• Aprille Muscara interviews BRYAN STEVENSON of the Equal Justice Initiative (new york)
• Tuesday, September 14, 2010
• Inter Press Service

Across the globe and against the tide, the United States is one among a dwindling count of industrialised democracies that continue to practice capital punishment.

And within the U.S., states are discordant in their application. Fifteen states, plus Washington D.C., currently do not have the death penalty, while the remaining 35 do, according to Amnesty International USA.

Further, in these non-abolitionist states, death penalty sentences are handed down inconsistently. In Texas, 463 men and women have been executed since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S., leading the pack of states that practice capital punishment. In far second, Virginia has executed 107 individuals, while six states have only executed one person in the last 34 years.

Some 3,279 people are currently sentenced to death in the United States, according to the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), an Alabama-based organisation that advocates and litigates for defendants who have been unjustly treated.

Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of EJI, board member of Penal Reform International and a law professor at New York University, spoke recently with IPS about the curious state of the death penalty in the United States.

Q: How likely is the United States to abolish the death penalty within the next 10 years? A: It's not likely that we will get to full abolition in the United States in the next 10 years, but I believe that very dramatic progress toward abolition can be accomplished in the coming decade.

In the last couple of years, two states have abolished capital punishment through legislative enactments. The rate of death sentences and executions nationally is down significantly. Doubts about the reliability, cost and effectiveness of the death penalty have made this a punishment that a growing number of people are prepared to abandon even if they have no moral objections to it.

Q: What changes do you foresee for capital punishment policy in the near future, and in the longer term? A: After 15 years of retreat from heightened scrutiny and close review of capital cases, I think the number of wrongful convictions is forcing courts and policymakers to improve the procedures and opportunities for fairness in capital cases.

So I believe there will be growing pressure to improve the quality of legal representation for capital defendants and death row prisoners, increased protection for defendants and prisoners who suffer from mental illness and renewed debate about racial discrimination and arbitrary imposition of capital punishment.

I also think that international norms and practices will create greater tension between the U.S. and its allies on this issue.

Q: How does the pattern of death penalty sentencing in your state of Alabama relate to the pattern of death penalty sentencing in the nation as a whole? A: Alabama remains a state that is bucking trends in the death penalty area. There have not been substantial declines in the death-sentencing rate largely because judges have the authority to override jury verdicts of life, and in most states it's been juries who are increasingly reluctant to impose a death sentence.

Also, the execution rate in Alabama remains very high whereas the national rate is in decline because courts are very tolerant of error in capital cases in our circuit and there are so few resources available to assist condemned prisoners.

Q: Why are Blacks, Hispanics and the poor disproportionately sent to death row? What does this pattern say about race relations and class disparities in the U.S. today? A: Racial bias against people of colour makes them disfavoured, disadvantaged and vulnerable targets in America's criminal justice system. In many places, people of colour are presumed guilty when arrested and tried.

Race is correlated with poverty so the inability of many people of colour to get adequate legal assistance is also a problem, and these factors conspire to create a dramatic overrepresentation of racial minorities on death row.

However, it's important to recognise that racial disparities in sentencing exist throughout the entire range of criminal offences and sentencing in the United States.

The diminished political power of racial minorities, the severe underrepresentation of racial minorities in decision- making roles in the criminal justice system and the lingering vestiges of slavery, racial subordination and apartheid all continue to find expression in the American death penalty system.

Q: The majority of Americans support the death penalty, and the U.S. is one of the only developed countries in the world that still continues to use it. Why do you think this is the case? A: I think that the United States has never really taken seriously its national norms and values when it comes to criminal justice policy. We are so confident about our commitment to human rights that when human rights violations emerge, we're not nearly as responsive as I believe we should be.

I also think the politics of fear in the U.S. has been tremendously influential in criminal justice policy. With very little leadership from politicians, something akin to mob mentality often prevails where punishment becomes a competition about who can be the toughest, harshest and most punitive. Those dynamics are part of the explanation of why the United States is out of step with the rest of the Western developed world.

Q: What do you make of the uneven geographical distribution of death penalty sentencing across states? A: I think that there are regional differences with regard to how committed states have been to dealing with historic problems of unfairness in the criminal justice system.

In the Deep South, where slavery was predominant, where racial violence and terrorism shaped the life of people of colour for decades and where Jim Crow and segregation existed until the very recent past, there is much less concern about racially disparate sentencing, commitment to indigent defence and adequate resources for the poor. You see high rates of death penalty sentencing, high rates of wrongful convictions and high rates of unreliable representation.

While these are national problems that can be found in virtually every jurisdiction, they are more pronounced in these parts of the country where the history of reform is much less developed.

Q: Is capital punishment a moral, political or social issue? A: I think that the death penalty is all of those things. I think that the moral issue is more complicated than people assume. I don't think that the question is, 'Is executing a human being moral or immoral?' any more in the United States. I think that policy on this issue is being decided by other factors, but that doesn't mean that morality plays no role.

The questions now have become, 'Is it morally acceptable if only poor blacks are getting the death penalty? Is it morally acceptable if only certain states are administering the death penalty? Is it morally acceptable that people are given the death penalty without 100 percent certainty of guilt?'

And so a whole new set of moral questions have emerged about the American death penalty that go beyond the fundamental question of taking another human being's life.

© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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