Facts and Figures on the Death Penalty

 

1. Abolitionist and retentionist countries

Over half the countries in the world have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice.

Amnesty International's latest information shows that:

• 86 countries and territories have abolished the death penalty for all crimes;


• 11 countries have abolished the death penalty for all but exceptional crimes such as wartime crimes;


• 27 countries can be considered abolitionist in practice: they retain the death penalty in law but have not carried out any executions for the past 10 years or more and are believed to have a policy or established practice of not carrying out executions,

making a total of 124 countries which have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.

• 72 other countries and territories retain and use the death penalty, but the number of countries which actually execute prisoners in any one year is much smaller.

2. Progress towards worldwide abolition

Over 40 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes since 1990. They include countries in Africa (recent examples include Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire), the Americas (Canada, Paraguay, Mexico), Asia and the Pacific (Bhutan. Samoa) and Europe and Central Asia (Armenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cyprus, Serbia and Montenegro, Turkey, Turkmenistan).



3. Moves to reintroduce the death penalty

Once abolished, the death penalty is seldom reintroduced. Since 1985, over 50 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or, having previously abolished it for ordinary crimes, have gone on to abolish it for all crimes. During the same period only four abolitionist countries reintroduced the death penalty. One of them - Nepal - has since abolished the death penalty again; one, the Philippines, resumed executions but later stopped. There have been no executions in the other two (Gambia, Papua New Guinea).



4. Death sentences and executions

During 2005, at least 2,148 people were executed in 22 countries and at least 5.186 people were sentenced to death in 53 countries. These were only minimum figures; the true figures were certainly higher.



In 2005, 94 per cent of all known executions took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the USA.



Based on public reports available, Amnesty International estimated that at least 1,770 people were executed in China during the year, although the true figures were believed to be much higher. A Chinese legal expert was recently quoted as stating the figure for executions is approximately 8,000 based on information from local officials and judges, but official national statistics on the application of the death penalty remained classified as a state secret.



Iran executed at least 94 people, and Saudi Arabia at least 86. There were 60 executions in the USA.



The total figure for those currently condemned to death and awaiting execution is difficult to access, although human rights researcher Mark Warren has estimated the number at between 19,474 and 24,546. These figures are based on information from human rights groups, media reports and the limited official figures available. Again, the true total is probably higher.



5. Methods of execution

Executions have been carried out by the following methods since 2000:



- Beheading (in Saudi Arabia, Iraq)

- Electrocution (in USA)

- Hanging (in Egypt, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Pakistan, Singapore and other countries)

- Lethal injection (in China, Guatemala, Philippines, Thailand, USA)

- Shooting (in Belarus, China, Somalia, Taiwan, Uzbekistan, Viet Nam and other countries)

- Stoning (in Afghanistan, Iran)



6. Use of the death penalty against child offenders

International human rights treaties prohibit anyone under 18 years old at the time of the crime being sentenced to death or executed. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the American Convention on Human Rights all have provisions to this effect. More than 110 countries whose laws still provide for the death penalty for at least some offences have laws specifically excluding the execution of child offenders or may be presumed to exclude such executions by being parties to one or another of the above treaties. A small number of countries, however, continue to execute child offenders.



Eight countries since 1990 are known to have executed prisoners who were under 18 years old at the time of the crime – China, Congo (Democratic Republic), Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, USA and Yemen. China, Pakistan and Yemen have raised the minimum age to 18 in law, and Iran is reportedly in the process of doing so. The USA executed more child offenders than any other country (19 between 1990 and 2003).



Amnesty International recorded four executions of child offenders in 2004 - one in China and three in Iran.



Eight child offenders were executed in Iran in 2005.





7. The deterrence argument

Scientific studies have consistently failed to find convincing evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than other punishments. The most recent survey of research findings on the relation between the death penalty and homicide rates, conducted for the United Nations in 1988 and updated in 2002, concluded: ". . .it is not prudent to accept the hypothesis that capital punishment deters murder to a marginally greater extent than does the threat and application of the supposedly lesser punishment of life imprisonment."



(Reference: Roger Hood, The Death Penalty: A World-wide Perspective, Oxford, Clarendon Press, third edition, 2002, p. 230)



8. Effect of abolition on crime rates

Reviewing the evidence on the relation between changes in the use of the death penalty and homicide rates, a study conducted for the United Nations in 1988 and updated in 2002 stated: "The fact that the statistics continue to point in the same direction is persuasive evidence that countries need not fear sudden and serious changes in the curve of crime if they reduce their reliance upon the death penalty".



Recent crime figures from abolitionist countries fail to show that abolition has harmful effects. In Canada, for example, the homicide rate per 100,000 population fell from a peak of 3.09 in 1975, the year before the abolition of the death penalty for murder, to 2.41 in 1980, and since then it has declined further. In 2003, 27 years after abolition, the homicide rate was 1.73 per 100,000 population, 44 per cent lower than in 1975 and the lowest rate in three decades.



(Reference: Roger Hood, The Death Penalty: A World-wide Perspective, Oxford, Clarendon Press, third edition, 2002, p. 214)



9. International agreements to abolish the death penalty

One of the most important developments in recent years has been the adoption of international treaties whereby states commit themselves to not having the death penalty. Four such treaties now exist:

• The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which has been ratified by 57 states. Seven other states have signed the Protocol, indicating their intention to become parties to it at a later date.


• The Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to Abolish the Death Penalty, which has been ratified by eight states and signed by one other in the Americas.


• Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights), which has been ratified by 45 European states and signed by one other.


• Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights), which has been ratified by 36 European states and signed by 7 others.

Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights is an agreement to abolish the death penalty in peacetime. The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights provide for the total abolition of the death penalty but allow states wishing to do so to retain the death penalty in wartime as an exception. Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights provides for the total abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances.



10. Execution of the innocent

As long as the death penalty is maintained, the risk of executing the innocent can never be eliminated.



Since 1973, 123 prisoners have been released in the USA after evidence emerged of their innocence of the crimes for which they were sentenced to death. There were six such cases in 2004, two in 2005 and one so far in 2006. Some prisoners had come close to execution after spending many years under sentence of death. Recurring features in their cases include prosecutorial or police misconduct; the use of unreliable witness testimony, physical evidence, or confessions; and inadequate defence representation. Other US prisoners have gone to their deaths despite serious doubts over their guilt.



The then Governor of the US state of Illinois, George Ryan, declared a moratorium on executions in January 2000. His decision followed the exoneration of the 13th death row prisoner found to have been wrongfully convicted in the state since the USA reinstated the death penalty in 1977. During the same period, 12 other Illinois prisoners had been executed. In January 2003 Governor Ryan pardoned four death row prisoners and commuted all 167 other death sentences in Illinois.



11. The death penalty in the USA

• 60 prisoners were executed in the USA in 2005, bringing the year-end total to 1004 executed since the use of the death penalty was resumed in 1977.


• Around 3,400 prisoners were under sentence of death as of 1 January 2006.


• 38 of the 50 US states provide for the death penalty in law. The death penalty is also provided under US federal military and civilian law.

The Death Penalty

 

The Center's death penalty project challenges discrimination against people of color, the poor and the disadvantaged in the imposition of the death penalty using a strategy which combines litigation, community involvement and public education.

The Center:

• Provides direct legal representation to those facing the death penalty at trials, on appeal, and in post conviction proceedings;

• Engages in efforts to bring
about greater participation by people of color and others who have been
excluded from the criminal justice system;

• Challenges the imposition of
the death penalty upon people with mental illnesses, children, and other
disenfranchised groups and educates lawyers about how best to defend
those groups in capital cases;

• Recruits lawyers to provide
representation to those facing the death penalty, publishes materials
and provides advice to lawyers defending those facing death;

• Provides materials to and
collaborates with other organizations, community groups and individuals
in efforts to educate communities about the injustices in the use of the
death penalty and involve them in seeking solutions; and

• Draws national and
international attention to and increases public involvement in these
issues through workshops, public hearings, and the media.

The expertise of the Center's
diverse staff on capital punishment and prison reform issues is nationally
recognized. One example of how the Center utilizes both litigation and
public education in its efforts is its extensive documentation of racial
discrimination in the use of the death penalty in two Georgia judicial
circuits. The evidence gathered was used in court challenges in two
capital cases, and it was also the subject of Congressional hearings and
was featured in Time magazine, the New York Times, The
ABC Evening News with Peter Jennings and other media.

Other accomplishments of the
Center's capital punishment project include:

• Several decisions by the
United States Supreme Court establishing precedents favorable to those
facing the death penalty;

• A decision by a U.S. Court of
Appeals setting aside a capital case based upon the Center's
documentation of a pattern of racial discrimination in a prosecutor's
jury strikes and other actions over fifteen years;

• A decision by the Georgia
Supreme Court recognizing for the first time the need for special
qualifications for attorneys handling capital cases;

• Numerous decisions by state
and federal courts overturning death sentences on poor people, people of
color, and disadvantaged persons in the South and establishing important
precedents which govern other cases; and

• Jury verdicts sparing the
lives of those facing the death penalty.

Who speaks for the victims of those we execute?

 

All over the country, news stories bemoan and hype the countdown to
execution number 1,000. But where are the stories regarding the
ripple effects of the heinous crimes that these murderers were
executed for committing? Who is counting the victims?

A conservative estimate puts the number of victims of these 1,000
murderers at 1,895. Why do we hear so much about the killers and so
little about the victims and their loved ones who are left behind to
pick up the pieces?

A small sampling of case histories will leave readers shaken.

Melvin and Linda Lorenz and their son Richard were killed by Roger
Stafford. Melvin stopped on a highway near Purcell, Okla., to help
what he thought was a woman whose car had broken down, but instead
was ambushed by Stafford and his brother, using Stafford's wife as
bait. Less than a month after these horrific murders, the trio
killed six employees of a steak house in Oklahoma City.

In 1985, 13-year-old Karen Patterson was shot to death in her bed in
North Charleston, S.C. Her killer was a neighbor who had already
served 10 years of a life sentence for murdering his half-brother
Charles in 1970. Joe Atkins cut the Pattersons' phone lines, then
entered bearing a machete, a sawed-off shotgun, and a pistol.
Karen's parents were chased out of their home by Atkins. Karen's mom
ran to the Atkins home nearby, where Joe then murdered his adopted
father, Benjamin Atkins, 75, who had worked to persuade parole
authorities to release Joe from the life sentence.

When Katy Davis observed three strangers outside her Austin, Texas,
apartment, she walked away. Returning later, she was attacked and
forced to open the door by Charles Rector, on parole for a previous
murder. The men ransacked her apartment, abducted her and took her
to a lake where she was beaten, gang-raped, shot in the head and
repeatedly forced underwater until she drowned.

Ruby Longsworth of Pasadena, Texas, met Jeffrey Barney through a
prison ministry, then helped him get paroled from an auto-theft
sentence. Her kindness was repaid when Barney raped and sodomized
her, then strangled her with a cord. She had made the mistake of
calling Barney "a bum" after she had gotten to know him better.

In 1965, Robert Massie murdered mother of two Mildred Weiss in San
Gabriel, Calif., during a follow-home robbery. Hours before
execution, a stay was issued so Massie could testify against his
accomplice. Massie's sentence was commuted to life when the Supreme
Court halted executions in 1972. Receiving an undeserved second
chance, Massie was paroled, but eight months later robbed and
murdered businessman Boris Naumoff in San Francisco.

Faith Hathaway was 17 when she was murdered by Robert Willie, whose
story became the inspiration for the film Dead Man Walking. Hathaway
had just graduated from high school and was leaving for the Army the
next day. She was abducted after leaving a farewell party in
Mandeville, La. Willie and accomplice Joseph Vaccaro had been on an
8-day murder, robbery and rape spree. Hathaway was raped by both
assailants and stabbed 17 times. She was raped again after she died.

Kenneth Boyd murdered his estranged wife Julie and his
father-in-law, Dillard Curry in Rockingham County, N.C. Julie and
her children were living with Curry. Boyd entered the home and shot
them both in the presence of his own children, then ages 13, 12 and
10.

We must think about the lives that all 1,895 murdered victims
affected. Every one had families, friends, relatives, co-workers,
neighbors. The combined loss is incalculable.

There is no end to horror stories like these. Jurors, who represent
us, hear about horrific crimes and make tough but appropriate
decisions. With a yearly average of 15,000 murders, the fact that we
are reaching 1,000 executions in only a little more than 30 years is
proof that capital punishment has been reserved for the worst of the
worst.

The attention given to the execution of 1,000 murderers is
repugnant, especially when the loudest voices think the death of a
convicted murderer is a tragedy. Yet the deaths and suffering of
countless victims is only an easily-ignored statistic.