Death Penalty News

A bill to ban the use of capital punishment by the federal government was reintroduced in Congress, where it faces steep odds for passage. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who is also Senate majority whip and chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee; and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., reintroduced July 13 their bill, the Federal Death Penalty Prohibition Act, bicameral legislation that would prohibit the use of the death penalty at the federal level and require re-sentencing for those individuals currently on death row. In a statement, Durbin called the death penalty “deeply flawed and disproportionately imposed on Black and Brown and low-income people in America.”

Many families of murder victims do not want the perpetrators executed – but they do want more support from the state. Most debates about the criminal justice system and restorative justice are criticised for not focusing enough on the impact that violence has on victims and their families. Those objections multiply tenfold when the issue at hand is capital punishment: bring up the subject and many death penalty supporters will say that executions are the only way to meet survivors' needs for justice and closure, and that to oppose capital punishment is to be anti-victim. "What if it was your own son or mother?" they ask. "Wouldn't you want the perpetrator die at the hands of our justice system?" As it turns out, the truth is rather different. During last week's fourth world congress against death penalty in Geneva, the voices of murder victims' families painted a picture seldom seen in the media. For a variety of reasons, a growing number of familie...

The teenage nephews of an American death row inmate started an anti-death penalty organization that has grown into a pillar of the Texas abolitionist community. Gavin, Nick and Nathan Been (12, 13 and 15) are just like any American teenagers – teasing their mom Terri about growing taller than her and asking her to drive them around to meet up with their friends. Except their uncle Jeffrey Wood is on Texas death row, and the meetings they go to tend to be abolitionist protests and public debates on the death penalty rather than baseball matches or birthday parties. “I had to bribe them to play football – they spent their entire life doing this,” Terri said. It was Gavin’s idea to start Kids Against the Death Penalty, their own abolitionist advocacy group. “I wanted to teach people about the Law of Parties. Innocent people die because of it,” he said. According to that piece of Texas legislation, people found to have helped a murderer can be sentenced to death along with the actual culp...

United Nations, New York, 24 February 2010 - (Translation below) SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Prime Minister, Spain: It is unfortunate that there are still numerous places today where the death penalty is still applied and we need to work hard to step up our efforts for its universal abolition. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Prime Minister, Spain: My friends we have 5 years to achieve our goal -- to stop executions around the world: If we work together it is a goal within our reach. Addressing the World Congress Against the Death Penalty meeting in Geneva today, the Prime Minister of Spain, whose country currently holds the presidency of the European Union, said it was unfortunate that today numerous countries still continue to apply the death penalty. The two-day congress, organized by the French NGO Ensemble together with the Swiss government, and the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, aimed to persuade more countries to sign up to a U...

Mumia Abu-Jamal on the phone with his defense counsel Robert Bryan. from ECPM on Vimeo . The 180 members of the public who had gathered to view the film Manners of dying had an opportunity to witness a discussion between Mumia Abu-Jamal and his lawyer Robert Bryan. The film screening organized Tuesday evening at Maison des arts du Grütli by the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights saw a phone discussion with the famous American death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal – 15 minutes live from death row. “ It was a very moving moment live from death row,” a member of the audience said. “Thanks for the privilege we had to discuss with him,” another person added. The emotion was palpable among the public. “Mumia doesn’t feel like a symbol of the anti-death penalty campaign,” said Robert Bryan. Today, Barack Obama can make the difference, he continued, referring to a petition to the US president already signed by 17,000 people. According to Bryan, the death penalty is a privilege...

We the participants at the 4th World Congress Against the Death Penalty, held in Geneva, Switzerland, from 24 to 26 February 2010 organized by the association Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (ECPM), with sponsorship from the Swiss Confederation in partnership with the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (WCADP), adopt this declaration after three days of fruitful discussions, exchange of experiences, elaboration of relevant strategies, sharing of testimonies, including the commitment and strong support expressed from states and international institutions: Noting with satisfaction the implementation of several recommendations made at the end of the 3rd World Congress in Paris in 2007; the increasing number of countries that have ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights from 62 to 72; the resolution for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty passed twice by majority in the United Nations General Assembly with more than...

European countries on Wednesday stepped up pressure for a global halt to the death penalty, as opponents of capital punishment hailed the growing number of countries scrapping or suspending executions. The United Nations and participants in the World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Geneva said about 140 countries had now abolished death sentences or stopped carrying them out under a moratorium. "More than 2/3 of the United Nations member states abolished the death penalty, by law or in practice," Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero of Spain, which holds the presidency of the European Union, told the congress. 2 decades ago the list included just about 50 countries. "The balance has tipped and the speed has been extraordinary, we have seen a grand global change," said Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Gry Larsen. But concern was focused on the countries that account for about 93 % of executions between them, according to Amnesty International -- China, Iran, Sau...

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) today released a special edition for the 4th Congress against the death penalty, a report on the death penalty in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, entitled " The Death Penalty in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam ." As 1,700 abolitionists from over 100 countries gather in Geneva for the 4th World Congress against the Death Penalty, the Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (CVHR) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) express their opposition to the use of this inhuman and degrading punishment and call upon Vietnam to implement an immediate moratorium as a 1st step to abolishing the death penalty. In Vietnam, statistics on capital punishment are classified State secrets." The State-controlled media has reported 11 death sentences since January 2010, and 58 death sentences in 2009, 14 of them for drug offences. However, the real figures are much higher. Peaceful dissent is punishable by death under vague...

More than 1,000 people are expected to attend the 4th World Congress Against the Death Penalty February 24-26 in Geneva. The Congress is organized by the French NGO Ensemple in partnership with the Swiss Confederation and the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. During the 3rd World Congress Against the Death Penalty, held in Paris in 2007, Micheline Calmy-Rey, federal councillor and head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland, invited the event's organizer to hold this year's Congress in Geneva. Abolition of capital punishment is a foreign policy priority in Switzerland, and Switzerland is co-funding half of the Congress's budget. Arnaud Gaillard, coordinator of the 4th World Congress, said the conference wants to welcome different countries and aims to build strategies to help them abolish the death penalty. The World Coalition Against the Death Penalty was created in Rome in 2002. It's composed of 104 bar associations, cities, local gro...