Lawyers' Group: Halt Executions

ABA Says "Deeply Flawed" State Death Penalty Systems Compromise Accuracy, Fairness

(CBS/AP)  Serious problems in state death penalty systems compromise fairness and accuracy in capital punishment cases and justify a nationwide freeze on executions, the American Bar Association said.

The report is a compilation of separate reviews done over the past three years of how the death penalty operates in eight states: Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

Problems cited in a report released Sunday by the lawyers' organization include: Spotty collection and preservation of DNA evidence, which has been used to exonerate more than 200 inmates; misidentification by eyewitnesses; false confessions from defendants; and persistent racial disparities that make death sentences more likely when victims are white.

Teams that studied the systems in Arizona, Florida and Pennsylvania did not call for a halt to executions in those states. But the ABA said every state with the death penalty should review its execution procedures before putting anyone else to death.

"After carefully studying the way states across the spectrum handle executions, it has become crystal clear that the process is deeply flawed," said Stephen F. Hanlon, chairman of the ABA Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project. "The death penalty system is rife with irregularity."

The ABA, which takes no position on capital punishment, did not study lethal injection procedures that are under challenge across the nation. The procedures will be reviewed by the Supreme Court early next year in a case from Kentucky.

State and federal courts have effectively stopped most executions pending a high court decision.

Prosecutors and death penalty supporters have said the eight state studies were flawed because the ABA teams were made up mainly of death penalty opponents.

Among The Findings:

•  Alabama does not require that biological evidence from a criminal case be preserved until a defendant is executed, compromising the ability of post-conviction petitioners to seek relief and prevent the execution of the innocent).

•  Post-conviction cases in Arizona usually are assigned to the original trial-level sentencing judge, which allows for the potential (if not mere appearance) of conflict of interest, as post-capital conviction proceedings will rise from a decision brought by the same judge.

•  Judicial override of jury sentences - the constitutionality of which is in doubt in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Ring v. Arizona - led to Florida juries' recommendations of life imprisonment without parole being disregarded by many judges. In fact, nearly 20 percent of the state's death penalty sentences imposed between 1972 and 1999 were by a judge overruling a jury's recommendation for life in prison.

•  Racial disparities in sentencing were noted in several states, such as Florida, where a criminal defendant in a capital case is 3.4 times more likely to receive the death penalty if the victim is white than if the victim is African-American. In addition, since Florida reinstated the death penalty in 1979, there have been no executions of white defendants for killing African-American victims.

•  Sentencing disparities reveal not only a racial bias but also geographic one as well: Forty-three percent of those charged in Hamilton County in Ohio received a death sentence, making the chances of being executed 2.7 times higher than in the rest of the state, 3.7 times higher than in Cuyahoga County, and 6.2 times higher than in Franklin County. Likewise, the Tennessee Comptroller reported that nearly half (44.7%) of all Tennessee capital cases from 1993 to 2003 originated in Shelby County, one possible variable being the county's district attorney general.

•  Georgia is "virtually alone" in not providing indigent defendants sentenced to death with counsel for state habeas proceedings, undermining a critical constitutional safeguard.

•  Despite recent high-profile exonerations of five inmates who collectively served 50 years on death row, Pennsylvania was found not to have implemented any policies or procedures to reduce the chances of an innocent person being convicted, such as requiring all interrogations be recorded, and protecting against false eyewitness identifications.

•  Indiana was found to have a "significant" number of death row inmates who have severe mental disabilities (both those who were disabled at the time of the offense and those became seriously ill after conviction and sentencing).

•  And in Ohio, access to expert testimony and investigative resources (crucial in capital cases) are denied to many capital defendants.

"Those death penalty systems are not delivering the justice that the American people deserve and expect and indeed are guaranteed," Hanlon told CBS News.

For More Information:

American Bar Association Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project: www.abanet.org/moratorium/home.html

[michellem99-2009]

WHAT IS THERE TO UNDERSTAND..PERSON KILLS..THEY GO TO COURT ..THEIR CASE IS HEARD..THERE IS A JURG OF THEIR PEERS.. THEY MATTER OUT DEATH..JUDGE READS IT..HE/SHE IS TO DIE..THAN THAT IS NOT CARRIED OUT..THEY ARE CARED FED,CLOTHE,BASIC MEDICAL CARE..BETTER THEN US..YRR WHINE IT IS BARBARIC..THE CRIME HE/SHE DID IS BARBARIC..I am just a lay person.

[michellem99-2009]

STOP THE KILLING..Why do they kill,,Do ye know..Oh do tell..They go crazy locked up in a cage..Would ye in there place..Yes a foster mother locked our bed room door and had to pee in a coffee can..Yer a pro lifer ...I walked away from church..IT IS NOT A MATTER OF YER MORALS..THEIR PEERS THAT GIVEN THEM DEATH.

[michellem99-2009]

i write the way i talk..I figger ye a smart lass and if not then then ye will learn as i had to learn to read write my name at 10 years old..look up the maine actcent...My FAMILY I believe came from Iraland way back..

[michellem99-2009]

As a maine hillbilly that the fools ye whine about..what is there to understand..yer feed yer children on killing every time yer allow them to see killing,on tv..then yer ask why..then they are put to death by a jury of their peers ye cry barbaric...If ye care about their welfare take them home to live with yer family..yer tune will change fast so yes it will. yer not a city person and yet I don''t know if I will come home as there are drive by shootings..I HATE THE DEATH PENITY.. i AM SORRY I CAN''T SPELL TO YER LIKING BUT HAD YE BEEN SOORLY SCHOOLED YER BE THANKFUL TO SHARE ..AND THAT IS WHAT THIS BOARD IS FOR..

[fibonacci_]

Why do you write like that? It is hard to understand your motives.

[michellem99-2009]

I am sorry dear but we are not above it..Yes it is barbaric..So are the murdahs..Prisoms are barbaric if yer ask me..what is the piont..if they are not a danger to to self and others..Why do they murdah..Yer feed their minds on violate tv..they can''t usderstand it is not real...what about the drive by shootings, yer plan don''t work..they go crazy locked up..Yer ever been locked up in a room...in yer home..no..why do they get locked up..huh..it is MR/MS can''t no a eer.. Yer the person who can''t stand the world as it is but would rather live in a world just for ye..Sorry dear..take them home..Can ye do better..

[fibonacci_]

Does this really surprise anyone? Killing people who kill people does not teach people to value life. Build harder core prisons for these people - no visits, no TV - isolation.

Stop the killing. And for those that want to attack my position, give me a break I am just speaking out for what I believe - I don''t believe in killing people who are not a threat. We don''t need this system anymore. And it is barbaric.

[michellem99-2009]

Yer want to talk about the death penity...Yeah right..Yer the fools that voted Bush in..That gent has blood on his paws..Tell us gentle people what should we do. Yes is is murdah..but did they not kill..They murdahed in cold blood..they did not care now did they..Their peers said death..yer don''t want that..His/her peers on the jury said and that oaght be carried out right or wrong..go ahead take them home feed them,clothe them,see to their medial care..

[agnim]

"The ABA is just tired of losing some of their best clients!!!
Posted by digitaldog1 at 01:42 PM : Oct 29, 2007"

LOL
That is some funny ish.

[bks59]

executions are state sanctioned premeditated murder, no matter how it is defendeed as a punishment. And some or persons responsible for carring out the procedure becomes guilty of premeditated murder. there is no simple or easy answer on how to punish violent offenders, but premeditated murder is exactly what executions are.

The ABA is just tired of losing some of their best clients!!!

[michellem99-2009]

wHAT WE HAVE IS A PRISOM SYSTEM THAT IS THE BIGGEST IN THE FREE WORLD..WHAT WILL THEY DO WITH THE KILLERS,CHILD RAPESTS..GIVE THEM LIVE IN CAGES..I AS A RULE IS AGAIST DEATH BUT THERE ARE TIMES IT IS NEEDED TO DRIVE A PIONT..NO I HAVE NEVER DONE JURY DUTY..IT IS A DANG IF YE DO/DANG IF YE DON''T..WHAT ABOUT THEM COLD BLOODRD KILLERS..THEIR SITTING IN A CAGE AND THEIR VISIMS ARE DEAD..TRUE IT IS WRONG TO KILL...BUT...IF THEY GOING TO SIT IN A CAGE..WHAT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO..SORRY ABOUT THE CAPS..DO THEY FEEL THE SUFFERING...THEY CAUSED..I DON''T KNOW.

[Krazcarl]

What is the problem we have the technology just some lawyers wanting to make extra cash has nothing to do with anything else period.