4-03-09, 9:13 am
Original source: The Atlanta Progressive News
APN) ATLANTA – Last month, March 2009, New Mexico became the second state to outlaw the death penalty since the Supreme Court of the United States' 1976 decision made the practice legal. Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM) signed the legislation.
New Jersey became the first state to do the same in 2007. Gov. Jon Corzine (D-NJ) signed the legislation.
Other states this year are considering putting a moratorium on the practice or outlawing it outright.
As previously reported by Atlanta Progressive News, State Sen. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta) introduced SB 175 in the Georgia General Assembly in February. The bill would place a moratorium on all Georgia executions until further notice, but the bill has remained stuck in Committee.
The Montana Senate in February voted to replace capital punishment with a life in prison without parole sentence. The bill is currently under consideration in the House.
Maryland is considering a bill that would keep the death penalty on the books but make it harder to carry out. The Senate amended a death penalty repeal measure last month that would limit the practice to murder cases involving biological evidence or conclusive videotaped evidence. They added another amendment that would prevent the state from seeking the death penalty in cases based only on eyewitness evidence.
A new report from Amnesty International that compiled statistics about the death penalty for 2008 reveals a global trend downward in the number of state-sponsored executions.
The report, 'Death Sentences and Executions in 2008,' found that 25 of the 59 countries that use the death penalty carried out any executions in 2008.
In the United States, only nine of the 36 states that retained the death penalty in 2008 carried out executions, and most of these took place in the South, including Georgia. Texas accounted for half (18 of 37) of the U.S. executions in 2008.
'Executions in the United States are increasingly a regionally isolated phenomenon. Elsewhere, concerns about cost, the possibility of executing the innocent, and racial bias have led to a significant decline in support for capital punishment,' Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn, director of AIUSA's Death Penalty Abolition Campaign, said in a press release obtained by APN.
AI's report addresses the discriminatory manner with which the death penalty was often applied globally in 2008, with a disproportionate number of sentences handed down to poor people, and to members of racial, ethnic, or religious minority communities in countries such as Iran, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States.
The report also notes the continuing risk of executing the innocent. Four prisoners were released from death rows in the United States on grounds of innocence: Kennedy Brewer (Mississippi), Glen Edward Chapman (North Carolina), Levon 'Bo' James (North Carolina), and Michael Blair (Texas).
Each man had spent over a decade on death row and their release brings the total number of exonerated death row U.S. inmates since 1975 to over 120.
The United States led the Americas in executions and joined the ranks of China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan as the world leaders. These five nations combined for 93 percent of all executions in 2008.
'While it is rewarding to see the United States progressing toward death penalty abolition, the United States should be at the forefront of this movement, not bringing up the rear,' Gunawardena-Vaughn said.
All told, the United States carried out 37 executions in 2008. Texas led the way with 18, followed by four in Virginia, three in Georgia, three in South Carolina, and two apiece in Florida, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Mississippi. Kentucky also executed one prisoner.
'[But] there is increasing evidence that the [United States] itself is slowly turning away from the death penalty,' the report states.
Meanwhile, US Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) earlier this month introduced S. 650, a bill which would outlaw all federal executions and forbid the use of the death penalty as a sentence for violations of federal law.
'I oppose the death penalty because it is inconsistent with basic American principles of justice, liberty, and equality,' Feingold said in a March 19 statement obtained by APN. 'Governor Bill Richardson and the New Mexico legislature's action to abolish the death penalty in that state adds to the growing momentum behind ending the death penalty in this country. It is truly unfortunate that we are in a shrinking minority of countries that continue to allow state-sponsored executions.'
Feingold's bill currerntly has no co-sponsors.
For more resources and information on this issue, including links to the AI report and state bills, please visit www.atlantaprogressiveblog.com.
--Jonathan Springston is a Senior Staff Writer for The Atlanta Progressive News, and is reachable is jonathan@atlantaprogressivenews.com.
