Source: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/past/26/2003
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 02:55:24+00:00

Document:
Quick Reference to the Position on Capital Punishment of the 2004 Presidential Candidates Inclusion or exclusion of a candidate on this page does not imply support by DPIC. For more information on each candidate, go to their individual 2004 Election homepage, or visit TheWashington Post's 2004 Election Tracker.
In a Chicago Tribune interview on March 9, 2004, Kerry said he came to his conclusions about the death penalty from his years as a prosecutor in the Middlesex County district attorney's office; from his work helping to free a man wrongly convicted of murder; and even from his time in Vietnam. "There are cases in the system where there are miscarriages," he said, noting that he stopped a number of cases from moving forward when he was a prosecutor because he realized the defendants were not guilty. Kerry's time as a lieutenant on a Navy swift boat also factored into his decision-making about the death penalty. "What it did was it translated the killing into a more real event," he said. (Kansas City Star, March 9, 2004) NOTE: The Democratic Party Platform adopted by the party at its 2004 Convention in Boston, Massachusetts, does not include language referring to the death penalty in order to better reflect the Kerry / Edwards ticket.
More than 60 foreign citizens representing 22 nationalities are under sentence of death in the United States of America (USA). In virtually every case, the arresting authorities failed to notify detained foreigners of their right to communicate with their consular representatives. As a consequence, foreign nationals confronted by an unfamiliar legal system were tried and sentenced to death without the benefit of the crucial support from the authorities of their native countries. Since 1993, the United States has executed at least 5 foreign nationals, including citizens of the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Cuba.
In 1969, the USA ratified the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, a multilateral treaty regulating the functions of consulates in at least 144 nations. Article 36 of the Vienna Convention requires the local authorities to promptly inform arrested foreigners of their right to consular assistance. At the request of the detainee, the authorities must notify the consulate of the arrest and permit consular access to the detained national.
Article 36 ensures that all arrested foreigners have the means at their disposal to prepare an adequate defence and to receive the same treatment before the law as domestic citizens. Consuls are uniquely placed to provide a wide range of essential services to their nationals, including legal advice and assistance, translation, notification of family members, the transferring of documentation from the native country and observing court hearings.
The right to consular notification and visits is also reiterated under international human rights standards, including Principle 16(2) of the UN Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons Under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment and Article 38(1) of the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
The US Department of State considers Article 36 notification for American citizens arrested abroad to be a matter of the highest importance. However, the US federal government has taken no meaningful measures to ensure domestic compliance with the Vienna Convention or to remedy past violations which resulted in death sentences and executions of foreign nationals. Amnesty International is concerned that what appears to be a double standard applied by the US authorities may undermine the integrity of international law and endanger the fundamental human rights of foreign nationals detained worldwide.
In May 1997, 32 US law firms that represent foreigners on death row sent a joint letter to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, protesting the denial of their clients' consular rights. The letter pointed to "an alarming, widespread pattern of indisputable and indefensible violations" of Article 36 and urged the State Department to intervene. To date, there has been no substantive reply from the Secretary of State to the joint letter.
The cases of two Mexican nationals executed in 1997 illustrates the vital importance of timely consular intervention and the utter failure of the US authorities to meet their obligations under international law.
On 18 June 1997, Texas executed Irineo Tristan Montoya, a Mexican national sentenced to death in 1986. Following his arrest, Montoya underwent a lengthy police interrogation without the presence of an attorney or the assistance of the Mexican Consulate. He then signed a four-page confession written in English, a language that he did not read, speak or understand.
Although only eighteen years old at the time and despite his secondary involvement in the crime (Montoya was charged as an accessory to the murder), Montoya was condemned to death. The actual killer received a prison sentence. Texas authorities were fully aware of Montoya's nationality but failed to inform him of his right to consular access.
Shortly before the execution, the State Department contacted the Governor of Texas, in a belated attempt to determine the circumstances surrounding the breach of Article 36. However, in a remarkable reply that showed the Texan authorities' misunderstanding of, or contempt for, international treaties, the officials refused to investigate the violation or to assess its possible impact, on the grounds that Texas was not a signatory to the Vienna Convention. A final appeal to the US Supreme Court on the treaty violation was dismissed without comment.
Mario Benjamin Murphy was executed in Virginia on 17 September 1997. Murphy was one of six people charged with the 1991 'murder for hire' of a US Navy petty officer. Murphy fully cooperated with the police and was clearly not the most culpable individual. He was also the only defendant not offered a plea bargain by the prosecution and the only one sentenced to death -- and the only foreign national.
Mario Murphy finally learned of his consular rights in 1996; however, both the prison warden and the Virginia Attorney General refused his request that they contact the Mexican Consulate on his behalf. A District Court judge later criticised Virginia officials for their "defiant and continuing disregard" of the Vienna Convention. During a hearing at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal, the Virginia Assistant Attorney General and two of the panel judges admitted that they had never heard of the Vienna Convention prior to the Murphy case.
The Mexican Consulate filed an 'amicus curiae' brief (interested parties may appeal to a court via an 'amicus curiae' (friend of the court) brief), outlining the "flexible and far-reaching assistance to avoid imposition of the death penalty" which consular officials would have provided, including efforts to obtain a plea bargain and the gathering of mitigating evidence. Ignoring the obvious misconduct of state officials, the US courts ruled that the issue was "procedurally defaulted" because Murphy had failed to raise the claim at an earlier stage of appeal.
The day after Murphy's execution, the State Department sent a formal apology to the Mexican Embassy for the failure of Virginia officials to provide Murphy with the required notification of his right to consular assistance.
The consistent failure of the United States to meet its obligations under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations is an issue of legitimate and growing concern to the international community. The governments of Canada, Mexico and Paraguay have all taken vigorous diplomatic and legal action to protect the consular rights of their citizens currently under a sentence of death.
Despite sporadic advisory notices from the State Department, most state and local authorities remain ignorant of their Article 36 responsibilities. Gerald Arenberg, Executive Director of the National Association of Retired Police Chiefs, was recently quoted as stating that: "In my 47 years in law enforcement, I have never seen anything from the State Department or FBI about this".
In an interview prior to the execution of Mario Murphy, the trial prosecutor, Robert Humphreys, showed contempt for Virginia's treaty violation: "I mean, what is the remedy? I suppose Mexico could declare war on us...To me, it's a completely ridiculous issue". In the same interview, Humphreys gave an entirely incorrect interpretation of Article 36: "The burden is on [defendants] to say, 'Hey, excuse me, I'm a Mexican citizen. Tell my Embassy'... ".
'...[a defendant has the right] To be informed promptly and in detail in a language which he understands of the nature and cause of the charge against him;' (emphasis added). General Comment 15 of the ICCPR's Position of Aliens under the Covenant also expands on the rights of foreign nationals charged with a criminal offence.
In response to mounting international pressure, the State Department is reportedly considering measures to ensure better domestic compliance with the Vienna Convention. These measures are said to include revised material for advising US police forces of the procedures to be followed when arresting foreign nationals.
Amnesty International welcomes these preliminary steps. However, the organization believes that they are insufficient to ensure that all US police departments are aware of--and comply with--the binding requirements of Article 36.
Amnesty International also remains deeply concerned over the reluctance of the US authorities to develop effective remedies in the cases of foreign nationals who were sentenced to death without receiving notification of their consular rights. The US Government continues to oppose efforts by death-sentenced foreign citizens (and their governments) to obtain relief through the courts.
In response to a law-suit filed by the Republic of Paraguay against Virginia officials, attorneys for the US Department of Justice argued that foreign governments are not entitled to a judicial remedy for Article 36 violations and that the proper recourse for breaches of consular rights is through diplomatic channels. However, it is not clear how diplomatic channels could correct the violation of the rights of those foreign nationals currently under sentence of death.
In light of the State Department's insufficient efforts to intervene prior to the recent execution of foreign nationals, Amnesty International finds this position completely unacceptable. Without fair and effective remedies for past violations of Article 36 in capital cases, any assurances of future domestic compliance from the US authorities can only be seen as hollow promises.
Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety, New Hampshire House of Representatives: Testimony on HB 455–Changing the penalty for capital murder to life imprisonment without the possibility for parole by Robert Brett Dunham, Executive Director, Death Penalty Information Center (Concord, February 19, 2019). Exhibits to Mr. Dunham's testimony can be accessed here.
Criminal Justice Committee, Florida Senate: Materials from hearing on revisions to Florida’s death penalty statute in light of Hurst v. Florida featuring testimony of Robert Dunham, Executive Director, Death Penalty Information Center (Tallahassee, January 27, 2016). Mr. Dunham’s testimony begins at the 11:30 mark of the video of the Senate Committee Meeting.
I'm on a U.S. Airways plane - half-filled - on my way back to New Orleans after a week of cancelled speaking engagements. I've seen American flags everywhere - in shops, on people's suitcases, on the lapels of pilots and flight attendants. Everybody's been glued to the T.V. looking in disbelief at the sight of our own planes crashing into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Everybody's swapping stories of the horrors: a couple, holding hands, jumping to their deaths from 80 stories up; the man on one of the high jacked planes calling his wife on his cell phone, "We took a vote, we're going to overpower them, goodbye, I love you."
We're all in shock. Some say the entire nation is experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. We're gathering to mourn our dead and to try to figure out how to respond to the terrible evil perpetrated on us. We're deeply puzzled that there could be people in the world who hate us so much. We've learned how vulnerable we are and that all the defense systems in the world can't protect us against such a terrorist attack. Nor do we know who the terrorists are - certainly Osama bin Laden, who is rumored to dwell in Afghanistan, and his cohorts are prime suspects - but who else? What other terrorists are out there ready to take bin Laden's place should we "terminate" him? The question is looming large: what do we do for protection when our usual military tactics do not suffice? No doubt, we have enough firepower to bomb a lot of cities and a lot of people. We could, as some are suggesting, "bomb Afghanistan back into the Stone Age." But we are hearing desperate pleas from the people of Afghanistan, "Please, don't kill us. We don't support the horrendous Taliban that has taken over and terrorizes our lives." It's going to take us some time to sort all this out. We're all frightened and vulnerable, which can cause us to seek easy scapegoats.
Our immediate spiritual task, it seems, is to mourn the victims and to comfort those who have suffered unspeakable loss. John White, a friend of mine in New York knew 30 people who were killed in the World Trade Center. Other friends of mine in New York are spending their days visiting and praying with those who lost loved ones in the tragedy, including firefighters and police officers and their families. Our deepest and more difficult task is to reflect on why this tragedy happened to us and how we can prevent it from ever happening again. That's the hard part. Because when we've been hurt and are afraid, we tend to strike out at others from the surface of our souls where prejudice lies, not from the depths, where compassion lies.
At The Moratorium Campaign we are meeting to realign and to redouble our efforts to educate the public about the death penalty in light of the September 11 assault. I seriously question whether the death penalty, which acts out the military paradigm of "search out and destroy," will serve us well against terrorists any more than it has served us well against those who commit violent crimes. During the 25 years the death penalty has been reactivated in this country, supposedly to deter crime, we have discovered that the state killing people doesn't deter anything - even the police chiefs across the country know this. I believe that giving state governments this kind of power to kill our own citizens is dragging us all down morally. The application of the death penalty is abysmal. Almost always poor people or the mentally ill are chosen for the gallows, and the whole business of state killing is riddled with racist selection from start to finish. Plus, there is such rampant injustice in its practice that now many ordinary citizens know about and are troubled by the large number of innocent people - almost 100 at this date - who have been sent to death row and some almost killed before they could prove their innocence. This past summer, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor remarked that she is troubled by the large number of innocent people who have been convicted at trials and later freed from death row. She worried out loud that the sheer "lottery" of such numbers almost assures that some innocent persons have already been executed.
The life-changing tragedy of September 11 only reinforces my conviction that it's time for our country to go beyond the military paradigm of "search and destroy" as a way to deal with problems of violence in our society. It's time for a new paradigm, and The Moratorium Campaign on the death penalty is needed more than ever to help build that new paradigm. In responding to terrorist acts the new paradigm calls us to reflect deeper than simply labeling the perpetrators fanatics or evil incarnate and blindly trying to destroy them. Such a response is opaque and blind and can only fuel more violence. We have to draw on our spiritual wisdom and go deep enough in our reflection to discover and build a road of peaceful relationships with the Arabic and other developing nations of the world.
What are the root causes of violence in our country, and is the use of violence by government powers -the execution of criminals - the only solution we know to contain and prevent that violence? The Catholic bishops of this country have given us a good spiritual motto: "If we want peace we must work for justice." That's a new paradigm worth thinking about and praying about. The old military paradigm of searching out and destroying enemies has had its day. It is time to begin building the new paradigm, no small part of which is the elimination of the death penalty in our society.
Mr. Chairman, this amendment, in which I am joined by my good friend, the ranking member of the Crime Subcommittee (Mr. Scott), would delete the language authorizing the imposition of the death penalty for the offenses set forth under section 102.
Yesterday, at our subcommittee hearing, the Administration witnesses acknowledged that this provision is not required by the international convention we are seeking to implement. In fact, Mr. Chairman, not only is it not required by the convention, but it could actually impair the fight against international terrorism - by making it harder for the Justice Department to secure extradition in these kinds of cases.
Our continued use of the death penalty has brought condemnation from civilized nations across the globe. Even some of our closest allies - such as Canada - have begun to refuse extradition requests by the United States unless their courts can be assured that the defendants will not face execution. Given that situation, how can it serve our national interests to enact additional provisions that further marginalize us within the family of nations?
The only answer I have heard is that this new death penalty provision merely tracks current law with respect to comparable domestic crimes. That may well be. But the fact that current law presents an obstacle to our law enforcement objectives is hardly a persuasive argument for compounding the problem.
The fact is that no persuasive argument can be made. People will continue to disagree about whether the death penalty acts as a deterrent to certain categories of crimes. But with respect to the type of crime we are addressing in this legislation, is there anyone who seriously believes that the prospect of the death penalty will deter terrorists from committing the kinds of atrocities our nation experienced on September 11?
No, Mr. Chairman. Let us implement these conventions with all due speed. But let us do so in a way that advances our national objectives. I urge support for the amendment and yield back the balance of my time.
The U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (the Torture Convention) was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 10, 19841 and ratified by the United States ten years later. In all, 176 countries have either ratified or signed the torture convention.
The thrust of this treaty is to forbid physical and psychological abuse of people in detention around the world. Whether the death penalty is implicated in this treaty depends on the definition of torture. Clearly, the U.S. was not about to sign a treaty which, on its face, outlawed capital punishment as a form of torture. But the application of the death penalty in the U.S. in specific instances may well be in violation of this convention.
There are three parts of this definition that deserve special note: First, there is an exemption for pain or suffering associated with lawful punishments. Thus, imprisonment may produce much pain and suffering like separation from loved ones, deprivation of freedom, etc. However, in so far as imprisonment is lawful, the normal suffering that results is not banned by the Torture Convention. Similarly, since the death penalty may still be considered a "lawful sanction," the considerable pain and suffering which inevitably accompany an execution are not torture under this definition. But, the exempted sanctions have to be lawful in the first place.
Secondly, pain or suffering associated with a lawful punishment can be torture if it is not closely connected with that punishment. It must arise from, or be inherent in, or incidental to a lawful sanction. If certain forms of pain and suffering can easily be avoided without eliminating the basic punishment, then it is fair to ask whether that suffering is inextricably entwined with the punishment.
Finally, the definition of torture forbids the infliction of pain and suffering based on discrimination of any kind. There is considerable historical and statistical evidence that the death penalty in the United States has been applied in a racially discriminatory way. If that is true, then Article 2 of the Torture Convention requires States to "take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture . . . ."4 As I will discuss later, this issue is also addressed in a general way by the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (the Race Convention), also ratified by the U.S. in 1994.
I would now like to look into each of these three aspects of the definition of torture to see if the U.S. practice of capital punishment violates the Torture Convention.
Although the death penalty is generally tolerated under international law, the same cannot be said of the execution of juvenile offenders. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights requires that the death penalty only be imposed "for the most serious crimes," and never upon those who were under 18 years of age at the time of their crime.5 Virtually all the countries of the world have signed or ratified this important treaty, including most recently, China. However, the United States is the only country with an outstanding reservation to the Article forbidding the execution of juvenile offenders.
It is because of this history and practice that the U.S. took a specific reservation to the Civil and Political Rights Covenant essentially exempting itself from the ban on juvenile executions. The U.S. has also taken a reservation to the Torture Convention, stating that we understand "international law does not prohibit the death penalty, and does not consider this convention to restrict or prohibit the United States from applying the death penalty consistent with the Fifth, Eighth and/or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution . . . ." In other words, what the U.S. considers to be lawful punishment under the Torture Convention is what the U.S. courts, not the world community, consider lawful.
Similarly, the U.S. has signed but not ratified the American Convention on Human Rights, which states: "capital punishment shall not be imposed upon persons who, at the time the crime was committed, were under 18 years of age."11 The major role of these treaties in international law and the near unanimous acceptance of their prohibition regarding juveniles leads to the conclusion that this is no longer a "lawful sanction." In this sense, the U.S. violates the Torture Convention when it executes juvenile offenders because this grave infliction of pain and suffering is not associated with a lawful punishment.
A similar argument can be made that the execution of defendants suffering from mental retardation is unlawful in international law and hence is torture when applied to them. The treaties mentioned above are less clear when it comes to execution of the mentally retarded.
Persons with mental retardation fall into the bottom two to three percent of the population in intellectual functioning. They are unlikely to achieve a mental age greater than 12 years old.12 Those who have committed a crime have a diminished capacity to understand right from wrong and the legal consequences of their actions. In this sense, they are comparable to juvenile offenders. If it is wrong to execute those under age 18 at the time of their crime, it would also be wrong to execute someone whose mental age was considerably under 18.
The Civil and Political Rights Covenant states that the death penalty should be restricted to the "most serious crimes." The standard of what is most serious includes not only the gruesome facts of the crime, but also the culpability of the person charged. Less than 2 percent of those who commit murder receive the death penalty in the U.S. It seems absurd to maintain that the mentally retarded, who are in the lowest 2 percent in terms of intellectual functioning, are somehow among the highest 2 percent in culpability.
Thirty-three defendants with mental retardation have been executed in the U.S. since 1976.14 There has been some legislative movement towards stopping these executions. When the U.S. Supreme Court in 1989 upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty for those with mental retardation, it did so at a time when only one state forbade this practice.15 Today, 12 states and the federal government have a specific exemption for those with mental retardation.
Another area in which the legality of the death penalty has been called into question is the execution of foreign nationals in the U.S. The U.S., along with almost all the other countries of the world, has long been a party to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.16Article 36 of this Convention requires officials in the U.S. who place foreign nationals under arrest to inform them of their rights to consult with the embassy of their home country.17 It is clear that this provision, which is binding in all states under U.S. law, has been consistently ignored.
There are at least 72 foreign nationals on death row in the U.S. Virtually none of these defendants were informed of their consular rights under the Vienna Convention. Beginning with Carlos Santana from the Dominican Republic, who was executed in Texas in 1993, there have been 8 executions of foreign nationals in the U.S. since the death penalty was reinstated.
Given that there are many defendants facing execution who were not informed of their consular rights in violation of both international and U.S. law, what should be the remedy ? This issue reached the highest courts of both the U.S. and the world with the pending execution of Angel Breard in Virginia in April of this year. Breard was a citizen of Paraguay and had come to the U.S. in 1986. He was not informed of his consular rights when arrested for murder in 1992.
At trial, he rejected the advice of his appointed American lawyers, refused a plea agreement offered by the state and insisted on testifying in his own defense. On the stand, Breard claimed he was compelled by a satanic curse placed on him by his father-in-law.18 He was found guilty and sentenced to death in 1993.
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright asked the state of Virginia to comply with this injunction by the International Court. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to stay the execution, primarily because it found that Breard had not raised his claim regarding the Vienna Convention in a timely manner.21 The Court held that this procedural bar not only precluded Breard's individual claim, but also negated any influence of the International Court of Justice. The decision by the highest court in the world was summarily rejected because of U.S. procedural rules designed to speed up executions.
Interestingly, while the U.S. Secretary of State was pleading with Governor Gilmore to halt the execution, the U.S. Justice Department was arguing that Virginia would suffer harm if it was not allowed to carry out the "execution in a timely fashion."22 Breard was executed on April 14, 1998, shortly after the Supreme Court rendered its decision. Outside of those who have volunteered for execution and waived their appeals, Breard's case was one of the fastest to go through the appeals process since the death penalty was reinstated. Even though Breard was executed, the case that Paraguay brought to the World Court continues. An opinion by the World Court that such executions would be illegal would also imply that the U.S. is in violation of the Torture Convention.
Although much of what is painful about the death penalty is inextricably linked to the ultimate execution, there is some suffering which is peripheral to executions and hence may constitute a form of torture. The length of time that people spend on death row in the U.S. is quite long and not an essential or an intended part of the punishment. Also, the methods of execution used in some states is gratuitously violent and torturous.
The time spent on death row is not inherent to the death penalty. It is the product of a number of factors. To begin with, in many cases incompetent attorneys are assigned to death cases and they frequently make fundamental mistakes in their representation. These cases may result in retrials and considerable delay. Another independent factor is the backlog of cases of all types which appellate judges have to consider. Appeals submitted by defense attorneys or prosecutors sometimes take years before a decision is rendered. Because of the high stakes in a death case, both sides typically appeal every adverse ruling. Only a part of the resultant delay is the responsibility of the defendant. In some cases, the state delays for years before even assigning an attorney to handle a death penalty appeal. The typical wait in California for the appointment of an attorney to just start the appeals process is three to four years.
In addition to the actual killing of a human being and the years of psychological torment leading up to this act, the methods of execution employed in the U.S. have resulted in the infliction of additional pain. At least 20 executions since 1976 involved mistakes in the process which led to prolonged and painful executions, such as an inmate's head catching fire during an electrocution and the torturous 45-minute search for a suitable vein to carry out a lethal injection.28 Four states use electrocution for execution with no alternative possible. Outside of the death penalty, the applying of powerful electric currents to the human body would unhesitatingly be called torture.
Other states allow the inmates, many of whom are suffering from mental illness, to choose equally grisly forms of execution such as hanging, the firing squad or the gas chamber. At least some of the pain and suffering which these methods cause is gratuitous and could be avoided. To insist on the worst methods of execution, as recently exhibited in Florida, despite evidence of the severe pain inflicted and repeated mistakes in application, is a violation of the Torture Convention and of basic respect for human rights.
As was mentioned above, the Torture Convention forbids the infliction of pain and suffering "based on discrimination of any kind." The death penalty in the United States has a long history of racial discrimination,29and is therefore suspect under the Torture Convention.
Another study by Professor Jeffrey Pokorak of St. Mary's University Law School in Texas found that the key decision-makers in death cases around the country are almost exclusively white men. Of the chief District Attorneys in counties using the death penalty in the United States, nearly 98% are white and only 1% are African-American.
These new empirical studies underscore a persistent pattern of racial disparities which has appeared throughout the country over the past twenty years.39 Examinations of the relationship between race and the death penalty, with varying levels of thoroughness and sophistication, have now been conducted in every major death penalty state. In 96% of these reviews, there was a pattern of either race-of-victim or race-of-defendant discrimination, or both. Race is more likely to affect death sentencing than smoking affects the likelihood of dying from heart disease.
Despite overwhelming evidence of discrimination, the response of the courts has been to deny relief.41 When the Supreme Court rejected race claims based on statistical evidence, it indicated that the problem might be addressed through legislation.42 Such remedial legislation, often referred to as the Racial Justice Act, has been offered in both the U.S. Congress and in various states but it has only been passed by one state, Kentucky.43 Instead, Congress recently enacted severe restrictions on the access of death row inmates to federal courts where race challenges can be brought,44 and eliminated all federal funding for the legal resource centers which had frequently raised these claims.
This persistent and pervasive evidence of racial discrimination in the application of the death penalty, coupled with the resistance to corrective legislation, undermines the U.S.'s compliance with the Torture Convention. If blacks are being punished more severely because of their race, or if defendants who kill white victims are executed while those who kill blacks are given life sentences, then the death penalty is an instrument of discrimination and should be stopped.
The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which the U.S. has also signed and ratified, is implicated by a discriminatory death penalty, as well. Although the Race Convention does not specifically address capital punishment, it binds all state parties to "condemn racial discrimination and undertake to pursue by all appropriate means and without delay a policy of eliminating racial discrimination in all its forms. . . ."45 The Convention further requires states to provide both a remedy and a forum for challenging racial discrimination. This is precisely what a Racial Justice Act would do, but this proposed legislation has been rejected as too potent a threat to the whole death penalty.
The United States has ratified the Torture and Race Conventions with certain reservations because of the death penalty. However, while the death penalty itself may not constitute a violation of these conventions, specific applications of this punishment may be contrary to the law of these treaties.
Punishments which may be unlawful in international law, such as the execution of juveniles, the mentally retarded, and those foreign nationals who were not informed of their consular rights, are not exempted from the Torture Convention. Pain and suffering which are peripheral to lawful punishments, such as the years of isolation on death row and the unnecessary infliction of pain through gratuitously cruel forms of execution, are also banned by the Torture Convention. Finally, the arbitrary and discriminatory use of any punishment is forbidden by both the Race and Torture Conventions. To the extent the death penalty is racially discriminatory, the U.S. is bound to take corrective measures to stop this discrimination. Instead of enacting legislation to prevent racial discrimination, the U.S. has expanded the death penalty to new offenses and reduced the opportunity and resources for appeal. Such actions defy not just the spirit but the letter of these important international treaties.
1. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, UN General Assembly, Thirty-ninth Sess., Agenda item 99, A/Res/39/46 (Dec. 17, 1984).
2. Id., at Article 1 (emphasis added).
4. Id., at Article 2.
5. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 6, adopted Dec. 16, 1966, entered into force March 23, 1976, G.A. Res. 2200, 21 U.N. GAOR, Supp. (No.16) 52, U.N. Doc. a/6316 (1966).
6. Amnesty International, Juveniles and the Death Penalty: Executions Worldwide Since 1985, at 8-9 (Aug. 1995).
7. See V. Streib, The Juvenile Death Penalty Today (April 12, 1996) (available from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law).
8. See Governor Favors Death Penalty for Kids as Young as 13, Lubbock-Avalanche-Journal, Jan. 16, 1996 (Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico).
9. W. Schabas, The Abolition of the Death Penalty in International Law 90 (2d edit 1997).
10. Indeed, President Bush refused to even sign this accord because "it is contrary to some state laws, because it prohibits certain criminal punishment, including the death penalty, for children under age eighteen." T. McNulty, U.S. Out in Cold, Won't Sign Pact on Children, Chicago Tribune, Sept. 30, 1990, at 4.
11. Amer. Conv. on HR, Article 4(5).
12. See E. Reed, The Penry Penalty: Capital Punishment and Offenders with Mental Retardation 14 (1993).
13. Penry v. Lynaugh, 109 S. Ct. 2934, 2963 (1989) (Brennan, J., dissenting).
14. See D. Keyes, et al, People With Mental Retardation Are Dying Legally, Mental Retardation, Feb. 1997, at 60, with recent updates from Death Penalty Information Center.
15. See Penry, 109 S. Ct., at 2954.
16. Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, 21 U.S.T. 77, 596 U.N.T.S. 261 (April 24, 1963) (ratified by the U.S. in 1969).
17. Id., at Article 36(1)(b).
18. See B. Masters, World Court Tells U.S. To Halt Va. Execution, Wash. Post, April 10, 1998, at C1.
19. See Breard v. Greene, 140 L.Ed.2d 529, ___ (1998) (per curiam).
20. Case Concerning the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (Paraguay v. United States of America) No. 99 (International Court of Justice, April 9, 1998).
21. Breard, 140 L.Ed. at ___.
22. L. Greenhouse, Court Weighs Execution of Foreigner, N.Y. Times, April 14, 1998, at A14 (quoting the Solicitor General's brief).
23. A. Camus, Reflections on the Guillotine, in Resistance, Rebellion and Death 173, 200 (1961).
24. See Bureau of Justice Statistics, Capital Punishment 1994 (1996)), at table 11 and Appendix table 1.
25. See id., at Appendix table 1.
26. 4 All E.R. 769, 783 (P.C. 1993) (also collecting decisions by other courts).
27. See Lackey v. Texas, Slip opin. U.S. No. 94-8262 (Mar. 27, 1995) (Stevens, J., respecting the denial of certiorari).
28. See M. Radelet, Post-Furman Botched Executions, (May 1995) (on file with the Death Penalty Information Center).
29. See, e.g., S. Bright, Discrimination, Death and Denial: The Tolerance of Racial Discrimination in Infliction of the Death Penalty, 35 Santa Clara L. Rev. 433 (1995).
30. See Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972) (especially concurrences of Marshall, Brennan, and Douglas, JJ.).
31. See Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976).
32. See Death Row U.S.A., NAACP Legal Def. & Educ. Fund, Inc. (Oct., 1998).
34. See Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics-1994 338, Table 3.114 (1995).
35. See Facts About the Death Penalty, Death Penalty Information Center (April 22, 1996).
36. See D. Margolick, White Dies for Killing Black, For the First Time in Decades, N.Y. Times, Sept. 7, 1991.
37. General Accounting Office, Death Penalty Sentencing: Research Indicates Pattern of Racial Disparities 5 (Feb. 1990) (emphasis added).
38. Callins v. Collins, 114 S. Ct. 1127, 1135 (1994) (Blackmun, J. dissenting from the denial of certiorari).
39. See, e.g., Bright, supra note 5, at 435 n.15 (listing comparable studies).
40. See, Editorial, Who Gets to Death Row, Kentucky Courier-Journal, Mar. 7, 1996 (citing Univ. of Louisville study).
41. McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987).
42. McCleskey, 481 U.S., at 319.
43. See, e.g., H.R. 4017, 103rd Cong., 2d Sess. (1994) (Racial Justice Act).
44. See S. Labaton, Bars on Death Row, N.Y. Times, April 19,1996 (calling the restrictions on habeas corpus "a monumental shift of power to the state courts from the Federal judiciary").
45. Race Convention, Article 2(1).

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