Amnesty slams US on detentions, executions

The US human rights record has been marred by indefinite detentions at Guantanamo Bay and in Afghanistan and by a flawed capital punishment system, Amnesty International said Friday.

In its annual global human rights report, the London-based organisation said US authorities executed 46 people over the past year, despite doubts in several case about the defendants' guilt and questions in others over legal representation or mental impairment.

At the Guantanamo Bay detention center on a US naval base in Cuba, 174 men were still being held at the end of the year, "including 3 who had been convicted under a military commission system which failed to meet international fair trial standards," the report said.

"Scores of men remained in indefinite military detention in Guantanamo as President (Barack) Obama's one-year deadline for closure of the facility there came and went," it said.

"Military commission proceedings were conducted in a handful of cases, and the only Guantanamo detainee so far transferred to the US mainland for prosecution in a federal court was tried and convicted."

Additionally, the report said "hundreds" were being held at the US airbase in Bagram, Afghanistan, without due process and some were "subjected to torture or other ill-treatment, including prolonged isolation, sleep deprivation and exposure to extreme temperatures."

Amnesty said US authorities also "blocked efforts to secure accountability and remedy for crimes under international law committed against detainees previously subjected to the USA's secret detention and rendition programme."

It said there were questions about "crimes under international law of torture and enforced disappearance," under the CIA program where detainees were transferred from one state to another "by means that bypass judicial and administrative due process."

It also noted that former president George W. Bush acknowledged in his memoirs that "he had personally authorised 'enhanced interrogation techniques' for use by the CIA against detainees held in secret custody."

In other criticisms of the United States, Amnesty said "excessive force" by US law enforcement was a concern, with 45 people killed during the past year after being struck by police Tasers -- 450 deaths since 2001.

"Most of the deceased were unarmed and did not appear to present a serious threat when they were shocked," it said.

Amnesty also expressed concern about an immigration law passed in Arizona which could allow police to demand proof of legal status, fearing it would increase "racial profiling."

It also said "hundreds of women continued to die from preventable pregnancy-related complications" because of a lack of health care coverage.

Source: Agence France-Presse, May 13, 2011

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Connecticut's Religious Leaders Say End the Death Penalty

Dozens of Religious Leaders Rally in Hartford to Advocate the Abolition of Connecticut's Capital Punishment Law

Calling it the just and moral thing to do, dozens of religious leaders from the state’s Christian and Jewish communities gathered at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford Tuesday to petition the General Assembly to repeal Connecticut’s death penalty law.

“There are times where sometimes we have theological debates about things in which we disagree, however when it comes to the death penalty this is one item that members of major denominations agree, there is consensus that the death penalty should be abolished,” said State Rep. Bruce Morris, D-Norwalk, who also serves as a minister and emceed Tuesday’s proceedings.

The religious leaders presented Morris and State Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield, D-New Haven, with a letter signed by more than 300 clergy supporting passage of House Bill 5036, a bill introduced by Holder-Winfield that would abolish Connecticut’s death penalty. Speakers advocated replacing the state’s capital punishment law with a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of release for the state’s most violent convicted murderers.

“As people of faith, we reaffirm our opposition to the death penalty and belief in the sacredness of human life,” the letter stated. “We urge you, our elected officials, to examine the reality of Connecticut’s death penalty and seek ways to achieve true healing for those who suffer because of violent crime. Please support repeal of the death penalty. It is time for Connecticut to move beyond this broken and harmful system.”

Speakers argued that the death penalty was an “ineffective, unfair and fallible” response to violent crimes.

“The death penalty applies disproportionately to the poor and minorities and puts innocent lives at risk of execution,” Morris said. “Since 1973, 138 individuals sentenced to death were later exonerated of their crimes. When a human life is at stake, there’s simply no room for error.”

James Curry, a Bishop from the Episcopal Church, said that he has spoken to the victims of many families who feel that the death penalty only adds to their pain and suffering, because of lengthy trials and appeals and the notoriety associated with the cases.

“By abolishing the death penalty, we in Connecticut have an opportunity to affirm and respect our dignity as a society,” Curry said. “…Life imprisonment without possibility of release is a punishment that can respect the needs of a victim’s family for closure in the legal process, it can respect their needs for justice, and it can respect the memory of all their loved ones.”

Peter Rosazza, a Bishop from the Connecticut Catholic Conference, said that the Catholic Church opposes the death penalty because it violates the sanctity of life.

“Human life is a gift from god that must be respected from conception to natural death,” Rosazza said. “Our profound respect for human life also explains why we are opposed to any attack against human life, including abortion and euthanasia.”

Rosazza noted that Connecticut was the last state in New England to abolish slavery, adding “we hope it is not the last state to abolish the death penalty.”

Rabbi Donna Berman said that the death penalty went against the Jewish tradition and was not an effective deterrent.

“Even in ancient times there were those who felt that capital punishment was a deterrent to crime, but they represented the minority opinion,” Berman said. “In our own day, studies show that capital punishment is in fact not a deterrent. The truth is we can deter crime and protect society just as effectively, more effectively, with life imprisonment without the possibility of release. In this way we can avoid the very real risk of taking an innocent life.”

The death penalty has always been a hot button issue in Connecticut, but has risen in prominence the past several years due to a brutal 2007 Cheshire home invasion. Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, were sexually assaulted and murdered in their home after a failed robbery attempt. One man, Steven Hayes, 47, was convicted in 2010 and sentenced to death, while another, Joshua Komisarjevsky, is currently on trial for the crime. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Komisarjevsky.

Both houses of the legislature approved a bill to veto the death penalty in 2009, but then governor vetoed the bill, citing the Cheshire home invasion.

Holder-Winfield said he expected the General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee to vote on the current bill within a week. He said he expected the bill to pass, and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to sign it into law.

“The work that I’m doing on the death penalty comes out of both my religious faith and my sense for justice,” Holder-Winfield said.

During his campaign, Malloy, a former federal prosecutor, repeatedly stated he was opposed to the death penalty.

In the most recent Quinnipiac University Poll on the subject, released March 10, 67 percent of Connecticut residents said they supported the death penalty, compared to 28 percent who said they opposed it.

The event was originally intended to be held on the steps of the state capitol, but was moved indoors because of the weather.

Source: Montville Patch, April 6, 2011

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Panelists speak against death penalty

If Shujaa Graham had known how spending 3 years on death row for a murder he did not commit would affect his life forever, he would have made the police kill him rather than surrender to their arrest, he said in a Monday panel at Yale Law School.

Graham, New Haven defense attorney Peter Tsimbidaros and Connecticut State Representative Roland Lemar spoke about the fight against the death penalty to about 60 students at the Law School Monday night. Slifka Center Rabbi James Ponet ’68 moderated the event, which illustrated the dangers of allowing the death penalty from legal, political and personal perspectives.

Lemar referenced the recent trial of Steven Hayes, who murdered a woman and her 2 daughters in their home in 2007 and may become the second person to be executed in Connecticut in the last 50 years, as an example of how emotional an issue capital cases can become.

“[The Hayes case] took center stage and inflamed the passions of everyone involved,” he said, nonetheless insisting that emotions should play no part in decisions about capital punishment. “At our best, a state does not put people to death. I hope we put this issue to rest and take this irrevocable and entirely unnecessary punishment off the table."

He referenced the time Graham spent wrongfully imprisoned as an example of what can happen when governments have the power to impose the death penalty.

Graham said the moment he was sentenced to death was one of the most painful of his life.

“It was one of the most difficult things to accept, being a human being and perfectly healthy, and within 15 minutes of that sentence I was off to death row,” he said. He urged the audience to imagine life on death row: “Think about what it means for each day to be the longest and most painful day you know, and the next day is even worse, and the day after that."

Graham, who was in and out of prison from the time he was in his mid-teens, taught himself to read and write in prison at the age of 18. He became involved with the Black Panthers while in jail, and was a leader in a prison movement that sought to expose abject living conditions and police brutality.

“Each time I promised I would never go back, that I had changed and I was different person,” he said. “And I had changed, and I was a different person, but the world was the same."

In 1973, when he had been in jail for 5 years already, a prison guard was killed. Graham was accused and, after a trial in which African-Americans were systematically eliminated from the jury, he was sentenced to death. After 2 1/2 years, the Supreme Court of California overturned his trial because of the intentional exclusion of blacks. He was retried in a trial that ended in a hung jury, and then tried again. Finally, after this 4th trial, he was exonerated of all charges.

Still, Graham emphasized that his time on death row took a mental and physical toll that he will never escape.

Tsimbidaros spoke about his work fighting to overturn wrongful convictions like Graham’s and told the stories of his past clients who he knew — and had evidence to prove — were innocent.

The audience gave Graham’s story a standing ovation, and all 5 students interviewed said they were impressed by the panel.

“[It was] one of the most moving things I’ve seen here,” said Sanket Karuri ’13. “The most, actually. It brings introspection.”

Nick Bleisch ’13 said he wished there had been a voice on the panel or in the audience to speak for the death penalty and encourage debate, but added that he still found the talk interesting.

The panel was sponsored by over 15 organizations, including the Yale College Democrats, Amnesty International and the Arthur P. Liman Public Interest Program.

Source: Yale Daily News, Feb. 22, 2011

Illinois: New House Vote OKs Repeal Of Death Penalty

Less than 2 hours after their 1st vote failed, Illinois House members voted Thursday evening to abolish the death penalty in Illinois.

Late Thursday afternoon, the House voted 59-58 to abolish the death penalty, 1 vote short of passing the proposal. 1 representative, Rosemary Mulligan (R-Des Plaines) did not vote at the time.

But the chief sponsor, Rep. Karen Yarbrough (D-Maywood) used a parliamentary maneuver to pull the bill from the House floor to allow for a second vote and less than two hours later, the House approved the measure 60-54.

The measure now goes to the Senate for a vote.

During a lengthy debate on the House floor, supporters said the death penalty needs to be abolished because too many innocent people have been sent to death row.

Former Gov. George Ryan instituted a moratorium on executions in Illinois in 2000 after 13 Death Row inmates were exonerated and no death row inmates have been executed since then.

Rep. Susana Mendoza (D-Chicago), who said she has long been a staunch supporter of capital punishment, said she believes the death penalty should end because courts cannot correct a mistake if an innocent person is put to death.

"I could administer the death penalty myself to a cop killer or a baby killer without remorse," Mendoza said. "But this debate for me is no longer about whether guilty killers deserve to die for their crimes. They do deserve to die."

However, Mendoza added that, "we must accept the possibility of executing an innocent person and I'm not okay with that. None of us should be okay with that. … I can no longer stomach the idea of executing a potentially innocent person in order to make sure the guilty pay for their crimes."

But opponents said lawmakers have already taken many steps in the past decade to reform the state's death penalty system and ensure it is applied fairly. They pointed to reforms such as a law requiring videotaping of all interrogations in murder cases.

Rep. Jim Durkin (R-Western Springs), a former prosecutor, said he believes death penalty reforms have worked to ensure a fair trial in capital cases.

"I am confident that these individuals were given more than due process. They were given super-process," Durkin said. "We need to let this process work its way through the course."

But supporters of repealing capital punishment said that numerous studies have showed that the death penalty is applied randomly across the state and that minorities and poor defendants are more likely to be sentenced to death than whites and the affluent. "The decision to have the death penalty in one case and not another, that is a random decision in the state of Illinois," House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie (D-Chicago) said. "That is no way to run a criminal justice system."

Currie also noted that studies have shown that the death penalty has not served as a deterrent to violent crime.

Death penalty opponents questioned the findings of some of those studies.

"The death penalty is not random," Rep. Dennis Reboletti (R-Elmhurst) said. "[Prosecutors] have to sit down with their office to decide what to do. It isn't random, it isn't willy-nilly. … They take great pride in their work … they review the case, they spend time with lifetime prosecutors … to determine if the evidence meets the criteria."

Surprisingly, one lawmaker invoked Ryan's own legal troubles during the debate, without mentioning his name.

Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago) said that the death penalty is not necessarily the worst punishment a criminal can face.

"Being kept from a loved one who’s dying while you sit in a federal prison" might be considered a worse punishment than the death penalty, Davis said.

Ryan is serving a 6-1/2 year sentence in federal prison for corruption charges and is trying to get an early release or temporary furlough in order to visit his wife, Lura Lynn Ryan, who has been hospitalized with a severe infection. Doctors have said she likely has, at best, 2 weeks to live.

Source: CBS News, January 6, 2011

Connecticut: Hayes' Execution Many Years Away; Appeals could take more than 20 years

In about 3 months, appellate lawyers for convicted triple-murderer Steven Hayes will file an appeal of Hayes' death sentence to the state Supreme Court.

A ruling will take 4 to 5 years.

After that, barring a reversal by the court, the process settles in for the long haul — a progression of state habeas corpus motions and federal appeals that can raise issues ranging from purported mistakes by the trial lawyers or judge to claims that the death penalty is arbitrary and influenced by the race and economic status of the victim.

Even though Hayes told Superior Court Judge Jon C. Blue on Thursday that he views death as a "welcome relief,'' it could easily be 20 years or longer before Hayes is wheeled into the execution chamber at Northern Correctional Institution in Somers and given a lethal injection.

2 of the 9 inmates currently on Connecticut's death row — convicted killers Robert Breton and Sedrick "Ricky" Cobb — were sentenced to death in 1989 and 1991, respectively, and have yet to exhaust their appeals and federal habeas motions.

Serial killer Michael Ross spent 18 years on death row before he was executed at his own insistence in 2005.

In Connecticut, the initial appeal to the state Supreme Court is automatic and mandatory.

The court must uphold the sentence unless it finds it was the product of passion or prejudice or the evidence fails to support the finding of an aggravating factor.

If the inmate loses there, "the process, in a real sense, starts all over again with the habeas phase,'' said Senior Assistant Public Defender Mark Rademacher, who is handling the appeals of several inmates on death row.

State habeas actions often involve claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. Rademacher noted that Hayes was represented by 2 of the most experienced public defenders in Connecticut, Thomas Ullmann, who directs the New Haven office, and Patrick Culligan, who specializes in capital cases.

"But everyone makes mistakes,'' said Rademacher. "A mistake is not a scarlet letter. What happened on 1 day in court during the trial, I have the luxury of taking 3 days to think about it for the appeal.''

Hayes, 47, enters death row at a time when his fellow inmates are challenging the death penalty in Connecticut on racial grounds. The contention, said Rademacher, is that the race of the victim improperly influences whether a defendant is sentenced to death. Hayes and his accomplice, Joshua Komisarjevsky, are already included in the racial disparity case.

A victory in the race case would mean the end of the death penalty in Connecticut and the conversion of death sentences to life without the possibility of release, Rademacher said. A loss would mean that the inmates would have to pursue their claims individually, which could take years. Hayes was convicted of attacking and killing three members of Dr. William Petit Jr.'s family — his wife, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, and their two daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11. Petit, severely beaten, was the sole survivor of the home-invasion robbery, kidnapping, sexual assault and arson. Komisarjevsky is scheduled for trial next year.

Source: Connecticut Now, December 3, 2010

Reggie Clemons - The Flaws in the U.S. Death Penalty System

Reggie Clemons was sentenced to death in St. Louis as an accomplice in the 1991 murder of two young white women, Julie and Robin Kerry, who plunged from the Chain of Rocks Bridge into the Mississippi River. Two other black youths were also convicted, including Marlin Gray (executed in 2005). Clemons has consistently maintained his innocence. His case illustrates many of the flaws in the U.S. death penalty system.

At the time of the trial, the prosecution conceded that Clemons neither killed the victims nor planned the crime; there is no physical evidence that ties him to the crime itself or the events leading up to it. Clemons alleges that he confessed under the pressure of police brutality to raping one of the victims. He never confessed to the murders. He subsequently retracted his confession. Two other suspects independently alleged mistreatment by the police. Witnesses attest to Clemons' face being swollen after his interrogation.

Four federal judges have agreed that the prosecutor's conduct was "abusive and boorish." The prosecutor had a history of criticism from both state and federal courts, and compared Clemons to two convicted serial killers, despite Clemons' clean record. Clemons' lawyer had experienced some past complaints as well. His co-counsel had a full-time job in another state during her representation of Mr. Clemons, resulting in poor preparation for the trial.

Of equal importance when considering the case of Mr. Clemons, is the question of race; not only were the murder victims white, but the two crucial witnesses were as well. The three convicted defendants were black, and during jury selection, blacks were disproportionately dismissed, resulting in an unrepresentative jury, given St. Louis' sizeable black population. The jury's flaws were also noted in 2002 by a U.S. District Court judge who ruled Clemons' death sentence should not stand because six prospective jurors had been improperly excluded at jury selection. 

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Source: Amnesty International USA, December 1, 2010