3 September 2000

AI Index AMR 51/142/2000

News Service Nr. 174

USA

Death penalty -- Time for leadership

The US Government should offer the leadership required to guide the

United States away from judicial killing, Amnesty International said

today, following the release of the US Justice Department's review of

the federal death penalty system.

The study has found significant racial and geographical disparities in

the application of the death penalty at federal level, and indicates

that minorities -- particularly African Americans -- have been

disproportionately targeted, and that pursuit of death sentences by

federal prosecutors is not uniform across the country, despite attempts

by Attorney General Reno to make it so.

"No one should be surprised that the federal death penalty is displaying

the same lottery-like qualities that plague capital justice at state

level," Amnesty International said.

"What would be a welcome turn of events is if the US Government

exercised the political will to impose a moratorium on federal

executions, thereby setting an example for the rest of the country to

follow."

"President Clinton told the Democratic National Convention in Los

Angeles on 14 August that the USA is the leading force for human rights

around the world and more decent and more humane than it was when he

took office," Amnesty International recalled.

"His words ring hollow in the light of the USA's record on the death

penalty. It is time for his administration to act."

Amnesty International and others have consistently documented how

prosecutorial discretion, coupled with issue of politics, race and

economic status, have rendered the US death penalty arbitrary,

discriminatory and unfair, in addition to its inescapable cruelty and

fallibility.

"This American roulette is a human rights scandal for which there is

only one solution -- abolition," Amnesty International said.

In a letter in August 1999, replying to Amnesty International's findings

in its report on race and the US death penalty, Killing with Prejudice,

the Justice Department agreed that "it... cannot be disputed that the

circumstances of many of the identified cases...raise concerns".

However, the Department said that at state level this was a matter for

states, and that at federal level "every effort has been made to

foreclose race as a factor in the decision as to whether to seek the

death penalty". The department's own research seems now to indicate that

"every effort" has not been enough.

"The US Government must take definitive action to build on the findings

of its review and on the increased concern nationwide about the fairness

of the death penalty", Amnesty International said.

"It should call a halt to its plan to carry out the first federal

execution since 1963, and commit itself to leading the USA into line

with international standards and world trends on this outdated

punishment."

History shows that countries which have put a stop to executions -- now

more than half of all nations -- have not done so on the basis of

opinion polls, but have relied upon the courage and vision of leaders to

adopt alternatives to this brutal and brutalizing punishment. A

moratorium on federal executions would be a constructive first step to

this end in the USA.

"The death penalty is beyond repair. It can never be rid of its cruelty

or its potential for fatal error. And, as long as there is any form of

prejudice or inequality in human society, it is always likely to be

discriminatory," Amnesty International said.

Background

The US Supreme Court stopped executions in 1972 because of the arbitrary

way in which the death penalty was being applied. More than 660

executions have been carried out in 31 states since the Court accepted

new death penalty statutes in 1976. The last federal execution was in

1963. Of those on federal death row, Juan Raul Garza is scheduled for

execution on 12 December, and David Paul Hammer is currently attempting

to drop his appeals and "volunteer" for execution.

US authorities regularly violate international standards on the death

penalty, including in their use of it against children, the mentally

impaired, those denied adequate legal representation, those whose guilt

is in serious doubt, and foreign nationals not informed of their

consular rights after arrest. The federal government consistently

responds to appeals for it to take a stand against such violations by

saying that it cannot interfere in individual states' use of capital

punishment.

In 1996, in its reply to Amnesty InternationalÆs call for a presidential

commission into the US death penalty, the US Justice Department wrote:

"The Administration and this Department support the death penalty as an

appropriate sanction for the most heinous crimes. By the same token, we

are unalterably opposed to its application in an unfair manner,

particularly if that unfairness is grounded in racial or other

discrimination."