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The Abolition Movement: A Brief
History
The Abolition Movement in the United States
When the first European settlers arrived in America, the death penalty was accepted
as just punishment for a variety of offenses. Although the English Penal Code,
which applied to the British colonies, listed 14 capital offenses, actual practice
varied from colony to colony. In concordance with the English tradition, the Founding
Fathers commonly accepted the death penalty. There has never been universal support
for capital punishment in the United States, however. Even in times when the abolitionist
movement has lost prominence, individual states have refused to implement the
death penalty.
The movement for abolition gained momentum in the second quarter of the nineteenth
century. In 1845, The American Society for the Abolition of Capital Punishment
was founded. Shortly thereafter, in 1847, the Territory of Michigan abolished
the death penalty and replaced it with life imprisonment. By doing so, Michigan
became the first English-speaking jurisdiction in the world to abolish the death
penalty for common crimes. In states outside the South, murder and treason became
the only acts warranting capital punishment. The federal government also reduced
the number of federal crimes punishable by death to three-treason, murder, and
rape. In no instance was the death penalty mandatory.
Early success in the movement proved deceptive. For many states, abolishment
of the death penalty was only temporary. Of the 16 states and jurisdictions (including
Puerto Rico) that outlawed capital punishment after 1845, only 7 -- Michigan,
Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Maine, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Puerto Rico -- had
no major death penalty statute at the beginning of the 1950s.
Between 1917 and 1957, no state abolished the death penalty. Abolitionists
saw more progress during the late 1950s and 1960s, however. Alaska and Hawaii
abolished the death penalty in 1957. Delaware (1958), Michigan (1963, for treason),
Oregon (1964), Iowa (1965), and West Virginia (1965) all abolished capital punishment,
while many other states sharply reduced the number of crimes punishable by the
death penalty. (Delaware, Oregon, and New York have since reinstated capital punishment.)
Until the 1960s there was little doubt as to the constitutionality of the death
penalty. Then, in 1963, Justice Goldberg, joined by Justices Douglas and Brennan,
raised the question of the legality of the death penalty in his dissent from a
rape case in which the defendant had been sentenced to death. The filing of a
large number of lawsuits in the late 1960s led to an implied moratorium on carrying
out the death penalty.
In 1972, with Furman v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all death
penalty statutes then in existence were unconstitutional. This led to a moratorium
on executions, which lasted until 1976 when the court heard the case of Gregg
v. Georgia. At that time, the court upheld the constitutionality of Georgia's
death penalty statute, which allowed the death penalty to be imposed when certain
aggravating circumstances were established. This decision also permitted the resumption
of executions. Since then, the majority of justices have generally interpreted
the death penalty as worthy of extra attention because of the seriousness of the
consequences, but not unconstitutional as a means of punishment (with the exception
of certain groups within the population, such as persons with mental retardation).
The federal government no longer lists rape as one of the crimes punishable
by death, but it continues to impose the death penalty for murder, treason, and
espionage. Over the years, the federal government has added to the number of crimes
punishable by the death penalty.
At year-end 2001, 38 states, the federal government, and the U.S. military
permitted the imposition of the death penalty. Since the death penalty was reinstated
in the United States in 1976, nearly 800 people have been executed, with more
than 80 percent of those executions occurring after 1990. Also, in clear violation
of international human rights treaties and standards, 22 U.S. states permit the
execution of people who were under the age of 18 at the time of their crime. Since
1995, AI has documented executions of child offenders in only five countries:
the United States of America, Pakistan, Nigeria, Iran, and the Democratic Republic
of Congo. The United States accounts for over half of these executions.
The Abolition Movement Worldwide
The de facto moratorium between 1967 and 1977 paralleled a general worldwide
movement, especially among Western nations, toward the abolition of capital punishment.
By the time the United States resumed executions during the late 1970s, most of
the Western world had abolished the death penalty either in law or in practice.
One of the first acts of the parliaments of many Eastern European countries after
the fall of Communism was to abolish capital punishment. This general attitude
was reflected by the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1989. The Second
Optional Protocol provides for the total abolition of the death penalty but allows
states to retain the death penalty in time of war if they make a reservation to
that effect at the time of ratifying or acceding to the Protocol.
Today, among Western democratic nations, only the United States imposes the
death penalty. The rest of the world continues to move toward abolition, with
more than three countries a year abolishing the death penalty for all crimes during
the past decade. Out of 195 nations, 111 have abolished the death penalty in law
or practice.
Recent Developments in the United States
In the last two years, there have been several important developments that have
increased scrutiny of our death penalty system.
- In January 2000, Illinois Governor George Ryan imposed a moratorium on executions
and established a commission to study Illinois's death penalty system. Ryan established
the moratorium because more innocent men had been released from death row in Illinois
than executed, with 13 exonerations and 12 executions. Ryan said, "Until
I can be sure that everyone sentenced to death in Illinois is truly guilty, until
I can be sure that no innocent man or woman is facing a lethal injection, no one
will meet that fate." The Commission released an exhaustive report in April
2002, in which it recommended 85 reforms to the death penalty system. The Commission
recognized that even with these reforms, the risk of executing an innocent person
could never be completely eliminated.
In May 2002, Maryland Governor Paris Glendening followed Ryan's lead and established
a similar moratorium, due to concerns about racial and geographic disparities
in the application of the death penalty.
- The June 2001 execution of Timothy McVeigh was the first killing of a federal
death row prisoner in over 35 years. Since the resumption of federal executions,
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft has actively sought the death penalty in federal
cases, often overriding the recommendations of prosecutors handling the cases.
- On June 20, 2002, the Supreme Court's Atkins v. Virginia decision found that
executing mentally retarded offenders is cruel and unusual punishment prohibited
by the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution. Twenty U.S. states that permit the
execution of mentally retarded offenders must now comply with the U.S. Supreme
Court's decision, a ruling that will apply retroactively to mentally retarded
inmates.
- In its Ring v. Arizona decision on June 24, 2002, the Supreme Court ruled
that a jury, not a judge, must decide to sentence a person to death. The Court
found that a sentence imposed by a judge violates a defendant's constitutional
right to a trial by jury. This ruling is retroactive, which means that more than
150 death sentences must be reconsidered. The ruling struck down death penalty
statutes in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Nebraska, and may affect statutes
in Alabama, Delaware, Florida, and Indiana.
- On July 1, 2002, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff ruled that the federal death
penalty violates the U.S. Constitution. Judge Rakoff found cause to question the
mechanics of the federal death penalty based on the recent exonerations of more
than 100 inmates from U.S. death rows.
Recent Developments Worldwide
The death penalty has become a crucial political issue in many European communities,
although the number of total executions worldwide has increased.
- In 1999, the UN Commission on Human Rights passed a resolution calling on
all states that still maintain the death penalty to progressively restrict the
number of offenses for which it may be imposed, with a view to abolishing it completely.
- Countries including Mexico, Canada, and South Africa have refused to extradite
wanted criminals to the United States unless they receive guarantees that the
defendants will not be sentenced to death.
- Executions worldwide more than doubled in 2001. According to AI reports, over
3,048 people were executed in 31 countries, up from the 1,457 executions recorded
in 2000. China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the USA accounted for 90 per cent of all
known executions in 2001.
- Montenegro abolished the death penalty in June 2002 as a condition for its
admission to the Council of Europe. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council
of Europe now requires a commitment to abolition as a condition of entry into
the organization.
- The Council of Europe has also adopted a far-reaching policy governing the
promotion of abolition in non-member states. For example, it has threatened to
revoke the observer status of Japan and United States unless both countries make
significant progress toward imposing a moratorium on executions by January 2003.
- On February 21, 2002, the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers adopted
Protocol 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights. Protocol 13 is the first
legally binding international treaty to abolish the death penalty in all circumstances
with no exceptions. When it opened for signature in May 2002, 36 countries signed
it.
[Compiled from a variety of sources, August 2002]
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Two road signs near
the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, an execution site.
(© Scott Langley) |
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