Conditions surrounding the death penalty and its application necessitate examination and recognition of the tortuous experience endured by death row inmates, as it culminates in the onset of the death row phenomenon

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Death Row Phenomenon,

The ACLU conducted an analysis of court rulings in the 25 Washington cases in which the death sentence has been imposed since 1981, when the current death penalty statute took effect. That analysis of almost two decades of death sentences and executions makes it clear that the system by which we impose and review death sentences in Washington is fundamentally flawed.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Networks,

In this paper we use reported exonerations as a window on false convictions generally. We can’t come close to estimating the number of false convictions that occur in the United States, but the accumulating mass of exonerations gives us a glimpse of what we’re missing. We located 340 individual exonerations from 1989 through 2003, not counting at least 135 innocent defendants in at least two mass exonerations, and not counting more than 70 defendants convicted in a series of childcare sex abuse prosecutions, most of whom were probably innocent. Almost all the individual exonerations that we know about are clustered in the two most serious common felonies: rape and murder. They are surrounded by widening circles of categories of cases that include false convictions that are rarely detected, if ever: rape convictions that have not been reexamined with DNA evidence; robberies, for which DNA identification is useless; murder cases that are ignored because the defendants were not sentenced to death; assault and drug convictions that are forgotten entirely; misdemeanor convictions that aren’t even part of the picture. Judging from our data, any plausible guess at the total number of miscarriages of justice in America in the last fifteen years must run to the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, in felony cases alone. We can, however, see some clear patterns in those false convictions that have come to light.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence,

This Article aims to provide an examination: An analysis of the state procedures that prisoners may employ after trial to litigate innocence claims grounded on newly discovered non-DNA evidence. Ultimately, the result of this examination is far from sanguine. Little-altered in decades beyond the trend toward recognizing the benefits of DNA testing, the structure of most state procedures means that a prisoner’s quest for justice may turn on the fortuity that a biological sample was left at the crime scene and preserved over time. The fact that DNA testing provides a modicum of certainty to an innocence claim does not imply that claims lacking the possibility of such certainty are spurious; on the contrary, DNA has unearthed holes in the criminal justice system, holes that are likely also prevalent in cases without biological evidence.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence, Networks,

The Article proceeds in three parts. Part I explains the pivotal role that “actual” innocence has played in the Innocence Movement. It shows that even though the Innocence Movement has begun to broaden its DNA-based focus to include non-DNA-based claims, its goal has remained constant: achieving justice for “actually” innocent people. Part I then shows how the Innocence Movement has prioritized the cases of “actually” innocent people who were convicted through trial over “actually” innocent people who pleaded guilty. The prioritization of wrongful convictions derived from trials over wrongful convictions from pleas underscores how the Innocence Movement has overlooked the claims of people who have pleaded guilty and are not “actually” innocent, but who may still have strong wrongful conviction claims based on fundamental constitutional violations. Part II examines innocence unmodified in the context of trials and postconviction appeals. It asserts that one reason to protect innocence unmodified is because under the Court‟s existing jurisprudence, “actual” innocence alone is not enough to reverse a wrongful conviction. This is because the Supreme Court has not yet decided whether the Constitution forbids the execution of an “actually” innocent person who was convicted through a “full and fair” trial. Because the Court has not recognized a freestanding “actual” innocence claim, the “actual” innocence of a wrongly convicted person only matters as a door through which to allow a court to reach underlying constitutional claims. Part II uses the example of a recent Supreme Court decision, In Re Troy Davis, to highlight how an isolated prioritization of “actual” innocence does not achieve justice for wrongly convicted people. Part III examines innocence unmodified in the context of pleas. It reveals the degree to which the Court has itself polarized innocence in the context of pleas—prioritizing “actual” innocence over fundamental constitutional protections for all people.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence,

While there are antecedent factual determinations jurors must make, including the existence of a statutory aggravating circumstance, the final decision the jurors must make is not factual in nature. As the courts have noted, this is an “awesome responsibility,” and the jury must make a “reasoned moral” decision whether life imprisonment without the possibility of parole or the death penalty is the appropriate punishment.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

This report examinesprison conditionsandthe imposition of the death penalty in Japan in light of international human rights standards.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list Japan
• Themes list Due Process , International law, Death Row Conditions,

This report covers the judicial use of the death penalty for the period January to December 2014. As in previous years, information is collected from a variety of sources, including: official figures; information from individuals sentenced to death and their families and representatives; reporting by other civil society organizations; and media reports. Amnesty International reports only on executions, death sentences and other aspects of the use of the death penalty, such as commutations and exonerations, where there is reasonable confirmation.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Statistics, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages СМЕРТНЫЕ ПРИГОВОРЫ И КАЗНИ 2014Condamnations à mort et exécutions en 2014Condenas a muerte y ejecuciones 2014

This report covers the judicial use of the death penalty for the period January to December 2015. As in previous years, information is collected from a variety of sources, including: official figures; information from individuals sentenced to death and their families and representatives; reporting by other civil society organizations; and media reports. Amnesty International reports only on executions, death sentences and other aspects of the use of the death penalty, such as commutations and exonerations, where there is reasonable confirmation.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Statistics, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages СМЕРТНЫЕ ПРИГОВОРЫ И КАЗНИ 2015Condamnations à mort et exécutions en 2015Condenas a muerte y ejecuciones 2015

Poster world day against the death penalty 2004

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition
• Available languages Poster Spanish 2004Affiche journée mondiale 2004

This report discusses Amnesty International’s concern about political imprisonments in Myanmar. Arbitrary arrests; torture and ill-treatment during incommunicado detention; unfair trials; and laws which greatly curtail the rights to freedom of expression and assembly continue as major obstacles to the improvement in the State Peace and Development Council’s human rights record. The section dedicated to the death penalty talks about the death penalty system in relation to specific cases.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list Myanmar
• Themes list Country/Regional profiles,