Your search “Keep the Death Penalty Abolished fin the Philippfines ”

On the occasion of the 2020 World Day, the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty has compiled testimonies from those for whom access to counsel is a matter of life or death.

• Document type Academic report
• Themes list World Coalition Against the Death Penalty,
• Available languages La parole est à la défense - Journée mondiale 2020

The 2015 HANDS OFF CAIN’s Report analyses the current status of executions around the world, providing detailed regional overviews. The Report confirms the worldwide trend towards abolition, even though the death penalty is still applied for violent and non-violent crimes, as in the contexts of the “war on drugs” and the “war on terror”.

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

A vast literature details the crimes that condemned inmates commit, but very little is known about the social histories of these capital offenders. For example, how many offenders possessed mitigating characteristics that demonstrate intellectual or psychological deficits comparable to those shared by classes of offenders categorically excluded from capital punishment? Did these executed offenders suffer from intellectual disability, youthfulness, mental illness, or childhood trauma? The problem with this state of affairs is that the personal characteristics of the defendant can render the death penalty an excessive punishment regardless of the characteristics of the crime. This Article begins to fill the mitigation knowledge gap by describing the social histories of the last hundred offenders executed in America. Scouring state and federal court records, this Article documents the presence of significant mitigation evidence for eighty-seven percent of executed offenders. Though only a first step, our findings suggest the failure of the Supreme Court’s mitigation project to ensure the only offenders subjected to a death sentence are those with “a consciousness materially more depraved” than that of the typical murderer. Indeed, the inverse appears to be true: the vast majority of executed offenders possess significant functional deficits that rival — and perhaps outpace — those associated with intellectual impairment and juvenile status; defendants that the Court has categorically excluded from death eligibility.

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

PRI information pack on the state of the death penalty in 2014: international trends toward abolition; moratorium; the death penalty for the “most serious crimes”; right to a fair trial; mandatory death penalty; conditions of imprisonment; clemency; execution; transparency; deterrence; public opinion; victims’ rights.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Networks,

This sheet details the factors which contribute to the arbitrariness of the death penalty in the USA.

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

As the Presidential elections approach in Ghana, Amnesty International is renewing its call for steps towards abolishing the death penalty, after seven years without any executions. This document describes the current use of the death penalty, giving details of those currently under sentence of death and describing the death penalty under Ghanaian law and international law

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages GHANA : Rapport sur la peine de mortGHANA : Informe sobre la pena de muerte

As our society’s enduring marriage to the death penalty prepares to enter yet another century, it is a marriage that places the children in danger. Why is it that we continue to impose the death penalty for crimes committed by juvenile offenders? As questionable as the death penalty is in general, might we not at least place an “adults only” label on it? The rest of the world has already done so. Only in America need children fear execution by their own government.

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

This project sought to answer questions regarding the socio-economic profile of prisoners sentenced to death in India while looking into the process of death sentencing in itself. By means of meaningful statistics and case studies, this report manages to enlighten some aspects of the death penalty in India which are generally not fully explored and triggers a sociological discussion on these thorny issues that goes beyond the legal analysis of Supreme Court judgments.

Chapters:
1) Coverage of the project
2) Durations on death row
3) Nature of crimes
4) Socio-economic profile
5) Legal assistance

Link to Volume 2: http://www.worldcoalition.org/resourcecentre/document/id/1463669874

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

The ‘Death Penalty in India: Annual Statistics’ attempts to create a comprehensive year-by-year documentation of movements in the death row population in India. The publication tracks important political and legal developments in the administration of the death penalty and the criminal justice system in the year 2020.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list India

The purpose of this paper is to offer a critique and commentary on the European agenda on the abolition of the death penalty, and in so doing the author has relied heavily on the contributions made by a number of commentators to the recent Council of Europe publication, “The Death Penalty: Abolition in Europe”.

• Document type Article
• Themes list International law, Trend Towards Abolition,

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

Experience has proved that for certain governments it is not easy to balance international drug laws with human rights, public health, alternatives to incarceration, and experimentation with regulation.This Report intends to provide a primer on why governments must not turn a blind eye to pressing human rights and public health impacts of current drug policies.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Drug Offences,

Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation and Various Iranian Religious AuthoritiesAbdorrahman Boroumand FoundationNovember 16, 2017Report

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

This web site and its accompanying materials are designed to assist both teachers and students in an exploration of capital punishment, presenting arguments for and against its use, as well as issues of ethics and justice that surround it.

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Networks,

This article explores how, capital punishment in the United States is a minority practice. This feature of American capital punishment has become more pronounced recently, and is especially clear when death sentences, which are merely infrequent, are distinguished from executions, which are exceedingly rare.

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

NGO coalition report submitted to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights

• Document type Academic report

On 16 December 2014, the Government of Pakistan lifted a six-year de facto moratorium on the death penalty. Whilst the Government claims that the lifting of the moratorium is designed to curb terrorism, an analysis of the 423 executions that have taken place till February 2017 reveals that the death penalty has disproportionately impacted the most vulnerable of all populations including juvenile offenders. Even though Pakistan’s international obligations and domestic laws prohibit sentencing juvenile offenders to death, at least 6 have been executed in the past two years.Through this report, the Justice Project Pakistan highlights the fundamental weaknesses under Pakistan’s juvenile justice system that lead to the unlawful and arbitrary implementation of the death penalty against juvenile offenders.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Juveniles, Fair Trial, International law, Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

This volume provides analyses of a range of subjects and issues in the death penalty debate, from medicine to the media. The essays address in particular the personal complexities of those involved, a fundamental part of the subject usually overridden by the theoretical and legal aspects of the debate. The unique personal vantage offered by this volume makes it essential reading for anyone interested in going beyond the removed theoretical understanding of the death penalty, to better comprehending its fundamental humanity. Additionally, the international range of the analysis, enabling disaggregation of country specific motivations, ensures the complexities of the death penalty are also considered from a global perspective.

• Document type Book
• Themes list Death Penalty,

This submission addresses the United States’ compliance with its human rights obligations with regard to its use of the death penalty. This submission concludes that the United States, in continuing to allow a sentence of death, does not guarantee its citizens adequate protection against cruel and unusual punishment, freedom from discrimination, rights to life, liberty and security of person, due process, and equal protection. It also is failing to provide an adequate remedy for those whose rights are violated.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Due Process , Right to life, Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Innocence, Discrimination, Foreign Nationals, Lethal Injection, Country/Regional profiles,

The Ride tells the true story of one of the most gruesome crimes in recent memory—the 1997 abduction and murder of ten-year-old Massachusetts resident Jeffrey Curley—and how his father, Bob Curley, managed to heal the deep wounds of rage and emerge to become an outspoken critic of the death penalty.In vivid, compelling prose, Boston Globe reporter Brian MacQuarrie recounts the brutal crime that shocked New England and chronicles what transpires after Jeffrey’s death, which is nearly as shocking as the crime itself. At the heart of this deeply touching story is the way Bob Curley summons the almost superhuman courage to reject the death penalty. In tracing his personal journey, The Ride presents an appealing everyman hero forced into the spotlight by unfathomable circumstances, and compelled to confront the consequences of his fury.

• Document type Arguments against the death penalty
• Themes list Public opinion, Murder Victims' Families, Death Penalty,

Blind Justice is a report which focuses on the problems of the death penalty from the perspective of jurors. While jurors have always occupied an esteemed position in the broader criminal justice system in the United States, in capital cases the responsibility of jurors is even more critical as they decide whether defendants should live or die. Even with this unique authority in capital cases, they are treated less than respectfully. Frequently, they are kept in the dark regarding key information about the case and are often barred from serving based on their beliefs or their race.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Networks,

Although much research has been carried out into the administration of justice in death penalty cases in Indonesia, there is little research into the conditions of detention of the men and women sentenced to death in that country. This study is one of the first to focus on the conditions of detention of death row prisoners in Indonesia. This report aims to give a voice to the men and women on death row in Indonesia and to their families, while documenting their situation.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Death Row Conditions, Country/Regional profiles,
• Available languages Indonesian : Tidak Manusiawi: Kondisi Lembaga Pemasyarakatan Bagi Terpidana Mati di Indonesia

This article provides an in-depth analysis of death row phenomenon.

• Document type Article
• Themes list Death Row Phenomenon,

This article discusses the role of judges in death determinations, identifying jurisdictions that initially (post-1972) allowed judge sentencing and naming the individuals who today remain under judge-imposed death sentences. The decisions guaranteeing a jury determination have so far been applied only to cases that have not undergone initial review in state courts. Key questions remain unresolved, including whether the evolving standards of decency permit the execution of more than 100 individuals who were condemned to death by judges without a jury’s death verdict before implementation of the rules that now require unanimous jury votes.

• Document type Academic report
• Themes list Due Process , Fair Trial,

In this article, the authors examine how the debate over women’s executions during the nineteenth and early twentieth century funneled and in various ways processed the contrary demands of gender and capital justice. They show how encounters with capital punishment both reflected and reinforced dominant interpretations of womanhood and as such contributed to the intricate web of normative strictures that affected all women at the time. At the same time, however, the often heated debates that accompanied such cases pried open some of the contradictions inherent in the dominant interpretations and, as a result, came to challenge the boundaries that separated not only women from men but also women from each other. Rather than viewing gender as a unidirectional influence on capital punishment, the authors argue that gender is best approached as an evolving social category that gets reconstructed, modified, and transformed whenever it is implicated in social practices and public debates.

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

Article 61. Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.2. In countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes in accordance with the law in force at the time of the commission of the crime and not contrary to the provisions of the present Covenant and to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This penalty can only be carried out pursuant to a final judgement rendered by a competent court.3. When deprivation of life constitutes the crime of genocide, it is understood that nothing in this article shall authorize any State Party to the present Covenant to derogate in any way from any obligation assumed under the provisions of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.4. Anyone sentenced to death shall have the right to seek pardon or commutation of the sentence. Amnesty, pardon or commutation of the sentence of death may be granted in all cases.5. Sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age and shall not be carried out on pregnant women.6. Nothing in this article shall be invoked to delay or to prevent the abolition of capital punishment by any State Party to the present Covenant.

• Document type United Nations report
• Themes list International law,
• Available languages Pacto Internacional de Derechos Civiles y PolíticosМеждународный пакт о гражданских и политических правах公民权利和政治权利国际盟约العهد الدولي الخاص بالحقوق المدنية والسياسيةPacte international relatif aux droits civils et politiques

Detailed information on the death penalty and poverty.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Themes list World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Death Penalty,
• Available languages Fiche détaillée sur la peine de mort et la pauvreté

Today, The Death Penalty Project, in partnership with Veritas, launches “12 Years Without an Execution: Is Zimbabwe Ready for Abolition?” a national public opinion study, providing for the first time comprehensive and contextualised data on public attitudes towards the death penalty in Zimbabwe – a country that has not carried out any executions in over 12 years.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Public opinion, Public debate, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

This project sought to answer questions regarding the socio-economic profile of prisoners sentenced to death in India while looking into the process of death sentencing in itself. By means of meaningful statistics and case studies, this report manages to enlighten some aspects of the death penalty in India which are generally not fully explored and triggers a sociological discussion on these thorny issues that goes beyond the legal analysis of Supreme Court judgments.

Chapters:
6) Experience in custody
7) Trial and appeals
8) Living on death row
9) Seeking mercy
10) Impact

Link to Volume 1: http://www.worldcoalition.org/resourcecentre/document/id/1462890615

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

The European Saudi organisation for Humans Rights published its 2018 report on the use of the death penalty in the Saudi Kingdom. It points an authoriatiran drift within the increase of the political use of the capital sentence against activists, women and clerics.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Arbitrariness, Death Penalty,

For 15 years there have been no executions in South Korea. The film focuses mainly on South Korea through the stories of those directly affected by the death penalty and others outside the country who argue the case for abolition from the perspective of victims’ families, Renny Cushing, Murder Victims Families for Human Rights. It includes testimony from those sentenced to death, a prison warden, the former President of South Korea, Kim Dae Jung, a former prisoner of conscience who was himself sentenced to death and who introduced a moratorium during his presidency. No executions have taken place in South Korea since former President Kim Dae Jung announced his decision. In September South Korea celebrated 5,000 days with no executions.

• Document type Academic report
• Countries list Republic of Korea
• Themes list Country/Regional profiles,

What would you do if someone you love was raped, tortured, or murdered? How would you seek justice? The very thought evokes horror— we shudder to even consider it. But it is a reality faced by Vicki and Syl Scheiber after their daughter’s rape and murder; faced by Karen Brassard in the traumatic aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing; faced by former Virginia state executioner Jerry Givens after performing 62 executions.As wrongful convictions, botched executions, and a broken justice system inch further into the spotlight, we must consider: What is justice? What part should the death penalty play?In the Executioner’s Shadow allows a glimpse into Jerry’s rarely seen world of death row and execution. It explores Karen’s moral conflict as she attends the accused bomber’s trial, a young man the same age as her son. It defies our perception of justice as Vicki and Syl fight for the life of their daughter’s murderer.In the Executioner’s Shadow illuminates the oft hidden realities entangled in death row, the death penalty, and the U.S. Justice system at large.

• Document type Multimedia content
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Public opinion, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

The book describes how thousands of Americans are convicted of crimes they never committed. Many of them end up on death row where inmates have been executed despite their innocence. ‘The Deprived’ is based on interviews with 10 Americans who have all been affected by wrongful convictions and the death penalty. The book also describes what leads to wrongful convictions in America and who’s most likely to be convicted of a crime they never committed.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence, World Coalition Against the Death Penalty,

The worldwide situation to date: The worldwide trend towards abolition, underway for at least a decade, was again confirmed in 2006 and the first six months of 2007. There are currently 146 countries and territories that to different extents have decided to renounce the death penalty. Of these, 93 are totally abolitionist, 9 are abolitionist for ordinary crimes, 1 (Russia) is committed to abolishing the death penalty as a member of the Council of Europe and currently observes a moratorium on executions, 4 have a moratorium on executions in place and 39 are de facto abolitionist (i.e. – no executions have taken place in the last ten years).

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Statistics,
• Available languages Italian : SINTESI DEI FATTI PIU' IMPORTANTI DEL 2006 (e dei primi sette mesi del 2007)

First as a reporter and then as a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Michelle was a frequent visitor to Huntsville’s Walls Unit, where she recorded and relayed the final moments of death row inmates’ lives before they were put to death by the state.Michelle was in the death chamber as some of the United States’ most notorious criminals, including serial killers, child murderers and rapists, spoke their last words on earth, while a cocktail of lethal drugs surged through their veins.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Right to life, Death Penalty,

The Special Rapporteur also observes positive developments at the legislative level, including the planned reform of several laws relevant to the criminal procedure, which he hopes will bring Chinese legislation into greater conformity with international norms, particularly the fair trial standards contained in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which China signed in 1998 and is preparing to ratify. He also welcomes the resumption by the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) of its authority to review all death penalty cases,59 particularly given the fact that the quality of the judiciary increases as one ascends the hierarchy. The Special Rapporteur suggests that China might use the opportunity of this important event to increase transparency regarding the number of death sentences in the country, as well as to consider legislation that would allow direct petitioning to the SPC in cases where individuals do not feel that they were provided with adequate relief by lower courts in cases involving the useof torture, access to counsel, etc.

• Document type NGO report
• Countries list China
• Available languages Informe del Relator Especial sobre la tortura y otros tratos o penas crueles, inhumanos o degradantes, Manfred Nowak - MISIÓN CHINA酷刑和其他残忍、不人道或有辱人格的待遇或处罚问题 特别报告员曼弗雷德·诺瓦克的报告 - 对中国的访问Rapport de Manfred Nowak, Rapporteur spécial sur la torture et autres peines ou traitements cruels, inhumains ou dégradants - MISSION EN CHINEДоклад Специального докладчика по вопросу о пытках и других жестоких, бесчеловечных или унижающих достоинство видах обращения и наказания Манфреда Новакаالمعاملة ضروب من وغيره التعذيب بمسألة المعني الخاص المقرر تقرير نوفاك مانفريد السيد المهينة، أو اللاإنسانية أو القاسية العقوبة أو ‎- الصين إلى ﺑﻬا قام التي البعثة

A how-to guide for advocates who want to improve the response to people with mental illnesses who are in contact with the criminal justice system. The Advocacy Handbook reflects a shared effort among NAMI (the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill), the National Mental Health Association (NMHA), the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD), the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, and the Criminal Justice / Mental Health Consensus Project.

• Document type Campaigning
• Themes list Networks,

Why does the United States continue to employ the death penalty when fifty other developed democracies have abolished it? Why does capital punishment become more problematic each year? How can the death penalty conflict be resolved?In The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment, Frank Zimring reveals that the seemingly insoluble turmoil surrounding the death penalty reflects a deep and long-standing division in American values, a division that he predicts will soon bring about the end of capital punishment in our country. On the one hand, execution would seem to violate our nation’s highest legal principles of fairness and due process. It sets us increasingly apart from our allies and indeed is regarded by European nations as a barbaric and particularly egregious form of American exceptionalism. On the other hand, the death penalty represents a deeply held American belief in violent social justice that sees the hangman as an agent of local control and safeguard of community values.

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

This sheet speaks about the trend towards abolition of the death penalty, aswell as declining public support for it.

• Document type Arguments against the death penalty
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition,

This webpage talks about innocence and the death penalty: Examples of innocence in three cases in the United States and factors leading to wrongful conviction.

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

Forensic mental health assessments in death penalty cases are on the rise due in part to the continuing growth of forensic psychology and psychiatry as professions, combined with several recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions. Forensic mental health professionals are now conducting assessments at every stage of death penalty proceedings, ranging from pre-trial evaluations to determine eligibility for the death penalty to evaluations conducted post-sentencing and closer to the date of execution.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Mental Illness, Intellectual Disability,

The men who lead death row inmates to the gallows are traumatised on surrendering a prisoner to the hangman. This was told at a meeting of judges, commissioners of prisons and legal practitioners from East Africa on the death penalty in Nairobi.

• Document type Arguments against the death penalty
• Themes list Retribution, Death Row Conditions, Sentencing Alternatives,

This article analyses the latest controversy over the use of the death penalty that erupted not in mainland China but across the strait in Taiwan. In January, the defense ministry there was forced to issue a public apology for a wrongful execution in 1997, followed in early March by the execution of five prisoners without notifying their families.

• Document type Article
• Themes list Networks,

Although the death penalty has a long history, it is not without debate and differing views. There appears to be a gap between Whites and Blacks in terms of their support of capital punishment. Students at a Midwestern university were surveyed to determine whether there were differences between the two groups of students in reasons to support or oppose the death penalty. In bivariate tests, there were significant differences between White and Black students on 15 of 16 measures for reasons for supporting or opposing capital punishment. These differences continued for 10 of the 16 measures even after multivariate analysis controlled for the effects of gender, age, and academic level. The results are discussed.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Public opinion, Public debate,

The death penalty in the state of California continues to be a major focus, due in part to the burden it places on tax payers. Our goal with this infographic was to examine the facts, and the facts alone. Even though Proposition 34 did not pass in the most recent election, this issue will continue to be argued and remain a pressing issue, especially during difficult economic times.

• Document type Lobbying
• Themes list Minorities, International law, Public debate,

Amnesty International has been documenting the Saudi Arabian authorities’ extensive use of the death penalty for over a quarter of a century. This report is the latest evaluation, made in light of the legal, judicial and human rights changes that have been introduced in recent years in the country. The report details cases of death row prisoners on whose behalf Amnesty International has campaigned. It also includes testimonies of former detainees, some of whom have been under sentence of death.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Beheading,
• Available languages صفعة في وجه العدالة:عقوبة الإعدام في المملكة العربية السعودية

The data herein are updated as often and as quickly as possible, with the last date of entry noted on the cover page. However, given the difficulty of gathering complete information from all jurisdictions and as soon as cases develop, these reports may under-report the number of female offenders under death sentences. The subjects of these reports are female offenders sentenced to death. They are not all referred to as women, since some were as young as age fifteen at the time of their crimes. However, no such very young female offenders are currently under death sentences. —- See bottom left hand corner of web page.

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

• Document type Academic report
• Available languages Kit pour les Villes contre la peine de mort - 2015Kit Ciudades contra la Pena de Muerte - 2015

• Document type Campaigning / World Coalition

• Document type Campaigning / World Coalition

• Document type Campaigning / World Coalition

• Document type Campaigning / World Coalition

• Document type Campaigning / World Coalition

• Document type Campaigning / World Coalition

• Document type Campaigning / World Coalition

• Document type Campaigning / World Coalition

• Document type Campaigning
• Available languages Folleto Ciudades contra la Pena de MuerteBrochure Villes contre la peine de mort

• Document type Campaigning
• Available languages Kit Ciudades contra la Pena de MuerteKit pour les Villes contre la peine de mort

This book questions whether the death penalty in and of itself is a hazard to a sustainable development of criminal justice. As most jurisdictions move away from the death penalty, some remain strongly committed to it, while others hold on to it but use it sparingly. This volume seeks to understand why, by examining the death penalty’s relationship to state governance in the past and present. It also examines how international, transnational and national forces intersect in order to understand the possibilities of future death penalty abolition.The chapters cover the USA – the only western democracy that still uses the death penalty – and Asia – the site of some 90 per cent of all executions. Also included are discussions of the death penalty in Islam and its practice in selected Muslim majority countries. There is also a comparative chapter departing from the response to the mass killings in Norway in 2011. Leading experts in law, criminology and human rights combine theory and empirical research to further our understanding of the relationships between ways of governance, the role of leadership and the death penalty practices.

• Document type Book
• Themes list Due Process , International law, Trend Towards Abolition,

The aim of this study was to explore the opinions of former judges of the Supreme Court of India on the death penalty and more generally on the state of India’s criminal justice system as far as it was relevant to the death penalty. The study did not focus on the position that former judges took on the death penalty but was instead interested in understanding the reasons they saw for both abolition and retention. In addition to exploring those reasons, the study also wanted to map the understanding of the ‘rarest of rare’ doctrine among former judges and get insights into the manner in which judicial discretion is exercised in death penalty cases. Finally, we wanted to locate all these discussions on the death penalty in the context of an evaluation of the criminal justice system by the former judges.

• Document type Academic report
• Themes list Networks, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

Clemency is an extrajudicial measure intended both to enhance fairness in the administration of justice, and allow for the correction of mistakes. Perhaps nowhere are these goals more important than in the death penalty context. The recent increased use of the death penalty and concurrent decline in the number of defendants removed from death row through clemency call for a better and deeper understanding of clemency authority and its application. Questions about whether clemency decisions are consistently and fairly distributed are particularly apt. This study uses 27 years of death penalty and clemency data to explore the influence of defendant characteristics, political factors, and clemency’s structure on clemency decisions. The results suggest that although a defendant’s race and ethnicity did not influence clemency, gender did play a role, as women were far more likely than their male counterparts to receive clemency. Analyses of political and structural factors point in different directions. Political factors such as the timing of gubernatorial and presidential elections and a governor’s lame-duck status did not systematically influence clemency. However, how states structure clemency authority did make a difference. Clemency grants were more likely in states that vest authority in administrative boards than in states that vest authority in the governor. Regionality and time were also important as clemency grants were less likely in southern states and declined after 1984. Overall, these mixed results contribute to a critique that clemency decisions are arbitrary and inconsistent. Thus, important questions regarding fairness that plague earlier aspects of the death penalty process persist to its final stage.

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

For the first time in a long time, the Supreme Court’s most important death penalty decisions all have gone the defendant’s way. Is the Court’s new found willingness to protect capital defendants here to stay? Or is it a passing fancy that will dissipate in less hospitable times? At first glance, history allows for optimism. Furman v. Georgia, the 1972 landmark that invalidated the death penalty, provides a seemingly perfect example of the Court’s ability and inclination to protect capital defendants when no one else will. Furman looks countermajoritarian, scholars have claimed it was countermajoritarian, and even the Justices saw themselves as playing a heroic, countermajoritarian role in the case. But the lessons of Furman are not what they seem. Rather than proving the Supreme Court’s ability to withstand majoritarian influences, Furman teaches the opposite – that even in its more countermajoritarian moments, the Court never strays far from dominant public opinion, tending instead to reflect the social and political movements of its time. This Article examines the historical context of Furman v. Georgia and its 1976 counterpart, Gregg v. Georgia, to highlight a fundamental flaw in the Supreme Court’s role as protector of minority rights: its inherently limited inclination and ability to render countermajoritarian change. In theory, the Court might protect unpopular minorities, but in practice it is unlikely to do so unless a substantial (and growing) segment of society supports that protection. Even then, Furman reminds us that the Court’s “help” may do more harm than good. If the past truly is a prologue, Furman portends that the Court’s current interest in restricting the death penalty will not last forever. Like the fair-weather friend, the Court’s protection will likely be there in good times but gone when needed the most.

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

The number of new death sentences dropped dramatically in 2011, falling below 100 for the first time in the modern era of capital punishment. Executions also continued decline, while developments in a variety of states illustrated the growing discomfort that many Americans have with the death penalty.

• Document type International law - Regional body
• Themes list Trend Towards Abolition,

The worldwide situation to date: The worldwide trend towards abolition, underway for at least a decade, was again confirmed in 2005 and the first half of 2006. There are currently 142 countries that to different extents have decided to renounce the death penalty. Of these: 90 are totally abolitionist; 10 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 37 are de facto abolitionist (i.e. no executions have taken place in those countries for at least ten years).

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Statistics,
• Available languages Italian : I FATTI PIù IMPORTANTI DEL 2005 (e dei primi sei mesi del 2006)

A recent cohort of studies report deterrent effects of capital punishment that substantially exceed almost all previous estimates of lives saved by execution. Some of the new studies go further to claim that pardons, commutations, and exonerations cause murders to increase, as does trial delay. This putative life-life tradeoff is the basis for claims by legal academics and advocates of a moral imperative to aggressively prosecute capital crimes, brushing off evidentiary doubts as unreasonable cautions that place potential beneficiaries at risk of severe harm. Challenges to this “new deterrence” literature find that the evidence is too unstable and unreliable to support policy choices on capital punishment. This article identifies numerous technical and conceptual errors in the “new deterrence” studies that further erode their reliability: inappropriate methods of statistical analysis, failures to consider several factors such as drug epidemics that drive murder rates, missing data on key variables in key states, the tyranny of a few outlier states and years, weak to non-existent tests of concurrent effects of incarceration, inadequate instruments to disentangle statistical confounding of murder rates with death sentences and other punishments, failure to consider the general performance of the criminal justice system as a competing deterrent, artifactual results from truncated time frames, and the absence of any direct test of the components of contemporary theoretical constructions of deterrence. Re-analysis of one of the data sets shows that even simple adjustments to the data produce contradictory results, while alternate statistical methods produce contrary estimates. But the central mistake in this enterprise is one of causal reasoning: the attempt to draw causal inferences from a flawed and limited set of observational data, the absence of direct tests of the moving parts of the deterrence story, and the failure to address important competing influences on murder. There is no reliable, scientifically sound evidence that pits execution against a robust set of competing explanations to identify whether it exerts a deterrent effect that is uniquely and sufficiently powerful to overwhelm the recurring epidemic cycles of murder. This and other rebukes remind us to invoke tough, neutral social science standards and commonsense causal reasoning before expanding the use of execution with its attendant risks and costs.

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

In this Article, I will review the matrix in which executive decisions in women’s capital clemency cases are made, a matrix supplied by modern equal protection law, the nature and scope of the clemency power, gender politics, and contemporary death row. I will then conduct two thought experiments. Each invented case tests the relevance of gender in legally and politically acceptable contemporary clemency decisions. The goal is to understand the politics and law of granting or denying that very rare boon-commutation of sentence – to a female death row prisoner. The exercise offers support for two conclusions. In the age of formal equality, women cannot be granted clemency simply because they are women. The rhetoric of chivalry is untenable for the contemporary executive. A governor who is courageous and rhetorically skillful, however, can sometimes successfully defend the commutation of the death sentence of a woman as a proper use of the power to grant mercy, done for her sake, the class she exemplifies, the conscience of the governor, and the public.

• Document type Article
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Women, Clemency,

Cameroon, with a population of approximately 18 million, has a multiparty system of government, with the current ruling party Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) in power since it was created in 1985. The president retains the power to control legislation or to rule by decree. Although the civilian authorities do generally maintain effective control of the security forces, security forces sometimes act independently of government authority. Authorities arbitrarily arrest and detain citizens for different reasons. Among those arbitrarily arrested and detained are human rights defenders and other activists and persons not carrying government-issued identity cards. There are incidents of prolonged and sometimes incommunicado pretrial detention and infringement on privacy rights. The government restricts freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association, and harasses journalists and human rights defenders. Other problems include widespread official corruption, societal violence, discrimination against women, the trafficking of children and girls, and discrimination against homosexuals. The government restricts worker rights and activities of independent labor organizations. The diverse cultural beliefs and ethnic groups promote to a large extend discrimination against and violations of women and young people, widows and the divorced. This report specifically highlights violations in 2008 and 2009, with a few violations in other years.

• Document type NGO report
• Themes list Networks,
• Available languages Cameroun: Rapport de la société civile sur la mise en oeuvre du PIDCP

The purpose of this handbook — which has been prepared on the responsibility of the General Secretariat of the Council and has no legal force — is to explain certain basic concepts of how the Council works, but above all to provide practical information both on existing sources of information and on the implementation of measures adopted with regard to openness and transparency. These measures illustrate the Council’s desire to get closer to citizens in order to build their confidence in European integration.

• Document type Working with...
• Themes list Networks,
• Available languages Guide de l’information du Conseil de l’Union européenne