avohr

Amnesty International

Because the death penalty is a uniquely irrevocable punishment, it demands infallibility of the human beings who are part of the legal system which imposes death. Because human beings are fallible, innocent people have been executed in the past and will continue to be executed in the future.

A recent study revealed over 400 cases of wrongful conviction for capital offenses in the United States between 1900 and 1991. Most of the convictions were upheld on appeal, with evidence produced years after sentencing to prove the prisoner's innocence. But, for 23 of the prisoners, that evidence appeared too late. They had already been executed.

Even the most extensive safeguards against miscarriages of justice cannot produce an infallible legal system. False testimony, mistaken identification, misinterpretation of evidence, and community prejudices and pressures may affect both verdict and sentencing. An attorney's error of judgment, a prosecutor's misconduct, delayed access to or withholding of evidence may also result in the execution of an innocent person.

Apart from questions of guilt or innocence, death sentences may be unfairly imposed in numerous ways. Racial prejudice, legal errors, inadequate defense or insufficient investigation of mitigating circumstances may lead to a sentence of death in cases which should have resulted in non-lethal punishment.

"I shall ask for the abolition of the punishment of death until I have the infallibility of human judgement demonstrated to me." --Marquis de Lafayette

In 1989 Randall Dale Adams escaped execution by only three days when Texas authorities overturned his murder conviction and released him. He had spent 12 years on death row. In the same year, Florida officials released James Richardson, who had spent 21 years in custody for murders he did not commit and had come within 24 hours of execution. Judicial misconduct has been cited in his case. In 1990, after nine years on death row and twice coming within days of execution, Clarence Lee Brandley was freed by the state of Texas. Judge Perry Pickett said, "The court unequivocally concludes that the color of Clarence Brandley's skin was a substantial factor which pervaded all aspects of the State's capital prosecution of him."

In 1993 Kirk Bloodsworth was released from death row by the state of Maryland after DNA tests confirmed his innocence. In the same year, Federico Macias was granted a stay two days before his scheduled execution in Texas. Ultimately, his conviction was overturned. The court found gross ineffectiveness of trial counsel and possible innocence. Walter McMillian, who had spent nearly six years on death row in Alabama for a murder he did not commit, was released after three witnesses recanted their testimony and prosecutors acknowledged he had been wrongfully convicted.

Between 1973 and 1997, at least 69 men were released from death rows in 17 U.S. states with significant evidence of innocence. Flaws inherent in the death sentencing system had allowed them to be wrongfully convicted. For at least 23 people executed in this country in this century, the discovery of those flaws came too late.