The quote of note for this one comes from Amnesty International.
The Death Penalty
The death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.
It violates the right to life.
It is irrevocable and can be inflicted on the innocent. It has never been shown to deter crime more effectively than other punishments.
As an organization dedicated to the protection and promotion of human rights, Amnesty International (AI) works for an end to executions and the abolition of the death penalty everywhere.
The progress has been dramatic. When AI convened an International Conference on the Death Penalty in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1977, just 16 countries had abolished capital punishment for all crimes. Today the figure stands at 80.
Each year since 1997 the United Nations Commission on Human Rights has passed a resolution calling on countries that have not abolished the death penalty to establish a moratorium on executions. The latest resolution, adopted in April 2004, was co-sponsored by 76 UN member states, one more than in 2003 and the highest number ever.
Death Sentences Hit 30-Year Low in U.S.
Activists See Shift in Juries' Attitudes
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 15, 2004; Page A02
The number of U.S. convicts imprisoned with death sentences dropped in 2003 to its lowest level in 30 years, helping to provoke the third straight annual decline in the nation's death row population and signaling the continuation of a slow trend away from state- and federally ordered executions, according to data released yesterday by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The data stirred activists to speculate that support for the death penalty is dropping among jury panels, which in many states now are the only groups eligible to impose it. Only 144 new inmates incarcerated in 2003 were sentenced to execution, well below an annual average of 297 between 1994 and 2000, the bureau's report stated.
