The Death Penalty is Torture

I. Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) forbid torture as cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

II. The specific prohibition of torture of the Third Geneva Convention and the other general prohibitions on torture were later repeated and expanded in the UN Declaration on the Protection of All from Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1975). 

III. The UN Convention against Torture (1984) obliges the contracting states to take all appropriate measures to prevent torture. {...} The Convention defines torture as "any act by which severe physical or psychological pain or suffering is intentionally inflicted on a person, for example to {...} charge and punish them for an act committed or suspected to have been committed by them or by a third party {...}

   The world's understanding of torture, which absolutely prohibits physical and psychological torture, says an immutable characteristic of capital punishment - already outlawed in many countries - is that it makes use of death threats. Credible death threats, in fact, have long been treated as torturous acts. With simulated executions and non-lethal corporal punishments already prohibited as torturous acts, death sentences and real executions, must be classified as torturous acts, too. (John Bessler, Cambridge University Press 2022)

The Alabama Supreme Court defines "psychological torture as: "Psychological torture can be inflicted where the victim is in intense fear and is aware of, but helpless to prevent, impending death". 

( Key v State of Alabama (2004) 891 So.2d 384 (Supreme Court of Alabama).

This legal description describes the circumstances faced by death row inmates, who often spend decades living under continuous threats of death before execution. Threats or capital charges inevitably cause anguish and torment to the accused, the convict and their family members.

Truth is, death sentences and executions are totally incompatible with the law’s strict prohibition of torture because an immutable characteristic of the death penalty is that it utilizes official death threats.

In summary, the death penalty has all the hallmarks of a cruel and unusual punishment and should therefore be abolished and banned as unconstitutional.

https://blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/death-penalty-research-unit-blog/blog-post/2023/05/torturous-practice-prohibiting-death-penaltys

Welcome to Alabama the Rotten Beautiful

It is official: The state of Alabama has the ability to torture its prisoners as long as the governor likes. And we all know: The self-proclaimed protector of life ("All life is sacred") loves killing prisoners, and she couldn't give a damn if they are tortured until they die. She pretends to only do what the victim's families want. However, that's the next lie; families who oppose the death penalty are constantly ignored by her.

The obvious cruelty of spending unlimited hours bungling the preparations for a killing may soon lead to the end of using the current favorite method of execution. Federal courts seem to realize the problem as the latest decisions in Alan Miller's and in Kenneth Smith's cases show. They stayed the executions, but the state appealed, and an unscrupulous and compliant US Supreme Court lifted the stays without reason. But what happened in Alabama drew national and international attention, and the public opinion about lethal injections could change.

But it wouldn't be the bloodthirsty state of Alabama if it hadn't already created a new method to kill. As a German, I can hardly believe that an American state would want to use gas chambers to kill prisoners like the Nazis did in Germany's darkest days.

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After the latest events in Alabama, with one torturous, hour-long execution and two attempts to kill prisoners it was high time for a moratorium, and the only right thing to do.

Before you praise Governor Ivey for her decision you should read her reasons, and the accusations she made towards death penalty opponents and human rights activists. Given her malicious insinuations it is even more essential to insist on an independent, neutral and transparent investigation. 

Ivey did not loose a single word about the terrible circumstances, and the horrifying tortures inflicted on Joe Nathan James Jr., Alan Eugene Miller, and Kenneth Eugene Smith (and on countless others in the years up to now). She just referred to the families of murder victims, whom she promised they would see an execution, and this would bring closure to them. Beside the fact that executing someone does not bring peace and closure to murder victims families as pschycologists and therapists in many studies and evaluations found, Ivey shows clearly that her concern is not justice but revenge. 

Although, it is obvious that it was not legal appeals that prevented the killings of prisoners but the incompetence of the executioners. Ivey claims against her better knowledge that her henchmen and their superiors did not do anything wrong. It's disturbing that a politician seems to think it's okay to torture people to death as with what happened to Mr. Joe Nathan James Jr., and as her inferiors tried to do to Mr. Miller and Mr. Smith. Yes, it was ADOC employees who work as members of the execution team, and who treated fellow citizens in an absolute grisly and inhumane way. God knows how their consciences deal with that.

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The Death Penalty – Still A Gambling Game Of  Life and Death

The issue of the arbitrariness of the death penalty was brought before the Supreme Court in 1972 in Furman v. Georgia (408 U.S. 238). Furman, bringing an Eighth Amendment challenge, argued that capital cases resulted in arbitrary and capricious sentencing. The court held that 40 death penalty statutes across the country could result in arbitrary sentencing, and was therefore “cruel and unusual” and violated the Eighth Amendment. The death penalty was suspended because existing statutes were no longer valid.

Although two Justices (Brennan and Marshall) stated the death penalty itself was unconstitutional, the overall holding in the Furman case was that only specific death penalty statutes were unconstitutional. Advocates of capital punishment began proposing new statutes that they believed would end arbitrariness in capital sentencing. The Supreme Court accepted the reforms, and the moratorium on executions ended in 1977 with the execution of Gary Gilmore in Utah.

However – it is an accepted fact that the death penalty is still imposed in an arbitrary and capricious manner, essentially influenced by race, geography, and economic status. In these premises nothing has changed. None more than the Southern States, where sentencing disparities are perfectly obvious. You have just to consult relevant statistics.

There arises the question whether death penalty statutes valid for today work according to the Supreme Court's requirement of eliminating arbitrary sentencing. Obviously they don't. This supports a conclusion that the death penalty, applied in the actual manner still doesn't comply with the Supreme Court's requirements, and therefore is cruel, and unconstitutional punishment, violating the Eighth Amendment. Anyone willing to see can see that!

As a staunch opponent of the death penalty, I was relieved and glad about the decision of a Colorado jury that spared gunman James Holmes the death penalty for killing 12 people at a movie theater in 2012. He will now serve a LWOP sentence.

What has that case got to do with the subject of arbitrariness? Well, James Holmes was sentenced to life in prison despite killing more people than the three other men on Colorado's death row, combined. Could it be that race affects who gets death? Because, these three other men are black...

What next, esteemed Supreme Court?

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The tournament of the most horrendous execution is declared open!

Well, let’s have a look only on this year’s botched executions. Of course not every miscarried killing in the State’s death chambers has become publicly known. We learned that secrecy is a matter of high-priority in the whole process – from the source of the obtained poisons to the dosage to the efficiency to the involved staff and their dubious medical qualification to the investigation by government employees when the procedure went wrong. 

The dead machinery gorged 28 people so far this year. In January, Michael Lee Wilson died by the hand of the State Oklahoma. He dedicated his allegedly last words to his daughters, but when the execution started his real last words were: “I feel my whole body burning”. Same month in Ohio, Dennis McGuire were injected with an untried drug mix, and he suffered from air hunger 23 minutes before he died. Clayton Lockett’s execution took 43 minutes (not included more than an hour the executioners spent trying to find a usable vein). During the whole process he writhed in pain before officials called the execution off and closed the curtains. He was tortured until he finally died from a heart attack. The latest for the time being is the prolonged execution of Joseph Wood in Arizona. After being injected with the same drug mix that tortured Mr. McGuire to death in Ohio, Mr. Wood’s dying went on and on and on – for 117 minutes.  

The list of bungled executions is inevitably incomplete, and we will never know how many of the state-killed prisoners have been tortured to death. We will never know what the murdered people suffered from during the killing processes. Their mouths closed upon the world. 

But hey, the horror show must go on. Which State will top 117 minutes? Come on, Georgia, Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida – be the first one to beat that record! After all the sensational mob wants to be fed!  

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Killing me softly

So great American people
Who speak of humanity
But their meaning of humanity is
Killing someone
Softly

So trustworthy policemen
Who mistreat men in their custody
Coercing them to false confessions
While knowing the truth
Surely

So law-abiding prosecutors
Who withhold evidence
Or deal with snitches
Approving even the death of innocents
Intentionally

So unprejudiced Judges
Who override a Jury’s vote
Not administering justice
But actually acting
Politically

So humanitarian prison guards
Who treat inmates like animals
Tormenting and hassling the prisoners
And let out their own frustration
Arbitrarily

So upright, honest Governors
Who jump on bandwagons
Selling their souls to stay in office
At the expense of the convicted
Mercilessly

So honorable the Supreme Court
Who denies last appeals
Pretending being just and unbiased
But breaks the 8^th Amendment
Violently

So reliable Departments of Corrections
Who travel throughout the country
Degenerated into drug dealers
With bags full of money
Secretly

So highly sensitive executioners
Who commit premeditated murders
A botched execution – so what
The next one will work
Dead certainly

So good religious Christians
Who pray and run to church
Quoting the bible while calling for death
Showing no mercy
Hypocritically 

So reputable citizens
Who refuse to learn the truth
Turning their heads looking away
What’s that to me?
Ignorantly

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The death penalty is being applied in the United States as a fatal lottery.

Bianca Jagger

On June 29, 1972, the Supreme Court ruled that any punishment is "cruel and unusual" if it is not commensurate with the crime, if it is arbitrarily imposed, if it violates the public sense of justice, and if it is not more effective than another harsh punishment. The Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional, and suspended the death penalty across the country.

Once the death penalty states had in some aspects modified their rules in order to exclude arbitrariness in applying the death penalty, the capital punishment was reintroduced in 1976, and the death machinery quickly revived.

But which of the faults and deficiencies the Supreme Court pointed out back then has really been remedied? None.

Speaking of arbitrariness: If you take a look at how the death penalty is applied you have no choice but to assess that arbitrariness is still the order of the day. Whether a death sentence is handed down or not does not first and foremost depend on the crime but on other factors such as geography, race, education, or economic status. Sometimes even time can have an impact - as studies found elected judges issue tougher sentences right before an election. This is an important point especially in Alabama since this state still upholds the “judicial override”.

Speaking of commensurability: Where are the objective criterias that qualify a murder as a “capital murder”? The definition of capital murder is vaguely, and yes, arbitrarily in many aspects too. Some people end up on death row while others who have committed same or similar crimes led them to a life sentence. This too violates the public sense of justice, to quote another point the Supreme Court has made out in its 1972 decision to suspend the death penalty.

What is about effectiveness? If it is the meaning of punishment to protect society (and not satisfying cravings of revenge) you will acknowledge that nearly every death penalty state allows life without parole. This is indeed a harsh punishment, and it ensures that the defendant will not be a danger to society anymore. To weaken an often used argument: Countless studies found that the death penalty does not work as a deterrent as so many death penalty supporters never get tired to suggest. 

To cut a long story short: 1972, the Supreme Court pointed out under which circumstances the death penalty is unconstitutional. It is obvious that up to today nothing has changed when it comes to a death sentence. Still it is applied arbitrarily, too often not commensurate with the crime which in addition violates the public sense of justice, and states have another harsh punishment at hand – life without parole – that is perfectly effective. 

According to the Supreme Court’s own definition of an unconstitutional punishment it must -no ifs, no buts - be stated that the death penalty is anything but constitutional. What has been true in 1972 is still true in 2014.

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Seemingly, law-makers in Alabama have realized that their State’s death penalty system is broken, and need to become modified. Unfortunately, their deliberations go in the wrong direction.

Instead of look ahead to a future that has inevitably no more executions, or to acknowledge the nationwidely decreased acceptance for the death penalty, they are again – after approving the so called “Fair Justice Act” - about to step back. The “Secrecy bill” SB325 will now move to the full House of Representatives, and it is to be feared that the House’s majority will force this pre-democratic bill into law.

Why does State of Alabama consider it necessary to conceal its execution protocol from public view? Why does the State refuse to reveal who is involved in state sanctioned killings? I’m having flashbacks to the hooded hangmen in the Dark Age...

Withhold informations, avoid the limelight, a conspiracy of silence – aren’t these the typical behaviors you would rather attribute to gangs of criminals? What is that down to? Do you mean to say Alabama law-makers are well aware of the viciousness of their conduct? Because, if you are convinced doing the right thing, why should you keep it a secret?

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You may think Alabama’s death row is crowded with the worst of the worse, just like interested parties try to make you believe. A crowd of the State’s allegedly  most heinous, fundamentally evil men, void of all human feeling, and therefore not worth to live on this earth, to share the earth with the millions of good, flawless American Christians any longer.

But people on death row have other things in common why they are on death row: They are poor. Without exception. Obviously too poor to be granted the fundamental human right of life.  

 Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg Bader is quoted as follow: “People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty. I have yet to see a death case among the dozens coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial."

What does this mean to Alabama's death row prisoners? Alabama is the only state in the country without a state-funded program to provide legal assistance to death row prisoners. There is no state-wide public defender program in the state and, in some counties, defendants have been sentenced to death after trials where they were represented by a lawyer who did not meet even the minimum requirement of five years of criminal defense experience. Nearly half of the people on Alabama’s death row were represented at trial by appointed lawyers whose compensation for out-of-court preparation was capped at $1000. (Source: EJI). 

There are countless men among Alabama’s and other State's general prison population who certainly  have committed more violent or crueler crimes but did not end on death row. It can be assumed that the men on Alabama's death row are not there mainly because of their crimes but because of their poverty which prevented them from getting adequate legal representation at their trial.

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