Notable speakers and affiliates
Patrons
- Alistair Carmichael, (MP)
- Baroness Stern, CBE
- Benjamin Zephaniah, (poet and author)
- Claire van Kampen, (musical director, composer and playwright)
- David Rowntree, (musician and activist)
- Sir Mark Rylance, (director and actor)
- Peter Carter, QC (Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales)
- Peter Pringle, (death row exoneree, Co-Founder of the Sunny Center)
- Sister Helen Prejean, (C.S.J.)
- Sunny Jacobs, (death row exoneree, Co-Founder of the Sunny Center)
- Susan Sarandon, (actress and activist)
- Wilbert Rideau, (former death row inmate, writer)
Related Research Articles
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is a state-sanctioned practice of deliberately executing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, and following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that the person is responsible for violating norms that warrant execution. The sentence ordering that an offender is to be punished in such a manner is known as a death sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is known as an execution. A prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is condemned and is commonly referred to as being "on death row".
In the United States, capital punishment is a legal penalty throughout the country at the federal level, in 27 states, and in American Samoa. It is also a legal penalty for some military offenses. Capital punishment has been abolished in 23 states and in the federal capital, Washington, D.C. Capital punishment is, in practice, only applied for aggravated murder. Although it is a legal penalty in 27 states, only 20 states have the ability to execute death sentences, with the other seven, as well as the federal government, being subject to different types of moratoriums. The existence of capital punishment in the United States can be traced to early colonial Virginia. Along with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, the United States is one of five advanced democracies and the only Western nation that applies the death penalty regularly. It is one of 54 countries worldwide applying it, and was the first to develop lethal injection as a method of execution, which has since been adopted by five other countries. The Philippines has since abolished executions, and Guatemala has done so for civil offenses, leaving the United States as one of four countries to still use this method. It is common practice for the condemned to be administered sedatives prior to execution, regardless of the method used.
Capital punishment in China is a legal penalty. It is commonly applied for murder and drug trafficking, although it is also a legal penalty for various other offenses. Executions are carried out by lethal injection or by shooting. In a survey conducted by the New York Times in 2014, it was found the death penalty retained widespread support in Chinese society.
The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP) is a large organization dedicated to the abolition of the death penalty in the United States. Founded in 1976 by Henry Schwarzschild, the NCADP is the only fully staffed nationwide organization in the United States dedicated to the total abolition of the death penalty. It also provides extensive information regarding imminent and past executions, death penalty defendants, numbers of people executed in the U.S., as well as a detailed breakdown of the current death row population, and a list of which U.S. state and federal jurisdictions use the death penalty.
Clarence Lee Brandley was an American man who was wrongly convicted of the rape and murder of Cheryl Dee Fergeson in 1981 and sentenced to death.
Reprieve is a nonprofit organization of international lawyers and investigators whose stated goal is to "fight for the victims of extreme human rights abuses with legal action and public education". Their main focus is on the death penalty, indefinite detention without trial, extraordinary rendition and extrajudicial killing. The founding Reprieve organization is in the UK, and there are also organizations in the United States, Australia and the Netherlands, with additional supporters and volunteers worldwide.
Jesse Joseph Tafero was convicted of murder and executed via electric chair in the U.S. state of Florida for the murders of 39-year-old Florida Highway Patrol officer Phillip A. Black and 39-year-old Ontario Provincial Police Corporal Donald Irwin, a visiting Canadian constable and friend of Black. The officers were killed during a traffic stop where Tafero, his wife Sunny Jacobs and their children were passengers. Tafero's execution was botched; his head burst into flames during the execution by electric chair. After Tafero's execution, the driver, Walter Rhodes, confessed to shooting the officers, but later retracted his testimony.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Japan. It is applied in practice only for aggravated murder, although it is also a legal penalty for certain crimes against the state, such as treason and military insubordination, as well as kidnapping resulting in death. Executions are carried out by long drop hanging, and take place at one of the seven execution chambers located in major cities across the country.
Exoneration occurs when the conviction for a crime is reversed, either through demonstration of innocence, a flaw in the conviction, or otherwise. Attempts to exonerate convicts are particularly controversial in death penalty cases, especially where new evidence is put forth after the execution has taken place. The transitive verb, "to exonerate" can also mean to informally absolve one from blame.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Pakistan. Although there have been numerous amendments to the Constitution, there is yet to be a provision prohibiting the death penalty as a punitive remedy.
Soering v United Kingdom 161 Eur. Ct. H.R. (1989) is a landmark judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) which established that extradition of a German national to the United States to face charges of capital murder violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) guaranteeing the right against inhuman and degrading treatment. In addition to the precedence established by the judgment, the judgment specifically resulted in the United States committing to not seek the death penalty against the German national involved in the case, and he was eventually extradited to the United States.
Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution, even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists. In the United States, after an individual is found guilty of a capital offense in states where execution is a legal penalty, the judge will give the jury the option of imposing a death sentence or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. It is then up to the jury to decide whether to give the death sentence; this usually has to be a unanimous decision. If the jury agrees on death, the defendant will remain on death row during appeal and habeas corpus procedures, which may continue for several decades.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Florida.
Linda Anita Carty is a Kittitian-American former schoolteacher who is on death row in Texas. In February 2002, she was sentenced to death for the abduction and murder in 2001 of 25-year-old Joana Rodriguez in order to steal Rodriguez's newborn son. Carty claimed she was framed by her co-defendants who were drug dealers because she had previously been an informant.
Vincent Alfred Simmons was a life prisoner at Angola State Prison in Louisiana, where he was sentenced to 100 years in July 1977 after being convicted of the "attempted aggravated rapes" of 14-year-old twin sisters Karen and Sharon Sanders of Marksville. Simmons has maintained his innocence throughout. By 1999 Simmons had filed numerous habeas corpus writs, but had not gained an evidentiary hearing by a Louisiana court. After receiving a copy of his evidence file in 1993, he had found that it contained exculpatory evidence that was not given to his court-appointed attorney by the District Attorney, and that there were inconsistencies in reports and statements of victims and witnesses.
Capital punishment in Missouri first used in 1810 is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Missouri.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Nigeria.
Capital punishment in Malawi is a legal punishment for certain crimes. The country abolished the death penalty by a Malawian Supreme Court ruling in 2021, but it was soon reinstated. However, the country is currently under a death penalty moratorium, which has been in place since the latest execution in 1992.
Capital punishment is no longer a legal punishment in Rwanda. The death penalty was abolished in Rwanda in 2007.
Capital punishment is a legal punishment in Cameroon. However, it has not carried out any official executions since 1997, meaning that it has not carried out any executions in the past 10 years, making it de facto abolitionist, since it also has a moratorium.
References
- ↑ "More about Amicus" (PDF). 2007. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-02-27. Retrieved 15 October 2012.
- ↑ "Amicus - Casework". 2012. Archived from the original on 2012-09-24. Retrieved 15 October 2012.
