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This brochure was developed by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty with the Commission on the Human Rights in the Philippines. It explains why the death penalty risks returning in the Philippines and the reasons against its resurgence. It is available in 11 languages of the Philippines, plus French and English.

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This brochure was developed by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty with the Commission on the Human Rights in the Philippines. It explains why the death penalty risks returning in the Philippines and the reasons against its resurgence. It is available in 11 languages of the Philippines, plus French and English.

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This brochure was developed by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty with the Commission on the Human Rights in the Philippines. It explains why the death penalty risks returning in the Philippines and the reasons against its resurgence. It is available in 11 languages of the Philippines, plus French and English.

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This brochure was developed by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty with the Commission on the Human Rights in the Philippines. It explains why the death penalty risks returning in the Philippines and the reasons against its resurgence. It is available in 11 languages of the Philippines, plus French and English.

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This brochure was developed by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty with the Commission on the Human Rights in the Philippines. It explains why the death penalty risks returning in the Philippines and the reasons against its resurgence. It is available in 11 languages of the Philippines, plus French and English.

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This brochure was developed by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty with the Commission on the Human Rights in the Philippines. It explains why the death penalty risks returning in the Philippines and the reasons against its resurgence. It is available in 11 languages of the Philippines, plus French and English.

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This brochure was developed by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty with the Commission on the Human Rights in the Philippines. It explains why the death penalty risks returning in the Philippines and the reasons against its resurgence. It is available in 11 languages of the Philippines, plus French and English.

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This brochure was developed by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty with the Commission on the Human Rights in the Philippines. It explains why the death penalty risks returning in the Philippines and the reasons against its resurgence. It is available in 11 languages of the Philippines, plus French and English.

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This brochure was developed by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty with the Commission on the Human Rights in the Philippines. It explains why the death penalty risks returning in the Philippines and the reasons against its resurgence. It is available in 11 languages of the Philippines, plus French and English.

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This brochure was developed by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty with the Commission on the Human Rights in the Philippines. It explains why the death penalty risks returning in the Philippines and the reasons against its resurgence. It is available in 11 languages of the Philippines, plus French and English.

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This brochure was developed by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty with the Commission on the Human Rights in the Philippines. It explains why the death penalty risks returning in the Philippines and the reasons against its resurgence. It is available in 11 languages of the Philippines, plus French and English.

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Death Penalty and the Indian Supreme Court (2007-2021) maps the important trends and developments in the Supreme Court’s death penalty jurisprudence. These past 15 years have witnessed significant developments in the law on capital sentencing, post-mercy jurisprudence, and other procedural developments pertaining to the administration of the death penalty. Imagined as an intellectual successor of PUCL and Amnesty International’s doctrinal study of the Supreme Court’s death penalty cases between 1950 to 2006, in ‘Lethal Lottery: The Death Penalty in India’, this report highlights the sustained inconsistency and judge-centric reasoning in capital cases, with particular emphasis on the problem of arbitrariness in approaches to capital sentencing at the Supreme Court. 

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Leaflet Lobbying

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The essence of the death penalty is the eradication of life for the condemned. Death penalty was a common practice in ancient heavenly religions, especially in times dominated by the idea of religious revenge. Additionally, it was implemented in a brutal and cruel way accompanied by terrible methods of torture. The death penalty has not been controversial in the old legislation; it has been recognized by scholars without attempting to justify it, as governors and legislators apply it without resistance from thinkers and philosophers. In the modern era, controversy has arisen about the feasibility and legality of the death penalty as a form of social reaction to the offender. The eighteenth century is marked by philosophical ideas which attacked the prevailing penal systems, as studies and research have appeared on the social and anthropological causes of crime. Thus, two intellectual trends have appeared on the horizon: those in favor of retaining the death penalty, and those demanding its abolishment. Each trend has its reasons and pretexts supporting their thoughts concerning the death penalty. Hence, the study analyses and examines “The Death Penalty in the Arab World” through a series of distinctive research methods, addressing the death penalty in ten Arab countries. The following is presented according to a signal research plan that includes: crimes punishable by death, and procedural guarantees on the death penalty and its adequacy, as well as putting forward many proposals and recommendations on the abolishment of the death penalty. This study includes the death penalty in ten Arab countries: Bahrain – Egypt – Jordan – Iraq – Lebanon- Morocco- Palestine – Saudi Arabia – Syria- Yemen. —- Go to first document in English.

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Facts and Figures 2008

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While the methods in this tool are applicable beyond the scope of capital punishment, for the 19th World Day Against the Death Penalty, Reprieve and the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty have drafted this How-To on engaging the United Nations (UN) Special Procedures for elevating cases pertaining to women who have been sentenced to the death penalty.

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“The penalty of death is more likely to be imposed on individuals who suffer from various disadvantages: poverty, poor lawyers, mental illness, intellectual deficits, for example. It also is more common among those with white victims compared to minority victims, those who commit crimes in jurisdictions that have previously sentenced more individuals to death, and those who committed their crimes in the 1980s or 1990s as compared to more recent years (see Baumgartner et al. 2018 for details). In this short report I focus on two particular disadvantages: age and minority status.” – Frank R. Baumgartner

Link to the article: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/report-racial-disparities-in-death-sentences-imposed-on-late-adolescent-offenders-have-grown-since-supreme-court-ruling-banning-juvenile-death-penalty

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LGBTQ+ people, especially people of color and low income, experience high levels of policing and criminalization, leading to an overrepresentation of these individuals in the incarcerated population. A 2017 study from researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, suggests that LGBTQ+ people are three times as likely to be incarcerated than the general population. Once incarcerated, LGBTQ+ people are often subjected to violence from correctional staff and fellow prisoners, as well denied medical care and access to mental health services.

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Findings of a study on the threats facing local civil society efforts to combat reinstroduction of the death penalty and the risks involved with reintroducing the death penalty in the Philippines.

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The People’s Republic of China no doubt leads the world in both numbers of death sentences and executions. Despite being the largest user of the death penalty, China has never conducted a national poll on citizens’ opinions toward capital punishment, while claiming “overwhelming public support” as a major justification for its retention and use. Based on a content analysis of 38,512 comments collected from 63 cases in 2015, this study examines the diversity and rationales of netizens’ opinions of and interactions with China’s criminal justice system. In addition, the book discusses China’s social, systemic, and structural problems and critically examines the rationality of netizens’ opinions based on Habermas’s communicative rationality framework. Readers will be able to contextualize Chinese netizens’ discussions and draw conclusions about commonalities and uniqueness of China’s death penalty practice.

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When faced with calls to join the majority of states worldwide that have now abolished capital punishment, a key justification, typically relied upon by retentionist states, is that their citizens are not yet ready for abolition, and that political leaders must represent ‘the will of the people.’ The Death Penalty Project produced this resource on public opinion and the death penalty.

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This study addresses the subject of the “death Penalty in Egypt”, which is an applied theoretical study done in light of the principles of the Islamic law and provisions concerning international human rights law. Egyptian Penal Code No. 58/1937 is the modern penal code that still retains the death penalty in spite of its cruelty and strictness and impossibility of reforming its results or amending them. The laws governing the death penalty in Egypt are considered one of the most deterrent penalties at all levels, general and private, that ensures combating crimes and preserving the interests of society, as well as ensuring stability in spite of the presence of an increasing international inclination led by the United Nations and some international NGOs headed by Amnesty International to abolish the Death Penalty given the difficulty to reconcile between this penalty and obligation to respecting human rights.There is no doubt that the intention to study the legislative system of the death penalty in Egypt, with the purpose of the determination of legality of this penalty and the demonstration of the feasibility of its application for society, is difficult without identifying all the roles and functions caused by the death penalty over successive legal ages in Egypt. When the criminal legislator passes new laws that address crimes in Egypt, in his appreciation, to achieve deterrence and for the purpose of combating crime, the legislator does nothing new in society. The work of the legislature work is a product of an interaction between the proposed legislative articles to solve the realistic problems from which society suffers in a historical moment on the one hand, and the cultural, social, religious, legal and political heritage coming to our society from abroad, may play a key role in the determination of the content of the proposed legislative text in the context of the mutual influence between cultures. In this context, this study begins by an introductory chapter entitled “The Historical Origins of the Death Penalty in Egypt” in which we tried to pin the Egyptian penal legislation to its origin by studying the position of death penalty and its evolution in society. By identifying the historical origin of the Death Penalty in Egypt, we then present an objective view on the future of death penalty in Egypt between retention and abolition. —- Please find document at bottom of web page.

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Published on December 18, 2023.

Initial impressions of others based on facial appearances are often inaccurate yet can lead to dire outcomes. Across four studies, adult participants underwent a counterstereotype training to reduce their reliance on facial appearance in consequential social judgments of White male faces. In Studies 1 and 2, trustworthiness and sentencing judgments among control participants predicted whether real-world inmates were sentenced to death versus life in prison, but these relationships were diminished among trained participants. In Study 3, a sequential priming paradigm demonstrated that the training was able to abolish the relationship between even automatically and implicitly perceived trustworthiness and the inmates’ life-or-death sentences. Study 4 extended these results to realistic decision-making, showing that training reduced the impact of facial trustworthiness on sentencing decisions even in the presence of decision-relevant information. Overall, our findings suggest that a counterstereotype intervention can mitigate the potentially harmful effects of relying on facial appearance in consequential social judgments.

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Discrimination, unfair trials, judicial error, the execution of child
offenders and those suffering from mental disabilities all
amount to a failure of justice and provide more compelling rea-
sons to abolish the death penalty. 10 October 2006 is the fourth
World Day Against the Death Penalty. Join the World Coalition
Against the Death Penalty in working for an end to the use of
capital punishment and a globe free of judicial killing.

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Pursuant to Human Rights Council decision 18/117, the present report is submitted to update previous reports on the question of the death penalty. In the report, the SecretaryGeneral reaffirms the general trend towards universal abolition of the death penalty and highlights initiatives limiting its use and implementing safeguards guaranteeing the protection of the rights of those facing this penalty. Between July 2022 and June 2024, a minority of States continued to implement the death penalty, with some increasing their use considerably. Pursuant to Council resolution 22/11, the report includes information on the human rights of children of parents sentenced to the death penalty or executed.

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To date, 12 African countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes;
20 retain the death penalty but are no longer carrying out executions; and 21 retain and use
the death penalty. The World Coalition against the death penalty has decided to devote the
World Day 2005 to a campaign to encourage all African countries to abolish capital
punishment permanently.

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One of the most compelling forces behind the evolution of international attitudes towards capital punishment in recent decades has been the increasing recognition of the potential for error in its use – that those states that choose to retain the practice may be taking the lives of innocent individuals. The Death Penalty Project produced this resource on wrongful convictions and the death penalty.

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This project examines the role of defence councils in Chinese criminal proceedings that can end up with the imposition of the death penalty. It aims to review the problems defence lawyers face in such proceedings, the defence strategies they apply and to examine whether the assignment of a defence lawyer makes a difference in the outcome of a criminal trial. Moreover, the project explores what can and should be done to empower defence councils to effectively represent suspects and accused in death penalty eligible cases.The objective of the study is to shed light on the problems experienced by criminal defence councils when defending capital crime cases and to generate information on how death penalty cases are processed through the Chinese system of justice as well as the determinants of the outcomes death penalty eligible criminal cases.

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The majority of those on death row in the Philippines have been convicted of rape crimes, including rape of a minor, rape of a family member and other aggravated forms of rape. Looking at incestuous rape in particular, this paper will examine some of the psychological and legal difficulties of imposing the death penalty for such a crime. It will focus on the effects the administration of the death penalty has on the victim and the victim’s family, as well as looking at some of the legal, evidential and procedural problems that arise in this jurisdiction’s imposition of the death penalty for rape.Despite the continued existence of the death penalty for incestuous rape, the number of reported cases has not diminished. Recognising this, local women’s groups in the Philippines have called for the root causes of incest and other forms of violence against women to be addressed rather than imposing the death penalty for rape. This response will also be considered within the broader context of Filipino gender relations.

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Key Findings

Elected supreme court justices in Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio are twice as likely to affirm death penalty cases during an election year than in any other year. This effect is statistically significant when controlling for the number of cases each year.

Changing public opinion means that zealous support for the death penalty is no longer a litmus test for elected officials in many death penalty jurisdictions. Today’s elections feature viable candidates who criticize use of the death penalty and pledge reforms or even non-use, reflecting the significant decline in public support for the death penalty.

Elected governors were more likely to grant clemency in the past when they did not face voters in an upcoming election. Concerns about voter “backlash” have eased today with declining public support and low numbers of new death sentences and executions, and have led to an increased number of prisoners benefiting from clemency grants, especially mass grants, in recent years.

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Iran Human Rights (IHR); August 25, 2021: Pioneering Iranian alternative rock band, Kiosk have released a new musical film and album titled “Sweet Destiny.” Based on a historic 1853 photograph of a public execution by cannon fire in Iran, it is the first professional Farsi language album or film of its kind to be dedicated to the subject of the death penalty.

The story is narrated by the photographer who has been summoned to photograph the scene of the execution as proof and questions the defendant’s crime. Divided into 14 acts, the imagined story of the execution is layered with cultural and political metaphors and references. Kiosk’s rich and poignant songs create context, take the viewers through the history of Iran since 1853 and highlight the critical issues around the death penalty and human rights breaches in Iran. Using historical photographs, paintings and animation, Sweet Destiny is visually mesmerising and thought provoking with sprinkles of satire that masterfully cross cultural boundaries. The film is subtitled in English.  

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Published on December 12, 2023.

In a recently published academic article, Emory University History Professor Daniel LaChance writes about an important and underrecognized distinction in the way newspaper editors and journalists covered the executions of Black and white men in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Professor LaChance argues that the portrayals of the defendants made legal executions “a high-status punishment that respected the whiteness of those who suffered it.” While the length and detail of articles about the executions of Black men shrank dramatically over time, he notes that journalists consistently highlighted the humanity of white men who were executed, making it “easier for those who wanted to project a modern image of the South to distance capital punishment from lynching, a form of violence that was becoming a source of embarrassment for respectable white Southerners.”

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The 15th Annual Report on the Death Penalty in Iran, by Iran Human Rights and ECPM reveals the highest annual number of executions since 2015. At least 582 people were executed, an increase of 75% compared to 2021. In 2022, Iran’s authorities demonstrated how crucial the death penalty is to instil societal fear in order to hold onto power.

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Among the most significant and compelling aspects of the litigation surrounding the issue of the mandatory death penalty in the Caribbean region has been the interplay between the procedures and jurisprudence of the inter-American human rights system and those of relevant domestic courts. In particular, the supervisory bodies of the inter-American system have relied upon the decisions of appellate courts in certain states employing the death penalty, and have concluded that the practice of mandatory sentencing for the death penalty contravened applicable international human rights norms. Subsequently, appellate courts in the Caribbean region explicitly relied upon the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in interpreting and applying rights that are protected under national constitutions. Moreover, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council found that the protection of due process of law under national constitutions extend to the procedures before the inter-American human rights system,’ with the consequence that states were barred from executing capital defendants while their pending cases were before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and, where available, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

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This document contains Amnesty International’s written observations to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on legislative or other measures denying judicial or other effective recourse to challenge the death penalty; in the matter of a request by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for an advisory opinion from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (article 64(1) of the American Convention on Human Rights) and in the matter of legislative measures concerning the mandatory imposition of the death penalty and related matters.

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This study aims to assess the possibility of Viet Nam ratifying the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) aiming at the abolition of the death penalty. It analyzes: (a) the current international legal framework and the process of legal development to abolish the death penalty in selected countries, (b) the compatibility between the existing regulations on the death penalty in the Vietnamese legal system and the Second Optional Protocol of the ICCPR, and (c) the assessment of feasibility for abolition of the death penalty in Viet Nam.

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Fourteen Days in May is a documentary directed by Paul Hamann. The program recounts the final days before the execution of Edward Earl Johnson, an American prisoner convicted of rape and murder.

The documentary crew, given access to the prison warden, guards and chaplain and to Johnson and his family, filmed the last days of Johnson’s life in detail. The documentary argues against the death penalty and maintains that capital punishment is disproportionately applied to African-Americans convicted of crimes against whites. The programme features attorney Clive Stafford Smith, an advocate against capital punishment.

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The Death Penalty Project’s latest report provides a comprehensive analysis of the lives of prisoners on death row in Kenya. It focuses on prisoners’ socio-economic backgrounds and profiles, their pathways to, and motivation for, offending, as well as their experiences of the criminal justice process and of imprisonment. It complements our previous research, a two-part study of attitudes towards the death penalty in Kenya, The Death Penalty in Kenya: A Punishment that has Died Out in Practice.
While 120 countries around the world have now abolished the death penalty, including 25 in Africa, Kenya is one of 22 African nations that continues to retain the death penalty in law, albeit it has not carried out any executions for more than three decades. As such, Kenya is classified as ‘abolitionist de facto’, the United Nations term for a country that has not carried out an execution for at least 10 years. Yet, while state-sanctioned executions no longer occur, hundreds of people are currently living under sentence of death and others are convicted and sentenced to death each year. As long as the death penalty is retained in law, there remains a risk that executions might resume if there is political change. Moreover, the plight and turmoil of those languishing on death row – consistently the poorest and most vulnerable – cannot be ignored. They are disproportionately sentenced to death and suffer the harshest punishments and treatment.

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The use of the death penalty is frequent in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Capital punishment is applied for 22 offences, including murder, armed robbery, drug trafficking, rape, sexual abuse of children, and a range of economic crimes, such as graft and corruption, fraud and embezzlement (for 500 million dong – $33,200 – or more of state property), illegal production and trade of food, foodstuffs and medicines. Seven political acts perceived as “threats against national security” carry the death penalty as a maximum sentence. Capital punishment is most often used to sanction drug-related offences, followed by corruption, black-market and violent crimes. Vietnam has some of the harshest drug laws in the world. A 1997 law made possession or smuggling of 100g or more of heroin, or 5 kilograms or more of opium, punishable by death. In 2001, 55 sentences were pronounced for drug trafficking alone.

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In The Fear of Too Much Justice, legendary death penalty lawyer Stephen B. Bright and legal scholar James Kwak offer a heart-wrenching overview of how the criminal legal system fails to live up to the values of equality and justice. The book ranges from poor people squeezed for cash by private probation companies because of trivial violations to people executed in violation of the Constitution despite overwhelming evidence of intellectual disability or mental illness. They also show examples from around the country of places that are making progress toward justice.

With a foreword by Bryan Stevenson, who worked for Bright at the Southern Center for Human Rights and credits him for “[breaking] down the issues with the death penalty simply but persuasively,” The Fear of Too Much Justice offers a timely, trenchant, firsthand critique of our criminal courts and points the way toward a more just future.

Available: June 2023

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In striking down the death penalty for intellectually disabled and juvenile defendants, Atkins v. Virginia and Roper v. Simmons have been understandably heralded as important holdings under the Court’s Eighth Amendment jurisprudence that has found the death penalty “disproportional” for certain types of defendants and crimes. This Article argues, however, that the cases have a far more revolutionary reach than their conventional understanding. In both cases the Court went one step beyond its usual two-step analysis of assessing whether imposing the death penalty violated “evolving standards of decency.” This extra step looked at why even though intellectual disability and youth were powerful mitigators, juries were not able to reliably use them in their decision making. The Court thus articulated expressly for the first time what this Article calls the “unreliability principle:” if too great a risk exists that constitutionally protected mitigation cannot be reliably assessed, the unreliability means that the death penalty cannot be constitutionally imposed. In recognizing the unreliability principle, the Court has called into serious question the death penalty for other offenders to whom the principle applies, such as mentally ill defendants. And, unlike with the “evolving standards” analysis, the unreliability principle does not depend on whether a national consensus exists against the practice. This Article identifies the six Atkins-Roper factors that bring the unreliability principle into play and shows why they make application of the death penalty to mentally ill defendants unconstitutional. The principle, which finds its constitutional home in the cases of Woodson v. North Carolina and Lockett v. Ohio, has profound implications for the death penalty, and if taken to its logical endpoint calls into question the Court’s core premise since Furman v. Georgia, that by providing individualized consideration of a defendant and his crime, the death penalty decision will be free of arbitrariness.

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To assess fairness and accuracy in Florida’s death penalty system, the Florida Death Penalty Assessment Team researched the twelve issues that the American Bar Association identified as central to the analysis of the fairness and accuracy of a state’s capital punishment system: (1) collection, preservation, and testing of DNA and other types of evidence; (2) law enforcement identifications and interrogations; (3) crime laboratories and medical examiner offices; (4) prosecutorial professionalism; (5) defense services; (6) the direct appeal process; (7) state post-conviction proceedings; (8) clemency; (9) jury instructions; (10) judicial independence; (11) racial and ethnic minorities; and (12) mental retardation and mental illness. The Florida Death Penalty Assessment Report devotes a chapter to each of these issues, which follow a preliminary chapter on Florida death penalty law (for a total of 13 chapters). Each of the issue chapters begins with a discussion of the relevant law and then reaches conclusions about the extent to which the State of Florida complies with the ABA Recommendations.

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To assess fairness and accuracy in Indiana’s death penalty system, the Indiana Death Penalty Assessment Team researched the twelve issues that the American Bar Association identified as central to the analysis of the fairness and accuracy of a state’s capital punishment system: (1) collection, preservation, and testing of DNA and other types of evidence; (2) law enforcement identifications and interrogations; (3) crime laboratories and medical examiner offices; (4) prosecutorial professionalism; (5) defense services; (6) the direct appeal process; (7) state post-conviction proceedings; (8) clemency; (9) jury instructions; (10) judicial independence; (11) racial and ethnic minorities; and (12) mental retardation and mental illness. The Indiana Death Penalty Assessment Report devotes a chapter to each of these issues, which follow a preliminary chapter on Indiana death penalty law (for a total of 13 chapters). Each of the issue chapters begins with a discussion of the relevant law and then reaches conclusions about the extent to which the State of Indiana complies with the ABA Recommendations.

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To assess fairness and accuracy in Ohio’s death penalty system, the Ohio Death Penalty Assessment Team researched the twelve issues that the American Bar Association identified as central to the analysis of the fairness and accuracy of a state’s capital punishment system: (1) collection, preservation, and testing of DNA and other types of evidence; (2) law enforcement identifications and interrogations; (3) crime laboratories and medical examiner offices; (4) prosecutorial professionalism; (5) defense services; (6) the direct appeal process; (7) state post-conviction proceedings; (8) clemency; (9) jury instructions; (10) judicial independence; (11) racial and ethnic minorities; and (12) mental retardation and mental illness. The Ohio Death Penalty Assessment Report devotes a chapter to each of these issues, which follow a preliminary chapter on Ohio death penalty law (for a total of 13 chapters). Each of the issue chapters begins with a discussion of the relevant law and then reaches conclusions about the extent to which the State of Ohio complies with the ABA Recommendations.

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Since July 1978, when Maryland’s capital punishment statute took effect, the State has been plagued by charges that the imposition of the death penalty is influenced by the race of the defendant and the legal jurisdiction in which the homicide occurred. Most critics use the characteristics of condemned inmates on Maryland’s death row, which reveal possible racial motivations. However, the authors argue that simply relying on the characteristics of condemned inmates reveals little about the underlying mechanisms of the imposition of the death penalty. The recent history of capital punishment in Maryland is reviewed, followed by a brief description of the legal structure of capital punishment under Maryland law. In order to empirically measure whether the imposition of capital punishment in Maryland is discriminatory, the authors examined 1,311 death eligible cases in Maryland from July 1, 1978 to December 31, 1999. Death eligible cases were defined as those cases in which the State’s attorney filed a notice of intention to seek a death sentence, the facts established that first degree murder was committed, the defendant was the principle in the first degree murder, the murder included at least one statutory aggravating circumstance, and the defendant was eligible for capital punishment at the time of the offense. The statistical strategy focused on determining the influence of race of victim, race of defendant, and geography on the imposition of the death penalty. Findings suggest that race and geography indeed play an important role in the Maryland justice system. Race and geography exert their most influence at the death notification and death notice retraction stages of the process. Thus, it is prosecutorial discretion that is the most apparent in the possible discriminatory application of capital punishment in Maryland. The findings from this study are unsurprising and are in line with similar studies from other States. The author cautions that overt racism is not necessarily the reason beyond the disproportionate application of capital punishment.

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To assess fairness and accuracy in Pennsylvania’s death penalty system, the Pennsylvania Death Penalty Assessment Team researched the twelve issues that the American Bar Association identified as central to the analysis of the fairness and accuracy of a state’scapital punishment system: (1) collection, preservation, and testing of DNA and other types of evidence; (2) law enforcement identifications and interrogations; (3) crime laboratories and medical examiner offices; (4) prosecutorial professionalism; (5) defense services; (6) the direct appeal process; (7) state post-conviction proceedings; (8) clemency; (9) jury instructions; (10) judicial independence; (11) racial and ethnic minorities; and (12) mental retardation and mental illness. Following a preliminary chapter on Pennsylvania’s death penalty law, the Pennsylvania Death Penalty Assessment Report devotes a chapter to each of these issues. Each chapter begins with a discussion of the relevant law and concludes with a discussion of the extent to which the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is in compliance with the ABA’s Recommendations.

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To assess fairness and accuracy in Tennessee’s death penalty system, the Tennessee Death Penalty Assessment Team researched the twelve issues that the American Bar Association identified as central to the analysis of the fairness and accuracy of a state’s capital punishment system: (1) collection, preservation, and testing of DNA and other types of evidence; (2) law enforcement identifications and interrogations; (3) crime laboratories and medical examiner offices; (4) prosecutorial professionalism; (5) defense services; (6) the direct appeal process; (7) state post-conviction proceedings; (8) clemency proceedings; (9) jury instructions; (10) judicial independence; (11) racial and ethnic minorities; and (12) mental retardation and mental illness. Following a preliminary chapter on Tennessee’s death penalty law, the Tennessee Death Penalty Assessment Report devotes a chapter to each of these twelve issues. Each chapter begins with a discussion of the relevant law and then concludes the extent to which the State of Tennessee is in compliance with the ABA’s Recommendations.

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In 2019-20, The Death Penalty Project, in partnership with LBH Masyarakat and the University of Indonesia, commissioned Professor Carolyn Hoyle, of The Death Penalty Research Unit at the University of Oxford to conduct research investigating attitudes towards the death penalty in Indonesia. The findings have been presented in a two-part report; the first details the findings of a nuanced public survey and the second details the findings of interviews conducted with opinion formers. The public opinion research was undertaken by surveying a stratified random sample of 1,515 respondents – a sample large enough to make inferences from the data about the views of the overall population.

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Use of the death penalty in Texas remained near historic low levels in 2022, with juries sentencing two people to death and the State executing five people. Three other scheduled executions were stayed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA). Overall, the eight execution dates set for 2022 were the fewest in Texas since 1996.
Despite their low number, the executions set and carried out in 2022 raise troubling issues about the fairness and utility of the death penalty. Four of the men put to death, including 78-year-old Carl Wayne Buntion, suffered from physical or mental impairments or histories of childhood trauma, while two maintained their innocence of the crimes for which they were convicted.

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The Report examines the possible consequences of the imposition and application of the death penalty on the enjoyment of various human rights, including human dignity, the right to life, the right to freedom from torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the right to a fair trial and the right to equality and non-discrimination. It further examines the human rights consequences of the lack of transparency in the imposition and application of the death penalty.

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The report Sentenced to Death Without Execution, Why capital punishment has not yet been abolished in the Eastern Caribbean and Barbados, was published on 7 April 2020. It presents the views of opinion formers and was written by Roger Hood and Florence Seemungal with the assistance of Amaya Athill.Six independent nations in the Eastern Caribbean – Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines, all members of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) – and Barbados, retain the death penalty for murder. Most of these countries have not executed anyone sentenced to death for at least ten years with the vast majority not carrying out an execution for more than twenty years.This independent empirical study, which presents the views of 100 ‘opinion formers’, drawn from the seven jurisdictions, aims to shed light on why these countries hang on to capital punishment and what are the barriers to the complete abolition of the death penalty in these nations. The respondents were asked about their knowledge of the use of capital punishment in their respective countries and the extent to which, and why, they either supported the policy of retaining the death penalty or were in favour of its abolition, as well as the factors, beliefs, and assumptions that appeared to account for their government’s unwillingness to embrace complete abolition.Key findings include:- Across these seven nations, 48 of the interviewees favoured retention of the death penalty (18 of them strongly) and 52 were in favour of its abolition (30 of them strongly) Of those who favoured retention of the death penalty, only a minority were committed to retaining it: only 10 of 48 interviewees said they would ‘strongly oppose an Act of Parliament to completely abolish the death penalty by definitely voting against it’. Respondents believed the best strategies to persuade their respective governments to embrace reform were: ‘through creating an influential civil society pressure group ‘Citizens Against the Death Penalty’; by ‘mounting a legal challenge to the constitutionality of the death penalty’; or by ‘persuading the government to establish a high-level commission to report on the subject’.

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In 2021, The Death Penalty Project and the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP) commissioned Professor Carolyn Hoyle at the University of Oxford and Professor Shiow-duan Hawang at Soochow University, Taipei to carry out a study exploring Taiwanese legislators’ attitudes towards capital punishment.

The study reveals that the majority of Taiwan’s legislators would like to see the death penalty abolished. The risk of wrongful convictions, the abuse of human rights and a recognition that the death penalty has no unique deterrent effect, were the primary reasons cited for supporting abolition. Additionally, a majority of legislators interviewed expressed fairly low levels of trust in the Taiwanese criminal justice system, with doubts raised over its ability to offer adequate safeguards to individuals facing capital trials.

Key findings:

– 61% of legislators interviewed are in favour of abolishing the death penalty
– 39% of legislators interviewed are in favour of retaining the death penalty, but only one legislator was strongly in favour
– 71% of retentionists and 65% of abolitionists asserted that wrongful convictions ‘sometimes’ occurred
– Only 11% of legislators interviewed thought that wrongful convictions ‘rarely’ occur
– All legislators interviewed expressed a preference for social justice measures, such as poverty reduction, over increased executions when asked to rank a range of policies aimed at reducing violent crime

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The present report, prepared pursuant to Economic and Social Council resolutions 1754 (LIV) of 16 May 1973 and 1995/57 of 28 July 1995, and Council decision 2005/247 of 22 July 2005, is the eighth quinquennial report of the Secretary-General on capital punishment. It covers the period 2004-2008 and reviews developments in the use of capital punishment. The report confirms a very marked trend towards abolition and restriction of the use of capital punishment in most countries. The rate at which States that retained the death penalty at the start of the quinquennium have abolished its use either in law or in practice is comparable with that of previous reporting periods, and may even be accelerating slightly. Moreover, countries that retain the death penalty are, with rare exceptions, significantly reducing its use in terms of numbers of persons executed and the crimes for which it may be imposed. Nevertheless, where capital punishment remains in force, there are serious problems with regard to the respect of international norms and standards, notably in the limitation of the death penalty to the most serious crimes, the exclusion of juvenile offenders from its scope, and guarantees of a fair trial.

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The present report is submitted pursuant to resolution 30/5 of the Human Rights Council. The report examines the consequences arising at various stages of the imposition and application of the death penalty on the enjoyment of the human rights of those facing the death penalty. It pays specific attention to the right to equality and non-discrimination in the context of the use of the death penalty. The report also highlights the discriminatory application of the death penalty to foreign nationals.

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This study is a joint collaboration between international law expert Dr Christopher Ward SC, Senior Counsel of the New South Wales Bar and Adjunct Professor of the Australian National University, and the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines.

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To assess fairness and accuracy in Alabama’s death penalty system, the Alabama Death Penalty Assessment Team researched twelve issues: (1) collection, preservation, and testing of DNA and other types of evidence; (2) law enforcement identifications and interrogations; (3) crime laboratories and medical examiner offices; (4) prosecutorial professionalism; (5) defense services; (6) the direct appeal process; (7) state postconviction proceedings; (8) clemency; (9) jury instructions; (10) judicial independence; (11) the treatment of racial and ethnic minorities; and (12) mental retardation and mental illness. The Alabama Death Penalty Assessment Report summarizes the research on each issue and analyzes the level of compliance with the relevant ABA Recommendations.

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To assess fairness and accuracy in Arizona’s death penalty system, the Arizona Death Penalty Assessment Team researched twelve issues: (1) collection, preservation, and testing of DNA and other types of evidence; (2) law enforcement identifications and interrogations; (3) crime laboratories and medical examiner offices; (4) prosecutorial professionalism; (5) defense services; (6) the direct appeal process; (7) state postconviction proceedings; (8) clemency; (9) jury instructions; (10) judicial independence; (11) the treatment of racial and ethnic minorities; and (12) mental retardation and mental illness. The Arizona Death Penalty Assessment Report summarizes the research on each issue and analyzes the State’s level of compliance with the relevant ABA Recommendations.

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To assess fairness and accuracy in Georgia’s death penalty system, the Georgia Death Penalty Assessment Team researched twelve issues: (1) collection, preservation, and testing of DNA and other types of evidence; (2) law enforcement identifications and interrogations; (3) crime laboratories and medical examiner offices; (4) prosecutorial professionalism; (5) defense services; (6) the direct appeal process; (7) state postconviction proceedings; (8) clemency; (9) jury instructions; (10) judicial independence; (11) the treatment of racial and ethnic minorities; and (12) mental retardation and mental illness. The Georgia Death Penalty Assessment Report summarizes the research on each issue and analyzes the level of compliance with the relevant ABA Recommendations.

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The permanent missions to the United Nations in New York listed below have the honour to refer to General Assembly resolution 65/206, entitled “Moratorium on the use of the death penalty”, which was adopted by the Third Committee on 11 November 2010, and subsequently by the General Assembly on 21 December 2010 by a recorded vote. The permanent missions wish to place on record that they are in persistent objection to any attempt to impose a moratorium on the use of the death penalty or its abolition in contravention of existing stipulations under international law, for the following reasons:

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The question addressed in this article is whether there is need for a protocol on the abolition of the death penalty in Africa. The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Charter)2 makes no mention of the death penalty or the need to abolish it.3 Further, only six African states have ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), aiming at the abolition of the death penalty. Since the protocol would, most likely, take into consideration the unique problems of the continent, it stands a better chance of effectively supplementing the provisions of the African Charter than the Second Optional Protocol.

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This paper updates The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area: Background Paper 2021. It is intended to provide a concise update to highlight changes in the status of the death penalty in OSCE participating States since the previous publication and to promote constructive discussion of the issue. It covers the period from 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022.

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This article examines the potential impact of the new lay assessor system, or saiban-in seido, on capital punishment in Japan, and considers whether it may reduce death sentences to the point of effectively abolishing them at trial stage in the District Court. The article posits that the introduction of the lay assessor system may create the momentum for Japan to align its criminal justice system with that of other developed countries—that is, abolition of the death penalty as an available criminal sanction.

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The present study of public opinion on the death penalty in Tajikistan was conductedbetween June and August 2013. The main purpose of the study was to obtain reliableinformation about public opinion on the deathpenalty in Tajikistan, its awareness ofthe changes that have occurred in this areaand to see any changes in attitude since2010.

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The present report is submitted pursuant to resolution 36/17,of the Human Rights Council. The report examines the consequences arising at various stages of the imposition and application of the death penalty on the enjoyment of the human rights of persons facing the death penalty and other affected persons. It pays specific attention to the impact of the resumption of the use of the death penalty on human rights

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To supplement and strengthen the provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Article 66 of the Charter authorises the adoption of Protocols or special agreements. It is on this basis that the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) – the African Union (AU) authority responsible for promoting and protecting human rights in Africa – proposed that the AU adopt a specific Protocol on the abolition of the death penalty that specifies that “the right to life is the foundation of all the other rights” and that “the abolition of the death penalty is vital for the effective protection” of this right.

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In this essay, Professor Douglas conducts an historical review of religious attitudes toward capital punishment and the influence of those attitudes on the state’s use of the death penalty. He surveys the Christian Church’s strong support for capital punishment throughout most of its history, along with recent expressions of opposition from many Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish groups. Despite this recent abolitionist sentiment from an array of religious institutions, Professor Douglas notes a divergence of opinion between the “pulpit and the pew” as the laity continues to support the death penalty in large numbers. Professor Douglas accounts for this divergence by noting the declining influence of religious organizations over the social policy choices of their members. He concludes that the fate of the death penalty in America will therefore “most likely be resolved in the realm of the secular rather than the sacred.

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From the point of arrest decades after the execution or release of a parent accused of a capital crime, the children’s mental health and wellbeing, living situation, and relationships with others can all be affected, usually in a devastating manner. The inherent trauma of knowing that a loved one is going to be executed can be exacerbated by public indifference or hostility, and by authorities who either fail to recognise or deliberately refuse to consider the situation of these children. This publication addresses the challenges to support the children.

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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.

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The present, sixth quinquennial report contains a review of the trends in the application of the death penalty, including the implementation of the safeguards, during the period l994-2000. It is a revised, updated version of the report of the Secretary-General on the subject (E/2000/3) that was submitted to the Council at its substantive session of 2000, to the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice at its ninth session and to the Commission on Human Rights at its fifty-sixth session. Sixty-three countries participated in the survey. There was again a relatively poor response from retentionist countries, especially those making the most use of capital punishment. One major conclusion to be drawn is that, since l994, the rate at which countries have embraced abolition has remained unchanged.

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The Economic and Social Council, by its resolution 1745 (LIV) of 16 May 1973, invited the Secretary-General to submit to it, at five-year intervals starting from 1975, periodic updated and analytical reports on capital punishment. The Council, by its resolution 1995/57 of 28 July 1995, recommended that the quinquennial reports of the Secretary-General should continue to cover also the implementation of the safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty. By the same resolution, the Council requested the Secretary-General, in preparing the quinquennial report, to draw on all available data, including current criminological research. The present ninth quinquennial report reviews the use of and trends in capital punishment, including the implementation of the safeguards during the period 2009-2013.

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The present report surveys respect for the rights of those sentenced to death as set out in the international human rights treaties and the guidelines established by the Economic and Social Council in 1984. Drawing on contributions of Member States, the report surveys various motivations for establishing a moratorium on or abolishing the death penalty, as well as those for retaining the death penalty. It also includes up-to-date statistical information on the worldwide use of the death penalty, including moratoriums established in States that have not abolished this form of punishment, together with relevant developments since the sixty-second session of the General Assembly. The report concludes by confirming the global trend towards abolition of the death penalty, the important role played by moratoriums in those States that seek to abolish it and possibilities for further work on the issue.

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The number of abolitionist countries continued to grow in 2016, but national crises have created a political climate that heightens the risk that the death penalty will be reintroduced in a handful of abolitionist nations.The Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide assesses the evolutions of the worldwide situation of the death penalty in 2016.

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The present report is submitted to the General Assembly pursuant to General Assembly resolution 63/168. The report confirms the global trend towards abolition of the death penalty. It also recommends that Member States introduce a moratorium on the death penalty. Those States which still intend to implement the death penalty and are not willing to establish a moratorium should apply the death penalty only in the case of the most serious crimes. The protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty should be ensured, pursuant to the relevant international laws. Furthermore, in that regard, States have an obligation not to practise the death penalty in secrecy, nor to practice discrimination in its application.

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This is the main finding of the March 2018 National Survey on Public Perception on the Death Penalty, conducted by Social Weather Stations (SWS) for the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHRP). This is the first survey in the Philippines to explore thought processes and disentangle layers of perceptions about the death penalty. It did face-to-face interviews of 2,000 respondents aged 15 and above nationwide during the period March 22 to 27, 2018.

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This report covers the various aspects of the topic including: domestic laws, international legal framework, execution of juvenile offenders, religious and ethnic minorities, and methods of execution. According to the report, there are over 20 main categories of offences, some of them with several sub-categories, in the IRI, which are punishable by the death penalty. The majority of those “offences” are certainly not among “the most serious crimes.” Some others should not be considered as “offences” at all. In conclusion, FIDH issued a wide set of recommendations to the IRI and the international community. Among others, it recommended the adoption of an immediate moratorium on executions in light of the serious shortcomings of the guarantees of due process and fair trial.

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Professor Kirchmeier examines the recent decline in support for the death penalty in the United States and the resulting emergence of a movement to impose a moratorium on executions. After discussing the history of the death penalty abolition movement in the United States, he identifies five major and seven minor events that have contributed to the growth of the Death Penalty Moratorium Movement. Then, he compares the current Moratorium Movement to other similar reform periods: the 1960s Death Penalty Abolitionist Movement; legislative abolition of the death penalty in several states during the mid-1800s and early 1900s; death penalty abolition in other countries; and the Anti-Lynching Movement of the early 1900s. Based on the history of these other movements, Professor Kirchmeier discovers various lessons for today’s Moratorium Movement, including lessons about strategy and the roles of public opinion and leadership. Finally, using these lessons from history and looking at recent events, he considers the future of the Moratorium Movement. Professor Kirchmeier concludes that for the Movement to continue to be successful: (1) there must be no major national distracting forces; (2) the Movement must continue to broaden its arguments and not be overly dependent upon one issue, one person, or one strategy; (3) the Movement must continue seek support from unexpected voices; and (4) the Movement must stay focused on the goals of achieving popular support and creating new leaders. Finally, Professor Kirchmeier predicts that the Moratorium Movement is strong enough to continue to have lasting effects.

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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.

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In this document Amnesty International calls on the UN General Assembly, 62nd session, (2007) to adopt a resolution affirming the right to life and stating that abolition of the death penalty is essential for the protection of human rights and to report on the implementation of the moratorium to the next session of the UNGA. It also calls on retentionist countries to establish a moratorium on executions and to respect international standards that guarantee the protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty.

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This document provides brief commentary on the concept of “most serious crimes”, followed by a country by country overview of criminal offences punishable by death in retentionist states

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This report examines the sequence of recent events that has increasingly placed the death penalty in the international spotlight. Some of these events are direct challenges to the practice of capital punishment in the U.S. Others are changes in the balance of death penalty practices and attitudes around the world. The report looks at the ways in which the international community has sought to limit the application of the death penalty, and the U.S.’s response to these initiatives. It also explores the world-wide trend towards complete abolition of the death penalty and the U.S. reaction. Although much of the official U.S. response to international criticism has been denial, the report looks at some local and unofficial actions, which indicate a different direction. Finally, the report notes the present and potential costs the U.S. is facing for adhering to the death penalty.

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The Permanent Missions to the United Nations in New York listed below present their compliments to the Secretary-General of the United Nations and have the honour to refer to resolution 62/149, entitled “Moratorium on the use of the death penalty”, which was adopted by the Third Committee on 15 November 2007, and subsequently by the General Assembly on 18 December 2007 by a recorded vote. The Permanent Missions wish to place on record that they are in persistent objection to any attempt to impose a moratorium on the use of the death penalty or its abolition in contravention to existing stipulations under international law, for the following reasons:

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The States Parties to the present Protocol,Believing that abolition of the death penalty contributes to enhancement of human dignity and progressive development of human rights,Recalling article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted on 10 December 1948, and article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted on 16 December 1966,Noting that article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights refers to abolition of the death penalty in terms that strongly suggest that abolition is desirable,Convinced that all measures of abolition of the death penalty should be considered as progress in the enjoyment of the right to life,Desirous to undertake hereby an international commitment to abolish the death penalty,Have agreed as follows:Article 11. No one within the jurisdiction of a State Party to the present Protocol shall be executed.2. Each State Party shall take all necessary measures to abolish the death penalty within its jurisdiction.

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In a new article for the University of Chicago Law Review, Professors Carol S. Steiker (left) of the University of Texas School of Law and Jordan M. Steiker (right) of Harvard Law School examine the racial history of the American death penalty and what they describe as the U.S. Supreme Court’s “deafening silence” on the subject of race and capital punishment. They assert that the story of the death penalty “cannot be told without detailed attention to race.” The Steikers’ article recounts the role of race in the death penalty since the early days of the United States, including the vastly disproportionate use of capital punishment against free and enslaved blacks in the antebellum South and describes the racial and civil rights context in which the constitutional challenges to the death penalty in the 1960s and 1970s were pursued. The authors contrast the “salience of race” in American capital punishment law and practice through the civil rights era with the “relative invisibility [of race] in the judicial opinions issued in the foundational cases of the modern era.”

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This report provided by the United Nations General Assembly presents the resolutions of the 77th session. It includes reports on the moratorium on the use of the death penalty (A/77/463/Add.2 DR XII) which was adopted on the 15th of December 2022 with a vote (125-37-22) (A/77/PV.54) under item 68(b). Guided by the purposes and principles contained in the Charter of the United Nations, it reaffirms the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child and recalls the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.

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The conviction of Amina Lawal in Nigeria for committing adultery and sentence of death by stoning created an international outcry of support to overturn her sentence. The support she received is a reflection of the outrage many around the world feel toward this particular method of execution, and in a larger context the growing social norm that the death penalty should be abolished. As more of the world looks upon the death penalty as unfair, or cruel and unusual, or as torture, arguably, a jus cogens norm prohibiting the death penalty has developed in international law, and will ultimately be the vehicle by which the death penalty will be abolished worldwide. Part I of this comment will detail the plight of Amina Lawal, and how her situation is indicative of the globalization of human rights norms. In Part II, this comment will examine the meaning of a jus cogens norm and how it can be established in the context of capital punishment. Using human rights treaties, the law and practice of other nations, and international tribunal decisions, Part III will assert, citing other contexts, such as the “right to life,” and the already entrenched jus cogens norm prohibiting torture, that a jus cogens norm abolishing the death penalty has arguably already been established. Finally, Part IV will assess what the effect of the establishment of a jus cogens norm prohibiting capital punishment.

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Is the death penalty “natural” or sometimes legally due?
If not, is the death penalty always a political instrument?
If so, how and why can it be said that the death penalty is unjust, also considering religious values?
What about in case of war time or of very dangerous criminals?
In which way can there be an irrefutable argument for banning the death penalty worldwide and forever?

These and other issues concerning the death penalty are addressed by the Author of this book.
A book, where the most common theories for and against the death penalty are considered in the light of law history and philosophical views, and where Cesare Beccaria’s approach is revised, taking into account the development of the contemporary criminal law and of the legal positivism.

This is an essay, where the protection of humanity is not considered simply as a hope or as a naive dream, but rather as a juridical concept, absolutely necessary to understand one of most tragic questions of all time: “is it just to kill those who killed?”

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The present report, prepared pursuant to Economic and Social Council resolutions 1754 (LIV) of 16 May 1973 and 1995/57 of 28 July 1995, is the seventh quinquennial report of the Secretary-General on capital punishment.1 It covers the period 1999-2003 and reviews developments in the use of capital punishment worldwide, both in law and in practice. The report shows an encouraging trend towards abolition and restriction of the use of capital punishment in most countries. It also shows that much remains to be done in the implementation of the safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of persons facing the death penalty in those countries that retain it.

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The regional seminar on the abolition of the death penalty in West Africa took place inDakar (Senegal) from 12-14 November 2012. This workshop brought together nineteenACAT members affiliated to FIACAT. It was therefore possible for each of the nine West Afri-can ACATs1to be represented by two participants (with the exception of Senegal, whichwas represented by three members).Participants at the workshop attended lectures and had the opportunity to developnational action plans for achieving abolition in their countries. According to feedbackreceived at the end of the seminar, attendees found the practical nature of the lectures,and the opportunity to network with other ACATs and learn from the experiences of otherparticipants, particularly beneficial.This document is a collection of all of the lectures from the Dakar seminar, as well asinternational and African texts relating to the death penalty. It is intended as a practicaltool to assist us as we progress towards abolition in Sub-Saharan Africa.

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This is Issue #77, the final issue of these periodic reports, having first been launched on June 15, 1984. On that date, the death penalty for juvenile offenders (defined as those under age 18 at the time of their crimes) was an obscure issue in law as well as in political and social arenas. During the last twenty-one years, these reports have been with us (1) through the intense litigation of the late 1980s, (2) through our society’s near hysteria about violent juvenile crime in the 1990s, (3) into the era of the international pressure on the United States to abandon this practice, and (4) now at the end of this practice. The validity and influence of these reports is indicated by thecitations to them in the opinions of leading courts, including the United States Supreme Court: Roper v. Simmons, 125 S.Ct. 1183, 1192, 1193, 1210, 1211, 1221 (2005); In re Stanford, 537 U.S. 968, 971 (2002); and Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361, 373 (1989). In the litigation leading up to the final juvenile death penalty case before the United States Supreme Court (Roper v. Simmons, 125 S.Ct. 1183 (2005)), the Missouri Supreme Court majority opinion included 12 citations to these reports: See Simmons v. Roper, 112 S.W.3d 397, 408, 409, 411 (Mo. 2003). This final issue of this periodic report is intended to document the status of the death penalty for juvenile offenders as ofthe day before the United States Supreme Court held this practice to be unconstitutional. These reports sketch the characteristics of the juvenile offenders and their crimes who have been sentenced to death, who have been executed, and who are currently under death sentences. —- See bottom left hand corner of web page.

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This paper examines the issue of judicial discretion and the role of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) in death penalty reform since 2007. The SPC has been encouraging judges to give ‘suspended’ death sentences rather than ‘immediate execution’ for some homicide cases. Lower court judges are encouraged to use their discretion to recognize mitigating circumstances that would allow them to sentence offenders to a suspended death sentence. The SPC has used ‘guidance’ instruments which include ‘directives’ and other SPC interpretations and a new ‘case guidance’ system which provides case exemplars to follow. The study explored these guidance instruments as a way of deepening the understanding of how law, politics and judicial practices are interwoven to achieve reform goals.

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All the Council of Europe documents related to abolition of the death penalty gathered in one page : decisions of the Committee of Ministers, resolutions of the Parliamentary Assembly, Treaties…

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The change of administration in the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and taking of office by a new president on 3 August 2013 has not brought any change as far as the death penalty is concerned. Between the 14 June presidential election and 1st October, more than 200 people have been reportedly executed, including possibly three people who may have been younger than 18 at the time of the commission of the alleged crimes.Against this backdrop, FIDH and its member organisation, LDDHI, have decided topublish the present report to analyse the new penal laws in force in Iran that are invoked consistently to violate the right to life in general and to execute child offenders. Coinciding with 10 October 2013, World Day against the Death Penalty, this report aimsto serve as an update on the current state of application of the death penalty in the IRI.

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More than 2500 individuals are now under sentence of death in the United States. At the same time, multiple indicators—public opinion polls, legislative repeal and judicial invalidation of deathpenalty laws, the reduction in new death sentences, and infrequency of executions—suggest that support for capital punishment has significantly eroded. As jurisdictions abandon or consider eliminating the death-penalty, the fate of prisoners on death row—whether their death sentences, valid when imposed, should be carried out or whether these individuals should instead be spared execution—looms as contentious political and legal issues, fraught with complex philosophical, penological, and constitutional questions. This article presents a detailed account of what has happened historically to persons awaiting execution, principally within the United States but also internationally, at the time capital-punishment legislation is repealed or invalidated (either completely, or with respect to a narrow category of crimes or persons). Our analysis has uncovered no instances of executions being carried out under those circumstances. This finding has important policy implications and is directly relevant to the Supreme Court’s Eighth Amendment jurisprudence, which relies on execution practices as one measure to help inform the Court about whether the death penalty is a cruel and unusual punishment.

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Part I of this report offers an introduction and overview of the research. Part II examines the way prosecution policies and practices have developed from 1989, the beginning of the modern federal death penalty era, through the end of 2009. Parts III, IV, and V of this report discuss the costs associated with defending a federal capital case. Section VI describes qualitative data obtained through interviews of federal judges who had presided over a federal death penalty case and experienced federal capital defense counsel on topics such as the quality of defense representation, case budgeting and case management practices, the role of experts, and the death penalty authorization process. Finally, in Sections VII and VIII, the Recommendations of the 1998 Spencer Report are reaffirmed, and the Commentary associated with those recommendations is updated to reflect the past 12 years of experience with federal capital litigation.

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OSCE participating States have made a number of commitments regarding the death penalty, including considering the potential abolition of capital punishment, to exchange information toward that end and to make information on the use of the death penalty available to the public.1 Where the death penalty is still in use, participating States have agreed that it could be imposed only for the most serious crimes and only in line with international commitments.2 In light of these commitments and its mandate, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) monitors trends and new developments regarding human rights standards and practices among OSCE participating States related to the death penalty. The findings are presented each year in the Background Paper on the Status of the Death Penalty in the OSCE Area. The background paper is based on the information provided by participating States, in the form of responses to ODIHR questionnaires. The information from their responses has been included in the present report, to the extent possible, and is supplemented with information from international and regional human rights bodies, non-governmental organizations and media reports.

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This article addresses the effect of judge versus jury decision making through analysis of a database of all capital sentencing phase hearing trials in the state of Delaware from 1977-2007. Over the three decades of the study, Delaware shifted responsibility for death penalty sentencing from the jury to the judge. Currently, Delaware is one of the handful of states that gives the judge the final decision making authority in capital trials. Controlling for a number of legally-relevant and other predictor variables, we find that the shift to judge sentencing significantly increased the number of death sentences. Statutory aggravating factors, stranger homicides, and the victim’s gender also increased the likelihood of a death sentence, as did the county of the homicide. We reflect on the implications of these results for debates about the constitutionality of judge sentencing in capital cases.

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