5th on Global Execution list, United States only Western democracy that executes prisoners

Amnesty: U.S. Ranks 5th on Global Execution Scale
PETER JAMES SPIELMANN – Associated Press – 27 March, 2012

NEW YORK (AP) — The United States was the only Western democracy that executed prisoners last year, even as an increasing number of U.S. states are moving to abolish the death penalty, Amnesty International announced Monday.

America’s 43 executions in 2011 ranked it fifth in the world in capital punishment, the rights group said in its annual review of worldwide death penalty trends. U.S. executions were down from 46 a year earlier.

“If you look at the company we’re in globally, it’s not the company we want to be in: China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq,” Suzanne Nossel, executive director of Amnesty International USA, told The Associated Press.

The United States seems deeply divided on the issue.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry was cheered at a Republican presidential candidates’ debate last September when he defended his signature on 234 execution warrants over more than 10 years as being the “ultimate justice.”

Just weeks later, young people rallied in person and online to protest the execution of Troy Davis in Georgia for the 1991 murder of a police officer. In the intervening years, key witnesses for the prosecution had recanted or changed their stories.

“I think the debate on the issue may be nearing a tipping point in this country,” Nossel said. “I think we’re seeing momentum at the state level, in the direction of waning support for the death penalty.”

Illinois banned the death penalty last year, and Oregon adopted a moratorium on executions.

Maryland and Connecticut are close to banning executions, Amnesty said. And more than 800,000 Californians signed petitions to put a referendum on the state ballot in November that would abolish the death penalty.

However, 34 U.S. states have the death penalty.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which tracks U.S. trends, told the AP that last year 78 prisoners received death sentences, down from an average of more than 300 annually a few years ago. “Executions peaked in 1999 at 98,” he added. “By all measures, the death penalty is on the defensive.”

Dieter attributed much of the decline to the introduction of DNA testing, which has exposed some mistaken convictions. With stronger defense tactics and appeals processes getting longer, U.S. states also found it more and more expensive to pursue death penalty cases, he said. …more