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Document(s)

Stolen Youth. Juvenils, mass trials and the death penalty in Egypt

By Reprieve, on 1 January 2019


2019

NGO report


More details See the document
  • Document type NGO report
  • Themes list Juveniles, Fair Trial, Death Penalty,

Document(s)

Drug-related Offences, Criminal Justice Responses and the Use of the Death Penalty in South-East Asia

By Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, on 1 January 2019


International law - United Nations


More details See the document

Most of the world’s countries or territories have either abolished the death penalty or no longer use it. More than half of those that retain the death penalty, of which many are in South-East Asia, do so for drug-related offences. Most prisoners on death row in South-East Asia have been convicted of drug-related offences, although law and practice vary considerably among countries that retain the death penalty.

  • Document type International law - United Nations
  • Themes list Death Penalty, Statistics,

Document(s)

The “New Abolitionism” and the Possibilities of Legislative Action: The New Hampshire Experience

By Sarat Austin / Ohio State Law Journal, on 1 January 2002


2002

Article

United States


More details See the document

Recently, the work of the abolitionist community has shifted from the courts to the legislatures. In this article, Professor Sarat examines the significance of what he calls the “new abolitionism” in the politics of legislation aimed at changing or ending the death penalty. The author describes the new abolitionism in detail and then examines its role in the May 2000 vote of the New Hampshire State Legislature to repeal the death penalty. The author concludes that the focus of the new abolitionism on the practical liabilities of our system of capital punishment makes it possible for legislators to oppose the death penalty whilepresenting themselves as guardians of widely shared values and the integrity and fairness of our legal institutions.

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

Document(s)

The Death Penalty in Ohio: Fairness, Reliability, and Justice at Risk—A Report on Reforms in Ohio’s Use of the Death Penalty Since the 1997 Ohio State Bar Association Recommendations

By S. Adele Shank / Ohio State Law Journal, on 1 January 2002


Article

United States


More details See the document

The report as presented to the Ohio State Bar Association Council of Delegates in 1997,the OSBA’s recommendations and, where there have been changes in the law since that time, updates reflecting those changes. New information is noted at the conclusion of each section of the report immediately following the OSBA recommendation for that section.

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

Document(s)

Should Abolitionists Support Legislative “Reform” of the Death Penalty?

By Carol S. Steiker / Jordan M. Steiker / Ohio State Law Journal, on 1 January 2002


Article

United States


More details See the document

We assessed the Court’s reformist project on its own terms, asking whether the Court achieved the goals explicit or tolerated, if not invited, the inequalities and capriciousness characteristic of the pre-Furman era. We also argued that, apart from its failure on its own terms, the Supreme Court’s reformist regulation of capital punishment might well have carried an additional unanticipated cost. Whereas abolitionists initially sought judicial regulation of the death penalty as at least a first step towards abolition, judicial reform actually may have helped to stabilize the death penalty as a social practice. We argued that the appearance of intensive regulation of state death penalty practices, notwithstanding its virtual absence, played a role in legitimizing the practice of capital punishment in the eyes of actors both within and outside the criminal justice system, and we pointed to some objective indicators—such as the dramatic decline in the use of executive clemency in the post-Furman era[12] —as support for this thesis. Implicit in Furman and the 1976 foundational cases. Our assessment was not a positive one. Although the reformist approach spawned an extraordinarily intricate and detailed capital punishment jurisprudence, the resulting doctrines were in practical terms largely unresponsive to the underlying concerns for fairness and heightened reliability that had first led to the constitutional regulation of the death penalty. We described contemporary capital punishment law as the worst of all possible worlds. Its sheer complexity led to numerous reversals of death sentences and thus imposed substantial costs on state criminal justice systems. On closer inspection, however, the complexity concealed the minimalist nature of the Court’s reforms.

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

Document(s)

Gendering the Death Penalty: Countering Sex Bias in a Masculine Sanctuary

By Victor L. Streib / Ohio State Law Journal, on 1 January 2002


Article

United States


More details See the document

American death penalty laws and procedures persistently minimize cases involving female capital offenders. Recognizing some benign explanations for this disparate impact, Professor Streib nonetheless sees the dearth of female death penalty trials, death sentences, and actual executions as signaling sex bias throughout the death penalty system. In this article, he provides data concerning death sentencing and execution patterns and then suggests both substantive and procedural means to address the apparent sex bias. Much more significant, however, is the unique lens for examining the death penalty that is provided by a sex bias analysis. Professor Streib concludes that this perspective unmasks the system’s crime-fighting rhetoric to reveal a macho refuge that masculinizes all who enter therein.

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

Document(s)

Striving to Eliminate Unjust Executions: Why the ABA’s Individual Rights & Responsibilities Section Has Issued Protocols on Unfair Implementation of Capital Punishment

By Ronald J. Tabak / Ohio State Law Journal, on 8 September 2020


2020

Article

United States


More details See the document

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,

Document(s)

Ohio’s Death Penalty Statute: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

By Ohio State Law Journal / Kelly L. Culshaw, on 1 January 2002


2002

Article

United States


More details See the document

As of November 2001, 203 men sit on Ohio’s death row. With the executions of Wilford Berry on February 19, 1999, Jay D. Scott on June 14, 2001, and John Byrd, Jr. on February 19, 2002, the death penalty in Ohio is a reality. The capital defense practitioner representing a client at trial or on appeal must be prepared to defend his or her client against that reality. To that end, this article examines the statutory framework within which capital cases are prosecuted with the express purpose of aiding defense practitioners and improving the quality of capital representation in Ohio. This article analyzes both the positive and negative aspects of Ohio’s death penalty statute. To meet its twin objects, practical advice and suggested litigation strategies are intermingled with critical analysis of the law in Ohio.

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

Document(s)

The Pakistan Capital Punishment Study. A Study of the Capital Jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Pakistan

By Reprieve / Fundation for Fundamental Rights, on 1 January 2019


2019

NGO report


More details See the document

The Pakistan Capital Punishment Study is the result of a two-year long research and analysis project undertaken by lawyers and academics at the Foundation for Fundamental Rights (‘FFR’) in Pakistan and international legal non-profit organization, Reprieve.

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

Document(s)

Call by the NHRIs to Strengthen and Broaden the Fight Against the Death Penalty

By Ensemble contre la peine de mort (ECPM), on 1 January 2019


Multimedia content

fr
More details See the document

Call by the NHRIs to Strengthen and Broaden the Fight Against the Death Penalty

Document(s)

Concluding Talking Ponts on behalf of Parliamentarians and PGA, Attending the 7th World Congress Against the Death Penalty

By Ensemble contre la peine de mort (ECPM) / Parliamentarians for Global Action, on 1 January 2019


Multimedia content

fr
More details See the document

Concluding Talking Ponts on behalf of Parliamentarians and PGA, Atteding the 7th World Congress Against the Death Penalty

Document(s)

Annual Report on the Death Penalty in Iran 2018

By Ensemble contre la peine de mort (ECPM) / Iran Human Rights (IHR), on 1 January 2019


NGO report


More details See the document

This report provides an assessment and analysis of death penalty trends in 2018 in the Is-lamic Republic of Iran. It sets out the number of executions in 2018, the trend compared to previous years, the legislative framework and procedures, charges, geographic distribution and a monthly breakdown of executions.

  • Document type NGO report
  • Themes list World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,

Document(s)

The Death Penalty In 2018: Year End Report

By Death Penalty Information Center / Death Penalty Information Centre, on 1 January 2018


2018

NGO report


More details See the document

New death sentences and executions remained near historic lows in 2018 and a twentieth state abolished capital punishment, as public opinion polls, election results, legislative actions, and court decisions all reflected the continuing erosion of the death penalty across the country.

  • Document type NGO report
  • Themes list Death Penalty,

Document(s)

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

By Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) , on 1 January 2018


United Nations report


More details See the document

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(s)

The Role of Race in Washington State Capital Sentencing, 1981-2014

By Katherine Beckett / University of Washington, on 1 January 2014


2014

Academic report


More details See the document

This report assesses whether race influences the administration of capital punishment in Washington State, and if so, where in the process it matters.

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

Document(s)

Educational Curriculum on the Death Penalty Classroom Resource Manual

By Death Penalty Information Center, on 1 January 2003


2003

Campaigning


More details See the document

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,

Document(s)

The Prejudicial Nature of Victim Impact Statements: Implications for Capital Sentencing Policy

By Edith Greene / Bryan Myers / Psychology, Public Policy and Law, on 1 January 2004


2004

Article

United States


More details See the document

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,

Document(s)

Mapping the Fate of the Dead (Killings and Burials in North Korea)

By Transitional Justice Working Group, on 1 January 2019


2019

NGO report


More details See the document

The Transitional Justice Working Group’s 2019 report “Mapping the Fate of the Dead: Killings and Burials in North Korea” is based on four years of research(2015-2019) to document and map three types of locations connected to human rights violations in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea):

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

Document(s)

Tanzania Human Rights Report – 2017 ‘Unknown Assailants’: A Threat to Human Rights

By Legal and Human Rights Centre, on 8 September 2020


2020

NGO report

United Republic of Tanzania


More details See the document

“Unknown Assailants: A Threat to Human Rights”So is named The Tanzania Human Rights Report of 2017 released by the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC).This report was published on April, 25th 2018 and it enlights for the fifteenth time the major human rights violation in Tanzania. This report, while it deals with human rights violation in Tanzania concerning civil and politial rights, freedom of violence, freedom of expression, etc, also presents some issues due to these violations such as the right to participate in governance, particularly the right to participate in political life, which are deny.

  • Document type NGO report
  • Countries list United Republic of Tanzania
  • Themes list Death Penalty, Statistics, Country/Regional profiles,

Document(s)

Restraints on Death Penalty in Europe: A Circular Process

By Stefano Manacorda / Journal of International Criminal Justice, on 1 January 2003


2003

Article


More details See the document

That the European area is a zone free of capital punishment is the result of a complex process of restraints that has evolved over the last 50 years. Domestic, regional and universal international law, as well as certain components within each level, have influenced each other to produce a dynamic, circular movement towards abolition. Starting from the internal level, restraints on the death penalty rose up to the regional and universal levels, and then descended back down into domestic law. This process, however, has not produced a completely closed circle, and certain countries in Europe retain legislation permitting recourse to the death penalty for certain crimes, especially war crimes and, according to recent interpretations, criminal offences related to terrorist activity. Extradition or other administrative mechanisms of expulsion also illustrate potential disjunctions in the circle, as they may allow persons to be transferred to retentionist countries. Even though the legislative framework has significantly evolved in the last few years, the dominant role played by political evaluations creates new fissures in the abolitionist circle. Only recently have new abolitionist perspectives emerged from the ‘right of interference’ in foreign death penalty cases, which some countries try to exercise when their own nationals are involved.

  • Document type Article
  • Themes list Networks,

Document(s)

Nobody To Talk To: Barriers to Mental Health Treatment for Family Members of Individuals Sentenced to Death and Executed

By Texas After Violence Project, on 1 January 2019


2019

NGO report


More details See the document

Four decades after the reinstatement of the death penalty in the United States, the harmful impact of death sentences and executions on persons other than the individual offender is still not widely recognized – not even among mental health professionals who specialize in responding to individual and community needs in the aftermath of traumatic events.

  • Document type NGO report
  • Themes list Mental Illness, Murder Victims' Families,

Document(s)

Cameroun: NGO Report on the Implementation of the ICCPR

By Gender Empowerment and Development / Association de Lutte contre les Violences faites aux Femmes / Centre for Civil and Political Rights / Solidarité Pour la Promotion des Droits de l’Homme et des Peuples / Association pour la défense de l’homosexualité / Syndicat National des Journalistes du Cameroun, on 1 January 2010


2010

NGO report

fr
More details See the document

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(s)

Position Paper: Death Penalty under the Palestinian National Authority

By Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, on 1 January 2010


NGO report


More details See the document

This paper describes the international law surrounding the trend towards abolition. It then discusses this in relation to the death penalty in Palestine which has come under criticism from Human Rights NGO’s to provide prisoners with international standards regarding their detention and providing a fair trial.

  • Document type NGO report
  • Themes list Trend Towards Abolition,

Document(s)

Indigenous constitutionalism and the death penalty: The case of the Commonwealth Caribbean

By Margaret A. Burnham / International Journal of Constitutional Law, on 1 January 2005


2005

Article

Antigua and Barbuda


More details See the document

The Commonwealth Caribbean remains an obstinate holdout against the international trend limiting use of the death penalty. The death row population in the region per capita is about four times that of the United States. Widely debated in legal circles for a decade, capital punishment jurisprudence will be affected by the creation of the regional appellate court that was launched in April 2005. Modeled after the European Court of Justice, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) will assume the constitutional jurisdiction currently exercised by the Judicial Committee of the London-based Privy Council. Critics claim the CCJ was created to undo the constraints on the death penalty decreed by the Privy Council and international human rights tribunals, while proponents maintain that the new court completes the region’s assumption of sovereignty. This article situates the debate in the constitutional history of the independence era, the current regionalization movement, and the interplay between international norms and domestic fundamental rights.

  • Document type Article
  • Countries list Antigua and Barbuda

Document(s)

The Pros and Cons of Life Without Parole

By Bent Grover / Catherine Appleton / British Journal of Criminology, on 1 January 2007


2007

Article

United States


More details See the document

The question of how societies should respond to their most serious crimes if not with the death penalty is ‘perhaps the oldest of all the issues raised by the two-century struggle in western civilization to end the death penalty’ ( Bedau, 1990: 481 ). In this article we draw attention to the rapid and extraordinary increase in the use of ‘life imprisonment without parole’ in the United States. We aim to critically assess the main arguments put forward by supporters of whole life imprisonment as a punishment provided by law to replace the death penalty and argue against life-long detention as the ultimate sanction.

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

Document(s)

Japan’s Secretive Death Penalty Policy: Contours, Origins, Justifications, and Meanings

By David T. Johnson / Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal, on 1 January 2006


2006

Article

Japan


More details See the document

The secrecy that surrounds capital punishment in Japan is taken to extremes not seen in other nations. This article describes the Japanese state’s policy of secrecy and explains how it developed in three historical stages: the “birth of secrecy” during the Meiji period (1867 – 1912); the creation and spread of “censored democracy” during the postwar Occupation (1945 – 1952); and the “acceleration of secrecy” during the decades that followed. The article then analyzes several justifications for secrecy that Japanese prosecutors provide. None seems cogent. The final section explores four meanings of the secrecy policy that relate to the sources of death penalty legitimacy, the salience of capital punishment, the nature of Japan’s democracy, and the role and rule of law in Japanese society.

  • Document type Article
  • Countries list Japan
  • Themes list Transparency,

Document(s)

Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2019: The Year in Review

By Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty / Kristin Houlé / Grace Rudser, on 1 January 2019


2019

NGO report


More details See the document

The Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (TCADP) – a statewide advocacy organization based in Austin, Texas – publishes this annual report to inform the public and elected officials about issues associated with the death penalty over the past year. The report includes illustrative charts and graphs, and cites the death penalty developments in Texas (USA).

  • Document type NGO report
  • Themes list Death Penalty,

Document(s)

Bringing Reliability Back In: False Confessions and Legal Safeguards in the 21st Century

By Steven A. Drizen / Bradley R. Hall / Peter J. Neufeld / Richard A. Leo / Wisconsin Law Review / Amy Vatner, on 1 January 2006


2006

Article

United States


More details See the document

In this Article, we point out the failures of the legal tests governing admissibility of confessions, tracing the historical development of these flawed standards. We propose a new standard that we believe reinvigorates the largely forgotten purpose of the rules—reliability of confession evidence—in part by requiring the electronic recording of custodial interrogations.

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

Document(s)

Addressing Capital Punishment Through Statutory Reform

By Douglas A. Berman / Ohio State Law Journal, on 1 January 2002


2002

Article

United States


More details See the document

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,

Document(s)

WHEN THE FEDERAL DEATH PENALTY IS “CRUEL AND UNUSUAL”

By Michael J. Zydney Mannheimer / The University of Cincinnati Law Review, on 1 January 2006


2006

Article

United States


More details See the document

Recent changes to the way the U.S. Department of Justice decides whether to pursue capital charges have made it more likely that the federal death penalty will be sought in cases in which the criminal conduct occurred within States that do not authorize capital punishment for any crime. As a result, since 2002, five people have been sentenced to death in federal court for conduct that occurred in States that do not authorize the death penalty. This state of affairs is in serious tension with the Eighth Amendment’s proscription against “cruel and unusual punishments.”

  • Document type Article
  • Countries list United States
  • Themes list Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and Punishment,

Document(s)

Appointed but (Nearly) Prevented From Serving: My Experiences as a Grand Jury Foreperson

By Phyllis L. Crocker / Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, on 1 January 2004


2004

Article

United States


More details See the document

I begin this essay with basic information about grand juries, then tell what happened to our grand jury, and conclude by reflecting on what I learned from this experience. My theme is the tension between the grand jury’s independence and the prosecutor’s desire to control it. The lesson I learned, intellectually and emotionally, is the depth and tenacity of the prosecutor’s assumption that he does control, and has the right to control, the grand jury process. I also learned some lessons about being a client, and believing in oneself and one’s principles.

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

Document(s)

When Legislatures Delegate Death: The Troubling Paradox Behind State Uses of Electrocution and Lethal Injection and What It Says About Us

By Deborah W. Denno / Ohio State Law Journal, on 1 January 2002


2002

Article

United States


More details See the document

This article discusses the paradoxical motivations and problems behind legislative changes from one method of execution to the next, and particularly moves from electrocution to lethal injection. Legislatures and courts insist that the primary reason states switch execution methods is to ensure greater humaneness for death row inmates. History shows, however, that such moves were prompted primarily because the death penalty itself became constitutionally jeopardized due to a state’s particular method. The result has been a warped legal “philosophy” of punishment, at times peculiarly aligning both friends and foes of the death penalty alike and wrongly enabling legislatures to delegate death to unknowledgeable prison personnel. This article first examines the constitutionality of electrocution, contending that a modern Eighth Amendment analysis of a range of factors, such as legislative trends toward lethal injection, indicates that electrocution is cruel and unusual. It then provides an Eighth Amendment review of lethal injection, demonstrating that injection also involves unnecessary pain, the risk of such pain, and a loss of dignity. These failures seem to be attributed to vague lethal injection statutes, uninformed prison personnel, and skeletal or inaccurate lethal injection protocols. The article next presents the author’s study of the most current protocols for lethal injection in all thirty-six states where anesthesia is used for a state execution. The study focuses on a number of criteria contained in many protocols that are key to applying an injection, including: the types and amounts of chemicals that are injected; the selection, training, preparation, and qualifications of the lethal injection team; the involvement of medical personnel; the presence of general witnesses and media witnesses; as well as details on how the procedure is conducted and how much of it witnesses can see. The study emphasizes that the criteria in many protocols are far too vague to assess adequately. When the protocols do offer details, such as the amount and type of chemicals that executioners inject, they oftentimes reveal striking errors and ignorance about the procedure. Suchinaccurate or missing information heightens the likelihood that a lethal injection will be botched and suggests that states are not capable of executing an inmate constitutionally. Even though executions have become increasingly hidden from the public, and therefore more politically palatable, they have not become more humane, only more difficult to monitor.

  • Document type Article
  • Countries list United States
  • Themes list Lethal Injection, Electrocution,

Document(s)

The Problem of False Confessions in the Post – DNA World

By Steven A. Drizen / Richard A. Leo / North Carolina Law Review 82(3), 894-1009, on 1 January 2004


2004

Article

United States


More details See the document

In recent years, numerous individuals who confessed to and were convicted of serious felony crimes have been released from prison— some after many years of incarceration—and declared factually innocent, often as a result of DNA tests that were not possible at the time of arrest, prosecution, and conviction. DNA testing has also exonerated numerous individuals who confessed to serious crimes before their cases went to trial. Numerous others have been released from prison and declared factually innocent in cases that did not involve DNA tests, but instead may have occurred because authorities discovered that the crime never occurred or that it was physically impossible for the (wrongly) convicted defendant to have committed the crime, or because the true perpetrator of the crime was identified, apprehended, and convicted. In this Article, we analyze 125 recent cases of proven interrogation-induced false confessions (i.e., cases in which indisputably innocent individuals confessed to crimes they did not commit) and how these cases were treated by officials in the criminal justice system.This Article has three goals. First, we provide and analyze basic demographic, legal, and case-specific descriptive data from these 125 cases. This is significant because this is the largest cohort of interrogation-induced false confession cases ever identified and studied in the research literature. Second, we analyze the role that (false) confession evidence played in these cases and how the defendants in these cases were treated by the criminal justice system. In particular, this Article focuses on how criminal justice officials and triers-of-fact respond to confession evidence, whether it biases their evaluations and overwhelms other evidence (particularly evidence of innocence), and how likely false confessions are to lead to the wrongful arrest, prosecution, conviction, and incarceration of the innocent. Analysis of the aforementioned questions leads to the conclusion that the problem of interrogationinduced false confession in the American criminal justice system is far more significant than previously supposed. Furthermore, the problem of interrogation-induced false confessions has profound implications for the study of miscarriages of justice as well as the proper administration of justice. Third, and finally, this Article suggests that several promising policy reforms, particularly mandatory electronic recording of police interrogations, will minimize the number of false confessions and thereby inject a much needed dose of justice into the American criminal justice system.

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

Document(s)

Punished for Being Vulnerable. How Pakistan executes the poorest and the most marginalized in society

By Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) / Fédération Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l'Homme (FIDH), on 1 January 2019


2019

NGO report


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The present report aims to provide an update on the 2007 report, bearing in mind the significant changes that have taken place in Pakistan under various governments since then, including the 2008 unofficial moratorium and the resumption of executions in 2014. The mission aimed at exploring specific issues within the theme of the death penalty, including detention conditions on death row, the use of capital punishment for minors, and the impact of the death penalty on families of death row inmates, particularly their children. However, a recurring theme emerged in discussions about each of these sub-issues: a strong systemic bias against the poor and marginalized.

  • Document type NGO report
  • Themes list Fair Trial, Death Penalty,

Document(s)

The Proposed Innocence Protection Act Won’t—Unless It Also Curbs Mistaken Eyewitness Identifications

By Margery Malkin Koosed / Ohio State Law Journal, on 1 January 2002


2002

Article

United States


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This article contends that legislatures should adopt measures to assure greater reliability in the eyewitness testimony introduced in capital cases. Erroneous eyewitness identification is one of the most frequent causes of mistaken convictions and executions. Decades ago, the United States Supreme Court crafted due process and right to counsel constitutional doctrines to curb identification procedures that gratuitously enhanced the risk of mistake. While initial interpretations favored a greater judicial role in preventing such abuses, later rulings retreated. Present constitutional rules do not suffice due to the narrowness of their definition and the weakness of the remedial sanctions allotted. The proposed Innocence Protection Act and similar state legislation trust DNA testing to avert mistaken executions. But testing requires biological material that is often not available in capital prosecutions, and so DNA cannot detect all the innocents among those capitally prosecuted. To avert mistaken convictions and executions, legislative reforms need to go beyond DNA, and avert mistakes arising from erroneous eyewitness identifications. Studies show this is one of the most common sources of unjust conviction, and that suchmistakes may well be on the rise. Federal and state legislation should be adopted that provides a stronger curb on suggestive identification practices that gratuitously increase the risk of executing the innocent. The Recommendations for Lineups and Photospreads, developed by the American Psychology/Law Society (AP/LS) in 1998, are an appropriate starting point for legislatures (or state courts exercising their supervisory powers or interpreting state constitutional provisions). Adopting such guidelines will reduce the risk of error in capital cases, with little or no expense borne by the states. Further, to assure that these more reliable procedures will be used during capital case investigations and prosecutions, legislatures and courts should, minimally, adopt an exclusionary rule of the type first announced by the United States Supreme.

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

Document(s)

Outliers and Outcomes: How 9 of 10 Death Cases End with a Life Sentence & Why That Matters

By Ohioans to Stop Executions, on 8 September 2020


2020

NGO report

United States


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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,

Document(s)

The European Parliament 2004-2009 and European Civil Society: A Guide for Partnership

By European Union, on 1 January 2010


2010

Working with...

enfr
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The handbook is intended to introduce you to the rights and value based NGO sectors in the EU and helps you to navigate your way around Civil Society. Part I gives a general overview of the context of dialogue between the EU institutions and NGOs – as it has been established over the last 20 years – and how NGOs would like civil dialogue to develop in the context of the new Constitution. In Part II you will find an overview of the policy areas that each of the 6 sectors will work on during the EP period 2004-2009. This is intended to help you identify the areas of expertise European NGOs can offer for your specific work in the EP. The values and objectives of the EU Civil Society Contact Group from Part III and the annex contain a comprehensive contact list for European NGOs within the 6 sectors.

Document(s)

Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2010: The Year in Review

By Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, on 1 January 2010


NGO report


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Death sentences in Texas have dropped more than 70% since 2003, reaching a historic low in 2010. According to data compiled from news sources and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, juries condemned eight new individuals to death in Texas in 2010. This is the lowest number of new death sentences since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Texas’ revised death penalty statute in 1976. For preious annual reports on Texas please visit: http://tcadp.org/get-informed/reports/

  • Document type NGO report
  • Themes list Statistics,

Document(s)

Supreme Court of India ruling in Shatrughan Chauhan & Anr. Versus Union of India & Ors.

By P. Sathasivam / Supreme Court of India / Ranjan Gogoi / Shiva Kirti Singh, on 8 September 2020


2020

Multimedia content

India


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The Court (pictured) ruled in favour of two prisoners who petitioned for a commutation of their death sentences to life imprisonment, claiming “the unconscionably long delay in deciding the mercy petition has caused the onset of chronic psychotic illness”. It acknowledged the “unbearable mental agony after confirmation of death sentence” and added that in some cases “death-row prisoners lost their mental balance on account of prolonged anxiety and suffering experienced on death row”.

  • Document type Multimedia content
  • Countries list India
  • Themes list Mental Illness, International law, Death Row Conditions, Death Row Phenomenon,

Document(s)

Human Rights Council March 2016 Iran letter

By Impact Iran , on 1 January 2016


2016

Multimedia content

Iran (Islamic Republic of)


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Some Human Rights and civil society groups wrote to the member states of the Human Rights Council to get them to support the resolution to renew the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran at the 31st session of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

  • Document type Multimedia content
  • Countries list Iran (Islamic Republic of)
  • Themes list International law, Most Serious Crimes, Country/Regional profiles,

Document(s)

Annual report on the death penalty in Iran 2015

By Ensemble contre la peine de mort (ECPM) / Iran Human Rights (IHR), on 1 January 2016


NGO report

fa
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The 8th annual report of Iran Human Rights (IHR) on the death penalty provides an in-depth assessment of how the capital punishment was implemented in 2015 in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In addition to providing the number of executions that were conducted, the report also looks at the trends compared to previous years, the methods of execution, geographical distribution, the charges that were used by authorities to justify the executions and the articles in the penal law that were used to issue the death sentences.

Document(s)

Joint Statement on the Death Penalty in Bahrain

By Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, on 1 January 2015


2015

Multimedia content

Bahrain


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

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