Monday, November 19, 2012

US: PROSECUTION

It’s amazing how US continues to execute ‘criminals’, blind to the fact that many convictions could be wrong

It further reveals that African-American defendants receive the death penalty at thrice the rate of white defendants (especially in cases where the victims are white). Moreover, killers of whites are treated more strictly than killers of the non-whites. In a survey of 1,788 male inmates by Human Rights Watch, about 21% claimed they had been forced into sexual activity and raped during confinement.

Clearly, Illinois’ Governor George Ryan’s statement in January 2000 was less hyperbole and more of pertinent argument, when he 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 innocent life... Until I can be sure everyone sentenced to death in Illinois is truly guilty, ...no one will meet that fate.”

Even now the Nebraska top Court’s ruling uses an electric chair that violates the state Constitution’s ban on cruel and inhumane punishment. Strangely, the US Supreme Court has repeatedly declared lethal injection to be ‘uncruel’ and humane, in spite of documented evidence that the cocktail of drugs used to execute criminals could cause severe anguish. Well, what more can you expect of a nation, whose people argue more about Paris Hilton’s dressing sense, and debate more about Britney Spears’ marital problems, than of severe human indiscretions.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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