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Tue 13 Nov, 2007 03:38 pm
To a Christian whose belief system is rooted in forgiveness, the death penalty is unacceptable.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/13/5187/
I am an athiest and I uphold the view of this Chrisitian..
NEW DPIC REPORT and POLL: "A Crisis of Confidence"
According to a new report and opinion poll issued today by the Death Penalty Information Center, the American public is losing confidence in the death penalty as doubts about innocence and the purpose of capital punishment increase. The report, A Crisis of Confidence: Americans' Doubts About the Death Penalty, is based on a recent national opinion poll conducted by RT Strategies and commissioned by DPIC.
"Public confidence in the death penalty has clearly eroded over the past 10 years, mostly as a result of DNA exonerations. Whether it is concern about executing the innocent, beliefs that the death penalty is not a deterrent, moral objections to taking human life, or a general sense that the system is too broken to be fixed, the bottom line is the same: Americans are moving away from the death penalty," said Richard Dieter, DPIC's Executive Director.
Key poll findings include:
Almost 40% of the public believe that they would be disqualified from serving on a jury in a death penalty case because of their moral beliefs. Among sub-groups such as women, African-Americans, and Catholics, the percentage who believe they would be excluded is even higher. These findings raise serious questions about whether defendants are being judged by "a jury of their peers."
A significant majority (58%) believe it is time for a moratorium on the death penalty while the process undergoes a careful review.
An overwhelming 69% of the public believes that reforms will not eliminate all wrongful convictions and executions.
Almost all Americans (87%) believe that an innocent person has already been executed in recent years, and over half (55%) say that fact has affected their views on the death penalty.
Among those who had changed their position on the death penalty over the last ten years, more people became opponents of the death penalty than proponents by a margin of 3 to 2. Support has been lessened because of the many DNA exonerations that have occurred.
The poll sample included 1,000 adults nationwide and the margin of error was +3.1%.
(Posted June 9, 2007). Read the Report and Press Release. See also Reports, Innocence, and Public Opinion.
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Blueflame
Thanks.
Death penality is anything other than Christian philosophy.
The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. It violates the right to life. It is irrevocable and can be inflicted on the innocent. It has never been shown to deter crime more effectively than other punishments.
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/deathpenalty-index-eng
Rama, "Death penality is anything other than Christian philosophy." There are still many who call themselves Christian who disagree. The article I posted shows a dramatic change in America with many more opposing the death penalty than ever before. Great. But there are many like Bushie who disagree. His God told him to invade Iraq.
Facts and Figures on the Death Penalty
1. Abolitionist and retentionist countries
Two-thirds of the countries in the world have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice.
Amnesty International's latest information shows that:
90 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;
32 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 133 countries which have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.
64 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 50 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes since 1990. They include countries in Africa (recent examples include Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Rwanda), the Americas (Canada, Paraguay, Mexico), Asia and the Pacific (Bhutan. Philippines, Samoa) and Europe and Central Asia ( Albania, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey).
3. Moves to reintroduce the death penalty
Once abolished, the death penalty is seldom reintroduced. Since 1990, only four abolitionist countries reintroduced the death penalty and two of them - Nepal and Philippines- have since abolished the death penalty again. There have been no executions in the other two (Gambia and Papua New Guinea).
4. Death sentences and executions
During 2006, at least 1,591 people were executed in 25 countries and at least 3,861 people were sentenced to death in 55 countries. These were only minimum figures; the true figures were certainly higher.
In 2006, 91 per cent of all known executions took place in China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan and the USA.
Based on public reports available, Amnesty International estimated that at least 1,010 people were executed in China during the year, although the true figures were believed to be much higher. Credible sources suggest that between 7,500 to 8,000 people were executed in 2006. The official statistics remain a state secret, making monitoring and analysis problematic.
Iran executed 177 people, Pakistan 82 and Iraq and Sudan each at least 65. There were 53 executions in 12 states in the USA.
The worldwide figure for those currently condemned to death and awaiting execution is difficult to assess. The estimated number at the end of 2006 was between 19,185 and 24,646 based on information from human rights groups, media reports and the limited official figures available.
5. Methods of execution
Executions have been carried out by the following methods since 2000:
- Beheading (in Saudi Arabia)
- Electrocution (in USA)
- Hanging (in Egypt, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Pakistan, Singapore and other countries)
- Lethal injection (in China, Guatemala, 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 100 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.
Ten countries since 1990 are known to have executed 58 prisoners who were under 18 years old at the time of the crime - Afghanistan (extrajudically by the Taleban), China, Congo (Democratic Republic), Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, USA and Yemen. China, Pakistan, USA and Yemen have now raised the minimum age to 18 in law, The USA and Iran have each executed more child offenders than the other seven countries combined and Iran has now exceeded the USA's total since 1990 of 19 child executions. Four child offenders were executed in Iran and one in Pakistan in 2006.
Two child offenders have been executed in Iran, one in Saudi Arabia, one in Yemen and one in Afghanistan thus far in 2007.
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 2006, 30 years after abolition, the homicide rate was 1.85 per 100,000 population, 40 per cent lower than in 1975 and the second 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 63 states. Eight 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 two others 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 46 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 39 European states and signed by six 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, 124 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, one in 2006 and one so far in 2007. 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 state of Florida has the highest number of exonerations: 22.
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.
The problem of the potential execution of the innocent is not limited to the USA. In 2006, Tanzania released Hassan Mohamed Mtepeka from death row. He was condemned to death in 2004 for the rape and murder of his step daughter. The Appeal Court found that his conviction overwhelmingly rested on circumstantial evidence which "did not irresistibly point to his guilt". In Jamaica, Carl McHargh was released from death row in June 2006 after being acquitted on appeal.
11. The death penalty in the USA
In 2004, New York's highest court found the state's death penalty statute unconstitutional. By early 2007, this law had not been replaced.
In 2006, the New Jersey legislature imposed a moratorium in that state, and established a commission to study all aspects of the death penalty in New Jersey. In its final report in January 2007, the commission recommended abolition of the death penalty.
During 2006 executions in a number of other states were effectively on hold because of legal challenges and concerns relating to the lethal injection process.
53 prisoners were executed in 12 states in the USA in 2006, bringing the year-end total to 1057 executed since the use of the death penalty was resumed in 1977.
Around 3,350 prisoners were under sentence of death as of 1 January 2007.
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.
Last updated: 2 October 2007
Blueflame
There are people like you to expose the hypocracy of the so-called christians.
After butchering the innocent victims for no-fault the "so-called" christians will rush to buy some gadgets to give christmas presents.
A lovely compassionate culture indeed.
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