Public amnesty international UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A lethal ideology More state killing on Human Rights Day as th 900 execution looms 9 December 2003 AI Index: AMR 51/149/2003 An Amnesty International poster from the bodies, not independent and impartial early 1990s depicted a number of former courts – with no right of appeal to any or current leaders, each with a hand in the court. air. Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao On 9 December last year, Zedong, Idi Amin, and Saddam Hussein President George W. Bush issued a were among those pictured. So too was the proclamation, declaring 10 December then US President, George Bush. The 2002 to be Human Rights Day and that caption read: “All those in favour of the week as Human Rights Week. “As a death penalty, raise your hand”. Nation”, the President proclaimed, “we A decade later, the presidential steadfastly oppose the forces of cruelty, hand is still raised as the USA approaches injustice, and tyranny”.1 In the five days its 900th execution since resuming judicial from 9 to 13 December 2002, the USA killing in 1977. On 900 occasions, a killed seven people in its execution human being will have been led from his chambers. 2 They had been selected for or her cell and hanged, shot, gassed, death under a system marked by electrocuted or poisoned to death. Kept arbitrariness, discrimination and error. under the threat of execution for years, The presidential proclamation these prisoners, together with their failed to mention that 10 December each families, had to endure the cycle of fear, year is international Human Rights Day. It hope and despair inherent to capital marks the adoption in 1948 of the punishment. More than three and a half Universal Declaration of Human Rights, thousand men and women are being kept with its vision of a world free from state under such a death threat today in the killing and cruelty. It is one of the success United States. Now, by presidential order, stories of the human rights movement that there is also the prospect of executions of the years since 1948 have seen steady selected foreign nationals following trials progress towards worldwide eradication of by military commissions – executive the death penalty. Today, 112 countries AI Index: AMR 51/149/2003 Amnesty International 9 December 2003 2 USA - A lethal ideology are abolitionist in law or practice. The instructed by the Warden, the IV team will vast majority of the world’s executions insert two intravenous catheters into each year now take place in a handful of appropriate veins in the inmate’s arms, one countries, the USA among them. to deliver the lethal agents and the other to serve as a back-up in the event of injection This year, on the Universal failure into the primary catheter.”6 And so Declaration’s 55th anniversary, the USA is on. set to execute two more people. This is in addition to the two men scheduled to be After a night of heavy drinking in put to death either side of Human Rights 1993, 20-year-old Johnny Martinez robbed Day, on 9 and 11 December.3 a Texas grocery shop, stabbing the shop assistant in the process. Within half an On 14 January 2003, President hour of the murder Martinez had Bush, whose five-year governorship of telephoned the police from a nearby motel, Texas saw 152 executions in that state and and told them of the crime. When the whose presidency has seen the first federal police arrived, Martinez surrendered executions in the USA since 1963, issued without resistance. The arresting officer another proclamation, promising that the described him as “very cooperative” and United States will “continue to build a “concerned about what happened”. At the culture that respects life”.4 On the same police station, Johnny Martinez confessed day, the USA carried out its first execution to the stabbing. He assisted the police in of the year, and has carried out over 60 their search for the murder weapon. The more since then, including the federal interrogating officer described Martinez as execution of a former soldier with a claim “very upset” and “remorseful”. At the of Gulf War Syndrome who was denied sentencing phase of his subsequent trial, clemency by President Bush.5 Johnny Martinez expressed his remorse Premeditated and an inability to explain why he had There is no killing more premeditated than committed this act of violence. He had no the death penalty. Just how calculated this history of violence and no criminal killing is, is illustrated by the execution convictions. He was sentenced to death protocols for the death penalty states. On and in May 2002 was put to death by “Execution Day” in Colorado, for example, lethal injection. “the inmate will be offered the opportunity Some of those on death row were to shower and dress in clean clothes one intoxicated at the time of the crimes. and one-half hours prior to the scheduled Some were mentally ill. Many came from execution time. Following the shower, the backgrounds of exposure to abuse and inmate will be dressed in green uniform violence from an early age. Eddie pants, a green button-up front shirt, socks, Crawford is scheduled for execution in and shoes. Thirty minutes prior to the Georgia on 10 December 2003, Human scheduled execution time, the strap down Rights Day, for the murder of his niece. team will remove the inmate from the He is a Vietnam veteran, who, according holding cell and strap the inmate to the to his appeal lawyers, returned from that execution bed. Twenty minutes prior to the war as an alcoholic suffering from post- scheduled execution time or when traumatic stress disorder. Amnesty International 9 December 2003 AI Index: AMR 51/149/2003 USA - A lethal ideology 3 Meanwhile, the state practices its Galveston, about 200 kilometres from the killing procedures, further highlighting death chamber in Huntsville, as his just how premeditated this legalized scheduled execution time approached. The murder is. New Mexico’s “tie-down team Texas authorities, including then Governor practice session”, for example, includes George Bush, saw no reason to wait, and the following steps: “1. The condemned in contrast to his 1987 murder trial, when inmate shall be escorted from the holding the state had denied his lawyers the funds cell into the execution chamber. 2. The to conduct a full assessment of Long’s condemned inmate shall be ordered to lay mental impairment, it spared no expense to down on his/her back on the table. 3. The have him killed. He was flown by condemned inmate shall be strapped to the aeroplane to Huntsville, accompanied by a table as follows: (a) The condemned full medical team to ensure his safe arrival. inmate’s ankles and wrists shall be As he was given the lethal injection, David buckled down simultaneously. (b) The Long “snorted and began gurgling. A strap across the chest and below the knees blackish-brown liquid spouted from his shall be placed on the inmate. The strap nose and mouth and dribbled to the floor”. across the stomach and above the knees This was the charcoal solution that had shall be placed on the inmate.”7 been used to detoxify his body, only hours before it would be injected with lethal As it wields the ultimate power chemicals.9 over individuals, the state may need to cater for the possibility of a stay of In Florida on 20 June 2000, after execution. In New Jersey, the procedures Governor Jeb Bush denied clemency, state that: “in the event that such a stay is seriously mentally ill prisoner Thomas granted during the execution process and Provenzano was strapped to a gurney and the condemned has not expired, the had the lethal injection needles inserted in Superintendent shall immediately order his arms. Eleven minutes before he was the team physicians to intercede. due to be killed, a federal court issued a Witnesses shall be removed from the area. stay of execution. The needles were The team physicians shall immediately withdrawn and he was taken back to his initiate life saving medical techniques to cell. A few hours later, the court lifted revive the condemned. When indications the stay, without comment, and Thomas of life are present, the condemned shall, as Provenzano was put through the same soon as practical, be transported to the St. procedure again. This time he was killed. Francis Medical Center Emergency Room Mentally ill prisoner Jay Scott was for further treatment as necessary”.8 On an hour from execution in Ohio on 17 paper, such a scenario borders on the April 2001, with clemency already denied surreal. The reality, of course, involves by Governor Bob Taft, when the state actual human beings. Supreme Court issued a stay. The stay David Long, a Texas inmate with was lifted and the execution was reset for a long history of mental illness, attempted 15 May. This time, minutes before the suicide by drug overdose two days before killing was due to be carried out a federal his scheduled execution in 1999. He was court intervened. Catheters had already still in intensive care in hospital in been put in Jay Scott’s arms in preparation Amnesty International 9 December 2003 AI Index: AMR 51/149/2003 4 USA - A lethal ideology for the lethal injection. Again, the stay was demagoguery aimed at escalating lifted. Jay Scott was executed on 14 June. executions has become more pervasive… Many of those seizing the anti-crime Delma Banks, African American, mantle not only advocate capital was sentenced to death by an all-white punishment, but also seek to out-do each jury who heard evidence from witnesses other in expanding the death penalty to who have since recanted their testimony.