Death Penalty

Today Philip Alston, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions concluded a two-week tour of the US by issuing a strong statement on a variety of issues, including the death penalty.  Professor Alston visited two states, Alabama and Texas.  The former, because it has the highest per capita execution rate, and the latter, because it has the most executions period. 

Logical choices given his limited amount of time.  His statement comes to unsurprising conclusions. 

That, in Texas, he met with officials who "acknowledged that innocent people might have been executed." 

That: "While some officials seem to consider due process rights as mere 'technicalities', the growing number of exonerations underscores that they are in fact indispensible safeguards against injustice in cases in which an error can be fatal." 

That, in Alabama: "Government officials seem strikingly indifferent to the risk of executing innocent people and have a range of standard responses, most of which are characterized by a refusal to engage with the facts."

A less anticipated part of the statement concerns Alabama's cozy economic relationship with Germany:

"Alabama's systematic rejection of concerns that basic international standards are being violated sits oddly alongside the Government's determined and successful bid to attract foreign investment from the European Union in particular. Indeed, Alabama's largest export market in 2007 was Germany. It would thus be appropriate for Alabama to engage in a dialogue on due process concerns in its death penalty with the international community."

Of course, given their "refusal to engage with the facts", it is highly doubtful that Alabama would be the one to initiate a "dialogue on due process concerns in its death penalty with the international community."  So it would probably be up to the international community to make the first move.

According to this AP article from about a month ago, "Alabama is now home to 50 German industries that state officials say employ upward of 12,000 people. Thousands more work in related companies."  Major German investors include ThyssenKrupp, currently building "a mammoth, $3.7 billion steel plant near the Gulf of Mexico in Mobile County", as well as BASF AG, Degussa AG and DaimlerChrysler AG's Mercedes-Benz.  Much more information on this interesting relationship can be had at the Alabama Germany Partnership.

Beyond this unexpected aside about EU and German investment, the lion's share of the Special Rapporteur's statement is devoted to death penalty flaws that are all too familiar to those of us who follow this issue regularly.  The Rapporteur recommends, among other things, that problems related to "judicial independence and the absence of an adequate right to counsel should be addressed immediately"; and that "the federal courts should be able to review all substantive claims of injustice in capital cases."  In far far too many cases, procedural technicalities cut off review of important issues, including questions of innocence, in capital cases, and the Rapporteur's recommendation seems reasonable: 

"The best way forward would be for Congress to enact legislation permitting federal courts to review all issues in death penalty cases on the merits, with appropriate exceptions, such as where a defendant attempts to deliberately bypass state court procedures."

Yet, despite saying all the right things and making completely reasonable recommendations, the influence of this Special Rapporteur's visit, or indeed any United Nations criticism of the US death penalty system, will probably be seriously limited. 

Which makes it even more interesting that today's statement drops such a strong hint about other possible avenues of influence.

Brian

DPAC