The United States already so far behind other countries on human rights issues, falls further behind as more and more countries consider abolishing the Death Penalty. Kenya is one of those moving towards ending theirs for humanitarian reasons. Good for them:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/international-clemency-kenya-commutes-4000-death-sentencesINTERNATIONAL-CLEMENCY: Kenya Commutes 4,000 Death SentencesThe President of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki, announced on August 3 that he is commuting the death sentences of everyone on the country's death row to life imprisonment. The President cited the wait to face execution of the more than 4,000 death row inmates as "undue mental anguish and suffering." No one has been executed in Kenya for 22 years. The President said he was following the advice of a constitutional committee. Mr. Kibaki has directed government officials to study whether the death penalty has any impact on fighting crime and he appealed to Kenyans to engage in a national debate on the issue, suggesting the government may be preparing the ground for a repeal of the death penalty.
Muthoni Wanyeki, the executive director of the independent Kenya Human Rights Commission, said, "It's been a long time coming." The death penalty is a mandatory sentence in Kenya for anyone convicted of armed robbery or murder.
Length of Time on Death Row Unconstitutional?: The lawyers in the case below claimed that the 8th Amendment was violated by the length of time their client had spent on Death Row:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/time-death-row#interIn 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court declined review in Thompson v. McNeil, but three Justices issued strongly worded statements about the importance of the legal issue raised. William Thompson has been on death row in Florida for 32 years. He claimed the excessive time he has spent on death row amounted to cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. Justice John Paul Stevens, in an opinion respecting the denial of certiorari, called the treatment of the defendant during his 32 years on death row “dehumanizing,” noting that Thompson “has endured especially severe conditions of confinement, spending up to 23 hours per day in isolation in a 6- by 9-foot cell” and has experienced two stays of execution “only shortly before he was scheduled to be put to death.” Justice Stevens added that neither retribution nor deterrence were served in such a case and “a punishment of death after significant delay is ‘so totally without penological justification that it results in the gratuitous infliction of suffering.’” (quoting Gregg v. Georgia (1976)).
Justice Stephen Breyer summed up why he believed the Court should take this case: "The question here, however, is whether the Constitution permits execution after a delay of 32 years—a delay for which the State was in significant part responsible." Justice Clarence Thomas, however, disagreed with the views of his colleagues, pointing to the cruelty of the murder for which the defendant was sentenced to death and asserting that it was the defendant himself who caused the delays in question.
Rightwinger Clarence Thomas as expected, doesn't agree with the Constitution's clause on 'cruel and unusual punishment'.
Internationally there have been some positive humanitarian rulings based on the length of time someone spends on death row. From the link above:
In a landmark 1993 ruling, the British court that serves as the highest appeals court for Caribbean Commonwealth countries, found that it was “inhumane and degrading” to hang anyone who had spent more than five years on death row, amounting to double punishment, and that such prisoners must have their death sentences commuted to life in prison. (The Independent, Nov. 3, 1993).
The committee’s seven Law Lords did not find the death penalty itself to be illegal. But “there is an instinctive revulsion against the prospect of hanging a man after he has been held under sentence of death for many years,” they wrote. “What gives rise to this instinctive revulsion? The answer can only be our humanity. We regard it as an inhuman act to keep a man facing the agony of execution over a long extended period of time.” (Ibid). The decision, known as the Pratt and Morgan ruling, resulted in the commutation of scores of death sentences in Jamaica, Bermuda, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, cutting the death row population of English-speaking Caribbean nations by more than half. (The Miami Herald, September 8, 1998).
"The answer can only be our humanity" So true, but here in the United States that would, sadly, be laughed at by the mindless Fox educated masses.
I do not know how we can continue to call this a civilized country as long as we condone this:
Before his execution, J.B. Hubbard forgot who he was at times because of dementia. He suffered from colon and prostate cancer, and was so weak that other inmates sometimes walked him to the shower and combed his hair. (Washington Post, August 6, 2004).
Two other elderly inmates – one of them an 89-year-old man debilitated by deafness, arthritis and heart disease – have asked federal judges to rule on the constitutionality of executing inmates suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, dementia or other age-related afflictions (USA Today, February 10, 2005). Whatever the eventual outcome, legal scholars say such cases have highlighted the unseemliness of executing people who have become so old.
“Dead man walking is one thing,” said Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor who has worked with older prisoners. “Dead man being pushed along to the execution chamber in a wheelchair is another thing.
Support for the Death Penalty began to decline in 2002, but has not changed much since them, while around the world, support continues to decline. In the US support was at its highest, 80%, in 1994. Now it's at two thirds of the population. I was shocked by the 1994 number.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/123638/in-u.s.-two-thirds-continue-support-death-penalty.aspxOpponents of the death penalty have pointed out that just five countries -- China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States -- carry out most of the known executions around the world, and that the number of countries that still allow the death penalty has been dwindling.
Despite these worldwide trends, Gallup's annual October update on Americans' attitudes toward the death penalty shows no diminution in support for state-sanctioned executions in cases of murder. The current 65% support level is roughly equal with what has been measured for most of this decade.We are in such good company :sarcasm: and yet dare to lecture the rest of the world on Human Rights. Imagine if we had a government like Kenya's that really cared about human rights. And to think that some Americans view countries like Kenya as being primitive!
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