UPDATE --- PRESS RELEASE --- UPDATE
01 March 2002
Amnesty International-USA's Miami Chapter, on
International Death Penalty Abolition Day,
Calls for a Moratorium on Executions in Florida
Today, March 1, 2002, as International Death Penalty Abolition Day is
celebrated worldwide, the Miami Chapter of Amnesty International-USA calls
for a moratorium on capital punishment in the state of Florida.
While Amnesty favors a total ban on the death penalty worldwide, it
supports a moratorium as an appropriate way for the state to at least take
time to study the process of execution in light of the many troubling issues
that are a part of it. A moratorium would be designed to halt executions
until, and unless, it could be shown that the death penalty could be
administered without the present system's lack of safeguards against
convicting the innocent, without executing juvenile offenders and the
mentally ill, and with the full provision of adequate legal counsel and all
other aspects of the due process of law.
This would be an opportune time for such a measure, as it has become
increasingly apparent that the death penalty is administered in a deeply
flawed manner. Since 1977, ninety-nine people have been released from death
rows in the United States after evidence of their innocence came to light.
The greatest number of releases, 22, have come in our own state. Over the
past quarter century, the cases of Wilbert Lee and Freddie Pitts; James
Richardson; Jerry Frank Townsend; and, just this year, Juan Melendez have
shown just how close innocent people have come to execution in Florida. There
is no guarantee whatever that other innocent men have not indeed been
executed, or that none will be in the future.
The administration of capital justice has always been troubled. The death
penalty has primarily been applied to the poor and ill-educated, and often to
those who have suffered a history of physical, emotional or sexual abuse. The
legal representation they have received has often been critically inadequate.
Amnesty advocates that all capital representation meet, at the least, the
standards enumerated by the American Bar Association in its "Guidelines for
the Appointment and Performance of Counsel in Death Penalty Cases", which it
adopted in 1989.
Other factors mitigate against the idea of capital punishment in general.
It has never been shown to be a greater deterrent to murder than a sentence
of life in prison. Those states that do not execute actually have lower
homicide rates that those that do. The death penalty process is also much
more expensive than that of life imprisonment. More funding would be
available for law enforcement in general were it not tied up in the
administration of capital punishment. Many in Florida are unaware that those
convicted of first-degree murder in our state can only be sentenced either to
death, or to life imprisonment without parole.
A moratorium at this time would make sense. There is certainly precedent
for such a move in the moratorium that the state of Illinois instituted on
capital punishment in 2000. Further, the three executions previously
scheduled in Florida for this year have been put on hold until the U.S.
Supreme Court decides the case of Ring v. Arizona. This case concerns the
issue of how much power a judge in a capital proceedings should have in
sentencing, which has direct relevance to Florida, whose system views a
jury's vote for or against a capital sentence as a recommendation, which a
judge can override.
Many Americans-even many who support the death penalty in principle-have
serious doubts about the acceptability of our current system. Their feelings
are much more complicated than is usually realized. Most people simply do not
want the innocent executed, do not want a system that values lives of white
Americans more than those of African-Americans, and have serious misgivings
about juvenile offenders and the mentally ill being put to death. An ABC poll
in 2001, showed 51% of respondents favoring a moratorium. Even many who favor
capital punishment in principle support a moratorium at this time, making
this effort one where people of many viewpoints can find common ground.
Even as it favors the abolition of capital punishment, Amnesty feels that a
death penalty moratorium can be of great value to the people of Florida.
For further information contact: Steven Wetstein at: 305-226-2480;
Swetstein2@aol.com
