As more light has been shed on the blatant unfairness and immorality of the death penalty in the United States in recent years, private citizens and public officials alike have been raising serious questions about this critical human rights issue. Both supporters and opponents of the death penalty are calling for a moratorium, urging states to halt executions and examine the way that capital punishment is applied.
On January 31, 2000, Illinois Governor George Ryan declared a moratorium on executions in his state after the release of the 13th innocent prisoner from Illinois’ death row. A former death penalty proponent, Ryan said: “I cannot support a system, which, in its administration has proven so fraught with error and has come so close to the ultimate nightmare, the state’s taking of an innocent life.”
The time has come for each state that imposes capital punishment to undertake a comprehensive analysis of its death penalty system, accompanied by a suspension of executions. The potential execution of one innocent person is reason enough to impose a moratorium. But numerous other factors support the need for a halt to state killing.
Consider:
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Race matters. Race has consistently played a role in death penalty cases, from the era of lynchings until the present day. Even the U.S. government has acknowledged “a pattern of evidence indicating racial disparities in charging, sentencing and imposition of the death penalty.” In nearly every state where there have been reviews of race and the death penalty, there was a pattern of either race-of-victim or race-of-defendant discrimination, or both. More than 80 percent of those executed since 1976 were convicted of murdering a white person, even though people of color are the victims in more than half of all homicides.
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Money matters. Perhaps the most important factor in determining whether a defendant will receive the death penalty is the quality of his or her legal representation. About 90 percent of individuals on death row were too poor to afford a lawyer. Court-appointed attorneys are usually inexperienced, underpaid and overworked, and many have never tried a death penalty case before. Meanwhile, no state has met the standards developed by the American Bar Association for the appointment, performance and compensation of counsel for indigent prisoners.
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Public opinion matters. Americans support a death penalty moratorium. A national poll conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates in March 2001 found that 72 percent of Americans favored a suspension of the death penalty until questions about its fairness could be studied, up from 64 percent in August 2000. An ABC News Poll in April 2000 found that 51 percent of Americans support a nationwide moratorium on executions while a commission studies whether the death penalty is applied fairly.