Legal Commentary

UN Investigator Finds Risk of Executing the Innocent in Alabama

By TChris

Philip Alston, a special investigator with the U.N.'s Human Rights Council, has some harsh words for the State of Alabama's "refusal to even discuss the possibility that the state's capital punishment system is in need of improvement."

"(Alabama) 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," Alston wrote in the report, released Monday.

The Birmingham News agrees: [more ...]

State leaders' stubborn refusal to "engage with the facts" on this issue should not, alas, come as a bitter shock. For years, Alabama's elected officials have refused to address obvious problems with the death penalty, despite a growing body of evidence that the criminal justice system is not as infallible as many assumed it to be. DNA exonerations alone have called into question the reliability of everything from eyewitnesses and jailhouse snitches to confessions. ...

Alabama, which has the highest per-capita rate of executions, desperately needs to ensure that the ultimate punishment is imposed fairly and accurately. But that's hard to do when our leaders either won't admit there's a problem or just don't care.

This is one of the few times that something at least slightly positive can be said about the Texas approach to criminal justice:

Alston visited Alabama and Texas in preparing his report, and found that Texas officials wanted to improve their system, and recognized that the innocent may already have been executed. Alabama officials had no interest in change, he said.

"(Alabama) officials would rather deny than confront flaws in the criminal justice system," Alston wrote. "It is entirely possible that Alabama has already executed innocent people."

That point of view seems to be validated by the state's response:

Asked Tuesday whether he had read the report, Alabama Attorney General Troy King said, "I've looked at all of it that I intend to look at," and accused the U.N. of pushing an ideological agenda.

What did he look at? The title? Shorter Troy King: "Facts? We don't need no stinkin' facts."

King is living in a fantasy world:

"I don't think there are judges who say, `I'm going to give this person the death sentence because I'm getting ready to stand for election,'" King said. "That is a serious allegation, and I don't believe it."

Elected judges are immune from public opinion when they impose sentences, including death? Then why are they always talking about what the public demands?

The Birmingham News again:

Elected judges who may feel pressure to impose and uphold death sentences. In Alabama, the concern is even greater because elected judges hold the power to inflict death sentences even when a jury advises against it. "When judges override jury verdicts, it is nearly always to increase the sentence to death rather than to decrease it to life, and a significant proportion of those on Death Row would not be there if jury verdicts were respected," Alston wrote.

The bottom line is nothing new: if we aren't ready to eliminate the death penalty, it's time to inject some common sense safeguards into the system so that innocent people aren't executed.

Among Alston's recommendations:

Alabama and Texas should establish well-funded, statewide public defender services. Oversight of these should be independent of the executive and judicial branches.

Congress should enact legislation permitting federal courts to review all issues in death penalty post-conviction review cases on the merits.

Alabama should evaluate and respond in detail to the findings and recommendations of an American Bar Association report on the implementation of the death penalty.

But no reform will happen in Alabama as long as state officials continue bury their heads in the Alabama clay.

Alston's comments are reported on the U.N. website. Here's the press release.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on July 03, 2008 (boomark / email).