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News and Developments 2007: International

British Man Freed from Ohio Death Row

Posted: December 21, 2007
in
Kenneth Richey, a British and an American citizen, is expected to be freed soon after spending 20 years on Ohio’s death row for the murder of his ex-girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter in a 1986 apartment fire. Richey’s conviction was overturned by a federal court in August 2007 after 15 years of appeals that cast doubts on witness testimony and the competency of his defense attorney at the initial trial.

NEW RESOURCE: Handbook on Sentencing in Capital Cases Around the World

Posted: December 13, 2007
in
The Death Penalty Project, an international organization that provides free legal representation for individuals facing the death penalty in the Caribbean and Africa, recently published A Guide to Sentencing in Capital Cases. The guide provides judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys with information and sample appeals to help them navigate the sentencing phase in cases where a mandatory death sentence for a specific crime was abolished, leaving the former death row inmate to be resentenced.

United Nations Calls for a Global Moratorium on Executions

Posted: November 16, 2007
in

United Nations Calls for Moratorium on Executions A resolution for a global moratorium on executions was passed on Nov. 15 by the UN General Assembly's Third (Human Rights) Committee by a vote of 99-52, with 33 abstentions. The General Assembly is expected to endorse the decision in a plenary session in December. Similar resolutions were introduced in 1994 and 1999 but were either narrowly defeated or withdrawn.

The resolutions calls on countries to:

European Union and World Leaders Mark Day Against the Death Penalty

Posted: October 12, 2007
in
Member nations of the European Union and the Council of Europe marked October 10th as "European Day Against the Death Penalty," an action to underscore the continent's firm commitment to ending executions throughout the world. Leaders from the EU and the Council of Europe launched the initative during an October 9th conference in Lisbon, Portugal.

Italian Premier Calls for Worldwide Death Penalty Moratorium

Posted: September 27, 2007
in
Italian Premier Romano Prodi called for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty in an address to world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly.  Prodi advocated passage of a U.N. moratorium resolution, saying, "If genuine politics means showing foresight, we shall perform a great political act through the adoption of this resolution. It will demonstrate that humankind isn't capable of making progress only in science but also in the field of ethics."

China Reports Fewest Death Sentences in a Decade

Posted: September 05, 2007
in
China reported that the number of people sentenced to death in 2006 was the lowest in nearly a decade, and officials project that this trend will continue in 2007. According to a state media report, during the first five months of 2007, the number of death sentences handed out in cases of first instance dropped approximately 10% from the same time in 2006. The decline stems from a key legal reform requiring that all death sentences be approved by the Supreme People's Court, a change made in response to widespread concerns about wrongful convictions.

Canadian Man Who Once Faced Death Penalty Acquitted After 48 Years

Posted: August 29, 2007
in
Nearly five decades after Steven Truscott (pictured) was sentenced to die for the murder of 12-year-old Lynne Harper in Clinton, Ontario, he has been acquitted by the Canadian province's highest court. Truscott, who was only 14-years-old when he was sentenced to hang in 1959, was on death row for four months before his sentence was commuted to life in prison. The case was one of the most high profile cases in Canada's history, and Truscott was the youngest person on death row.

Rwanda Votes to Abolish the Death Penalty

Posted: June 11, 2007
in
Rwanda's parliament has voted to abolish the death penalty and replace it with life without parole, a move that officials hope will clear the way for suspects in the nation's 1994 genocide to be extradited back to Rwanda for trial. Many of the suspects are believed to be at large in Europe, North America, and West Africa, regions where many countries refuse to extradite criminal suspects to nations that continue to practice capital punishment or torture.

Executions Declining in China

Posted: June 08, 2007
in
A new requirement that every death sentence be reviewed and approved by China's highest court has resulted in a sharp decline in executions there. A spokesman for the Supreme People's Court in China said that lower courts are reporting a 10% drop in executions during the first five months of 2007. Human rights experts estimate that China executes 10,000 - 15,000 people each year, more than the rest of the world combined, but officials do not release specific numbers to the public.

NEW RESOURCES: "Towards the Abolition of the Death Penalty In Africa"

Posted: May 17, 2007
in
"Towards the Abolition of the Death Penalty in Africa: A Human Rights Perspective" is a new book by Lilian Chenwi that examines the history of capital punishment in Africa and the continent's emerging trend away from the death penalty. In her book, Chenwi details the impact that both international human rights organizations and international treaties have had on shifting African views about capital punishment.