[WCADP-list] Death Penalty News

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An interesting week in the news:
1.  American Bar Association calls for nationwide moratorium
2.  Experts explain why the death penalty does not deter murder


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ABA Study: State Death Penalty Systems Deeply  <http://www.abanews.org>
Flawed
Based on Multi-state Findings, Bar Association Renews Call for Nationwide
Moratorium on Executions

WASHINGTON, D.C., Oct. 29, 2007- The American Bar Association today released
the  <http://www.abanet.org/moratorium/assessmentproject/keyfindings.doc>
findings from their three-year study on state death penalty systems and
called for a nationwide moratorium on executions. Based on a detailed
analysis of death penalty systems in
<http://www.abanet.org/moratorium/assessmentproject/chartallstates.pdf>
eight sample states, the  <http://www.abanet.org/moratorium/home.html> ABA
Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project identified key problems
common to the states studied, including major racial disparities, inadequate
indigent defense services and irregular clemency review processes - making
their death penalty systems operate unfairly.
 
"After carefully studying the way states across the spectrum handle
executions, it has become crystal clear that the process is deeply flawed,"
said Stephen F. Hanlon, chair of the ABA Death Penalty Moratorium
Implementation Project.  "The death penalty system is rife with irregularity
- supporting the need for a moratorium until states can ensure fairness and
accuracy."
 
While the ABA takes no position for or against the death penalty itself,
since 1997 it has urged a moratorium in each jurisdiction that provides for
capital punishment until the state conducts a thorough and exhaustive study
to determine whether its system meets legal standards for fairness and due
process.  
 
For the past three years, teams of local legal experts have assessed their
states using 93 protocols developed by the ABA as measuring points of the
due process and fairness the state provides.  The protocols have not been
adopted as ABA policy, but are based on association policies calling for due
process and fairness.
 
Of the eight state teams, five urged their own governmental leaders to
impose a temporary halt on executions within the state until more complete
analyses could be completed.  The five states were Alabama, Georgia,
Indiana, Ohio and Tennessee.  Arizona, Florida and Pennsylvania's teams did
not call for moratoria.

Several serious problems were found in many of the states:

*	Every state studied appears to have significant racial disparities
in imposing the death penalty, particularly associated with the race of the
victim, but little has been done to rectify the problem. 
*	Judicial elections mean that electoral pressures may influence
judicial decisions, and candidates for judges in many states discuss their
views of the death penalty during campaigns.  
*	States often do not have policies in place to ensure that lawyers
representing people with mental retardation or mental illness fully
appreciate the significance of their clients' mental disabilities.  And
states do not formally commute death sentences when an inmate is found
incompetent, and they do not require instruction of jurors on the
distinction between insanity as a defense and reliance on a mental disorder
or disability to mitigate sentencing.  
*	In clemency proceedings, most states fail to specify the type or
breadth of review, or to require the clemency decisionmaker to explain
reasons for their decisions. 
*	Most states have had at least one serious incident of mistakes or
fraud in crime laboratories.  They often do not require that crime
laboratories and medical examiner offices be accredited, or that crime
laboratories make their standards and procedures public.  The laboratories
are often seriously underfunded and do not use the most sophisticated
testing procedures. 
*	With respect to collection, preservation and testing of biological
evidence, most states do not require preservation of the evidence through
the entire legal process until the accused is either released from prison or
executed.  As scientific testing capability advances, evidence that could
prove innocence may be destroyed.  Testing statutes create onerous
procedural hurdles impeding the ability of convicted persons to file for and
obtain DNA testing. 
*	States do not require law enforcement agencies to adopt procedures
comporting with national best practices on identification and interrogation,
and most states do not require law enforcement agencies to videotape or
audiotape custodial interrogations in murder cases. 
*	States are not establishing policies or requiring prosecutors&apos;
offices to establish policies on exercise of prosecutorial discretion, or on
evaluating cases that rely on evidence such as testimony of jailhouse
snitches, or on eyewitness identification or confessions, considered as less
reliable evidence.  Many states don't require specialized training for
capital cases, and most states have not disciplined the prosecutors even
when serious misconduct has been found. 
*	Some states fail to provide for appointment of defense counsel in
post-conviction proceedings, and all states fail to provide for appointment
of counsel in clemency proceedings.  Capital indigent defense is generally
significantly underfunded, and compensation paid to appointed capital
defense attorneys is often inadequate.  Many states require only minimal
training and experience for defense counsel in capital cases. 
*	Some states do not require a meaningful proportionality review to
determine whether death sentences are imposed on similarly situated
defendants and few, if any, maintain databases adequate to achieve such a
review.  
*	With respect to post-conviction review, many states provide
unreasonably short time periods in which to petition the courts for review,
and most states allow judges in such proceedings to adopt findings of fact
and conclusions of law proposed by one party, potentially undermining the
judge's exercise of independent judgment.  Some states assign
post-conviction review of whether errors were made at trial to the same
judge who presided at trial, and many states make it difficult to obtain
discovery, or evidentiary hearings. 
*	Jury instructions often are poorly written and poorly conveyed,
making it difficult for jurors to understand their roles and
responsibilities.  States often fail to provide instructions in writing, and
instructions fail to define important terms, or to tell jurors that they may
impose life sentences even if there are no mitigating factors or where
aggravating factors are proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

The teams researched 12 areas:  collection, preservation and testing of
biological evidence; law enforcement identification and interrogation
procedures; crime laboratory and medical examiner office standards and
procedures; prosecutorial professionalism; defense services; direct appeals;
state post-conviction proceedings; clemency; jury instructions; judicial
independence; treatment of racial and ethnic minorities; and mental
retardation and mental illness.
 
With more than 413,000 members, the American Bar Association is the largest
voluntary professional membership organization in the world.  As the
national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the
administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges
in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education,
and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance
of the rule of law.


  _____  



Experts  <http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org> Explain Why the Death Penalty
Does Not Deter Murder



Following the release of a new study published in the Journal of Adolescent
Health concerning the failure of deterrence in drug use, medical experts
commented that deterrence also fails in the area of capital punishment. "It
is very clear that deterrents are not effective in the area of capital
punishment," said Dr. Jonathan Groner, an associate professor of surgery at
Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health who researches
the deterrent effect of capital punishment. "The psychological mind-set of
the criminal is such that they are not able to consider consequences at the
time of the crime. Most crimes are crimes of passion that are done in
situations involving intense excitement or concern. People who commit these
crimes are not in a normal state of mind -- they do not consider the
consequences in a logical way," Groner observed.  Deterrents may work in
instances where the punishment is obvious and immediate, neither of which
are true for the death penalty.


Experts suggest that criminal behavior and the nation's murder rate may best
be curbed by addressing the environmental and social factors that contribute
to violent crime. Groner explains, "The murder rate is most closely
associated with the socioeconomic health of the country. The murder rate in
the U.S. was highest during the Depression. Also, the majority of people on
death row are from the most blighted parts of the U.S. They are very poor
and very impoverished. A very high percentage have mental health problems.
Good access to health care and improving the socioeconomic health of our
country's cities would reduce the murder rate more effectively than
executions." Dr. Carlyle Chan, a professor of professional development at
the Medical College of Wisconsin, adds that many people believe they can
cheat the system and get away with their illegal behaviors, which lessens
the deterrent impact of a specific punishment.

The youth-study's author, Dr. Diane Elliot, is a professor of medicine at
the Oregon Health and Science University. She examined the deterrent impact
of random drug testing in high school athletes.
(ABC News, October 22, 2007). See
<http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=12&did=167> Deterrence and
<http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=220&scid=19> Studies.


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It's easy to support the death penalty when you don't have all the facts.
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