|
Comment on this article |
Email this Article
|
|
News :: Miscellaneous |
|
Amnesty International Report on USA Covering events from January - December 2000 |
Current rating: 0 |
by Amnesty International
(No verified email address) |
31 May 2001
|
Amnesty International USA executive director William Schulz states, "The United States stands in the same shameful death penalty league as China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. This executioners' quartet was responsible for 88 percent of all known state killings."
Editor’s Note: These are apparently the "democratic values" that we are defending by our continued support of the government of Saudi Arabia and for the admission of China to the World Trade Organization. |
Head of state and government: William Jefferson Clinton
Capital: Washington D.C.
Population: 278.3 million
Official language: English
Death penalty: retentionist
2000 treaty signatures/ratifications: Optional Protocol to the UN Children\'s Convention on the involvement of children in armed conflict; Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
Police brutality, disputed shootings and ill-treatment in prisons and jails were reported. In May the UN Committee against Torture considered the initial report of the USA on implementation of the UN Convention against Torture. Eighty-five prisoners were executed in 14 states bringing to 683 the total number of people executed since 1976. Those executed included individuals who were children under 18 at the time of their crimes, and the mentally impaired. In December it was announced that George W. Bush had won the November presidential elections.
UN Committee against Torture In May the UN Committee against Torture considered the initial report of the USA. In its conclusions and recommendations the Committee welcomed \'\'the extensive legal protection\'\' against torture and ill-treatment in the USA but found failings in important areas, many of which had been raised by AI.
Areas of concern highlighted by the Committee included torture and ill-treatment by police and prison guards - much of it racially motivated; the sexual abuse of female prisoners by male guards; prisoner chain gangs; and the \'\'excessively harsh regime\'\' of supermaximum security (isolation) units. The Committee urged the USA to abolish electro-shock stun belts and restraint chairs, stating that their use \'\'almost invariably\'\' led to breaches of the Convention; and to cease holding juveniles and adult prisoners together.
The Committee also recommended that the USA withdraw all \'\'reservations, interpretations and understandings\'\' registered on its acceptance of the Convention against Torture. These included a reservation to Article 16 in which the USA agreed to be bound by the Convention only to the extent that it matched the ban on cruel punishment contained in the US Constitution.
Racial discrimination In September the USA submitted its initial report on compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The report described the protections against racial discrimination under US laws and the Constitution, but acknowledged that discrimination persisted in certain areas, including in the criminal justice system.
Race was a factor in many of the issues cited below, for example in police ill-treatment and \'\'racial profiling\'\' in police stops and searches, in sentencing, and in the juvenile justice system.
Police brutality Police brutality and disputed police shootings of unarmed suspects were reported; a disproportionate number of the victims were from racial minorities. Many incidents of alleged abuse occurred at the end of vehicle pursuits, during traffic stops, or during police street patrols. Several suspects died after being placed in dangerous restraint holds or subdued with pepper spray.
During the year, the US Justice Department investigated several police departments for patterns of abuses and civil rights violations, including racism, ill-treatment and excessive force.
In February, four New York Police Department (NYPD) officers were acquitted of all criminal charges in the killing in 1999 of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed West African immigrant who was shot 41 times outside his home.
During 2000, a federal Justice Department investigation found that the NYPD\'s Street Crime Unit, to which the officers belonged, engaged in racial profiling — a practice in which blacks and Hispanics were disproportionately targeted in street stops and searches. The Justice Department was reported to be negotiating with the authorities on the implementation of a range of reforms to the NYPD, including improvements to the disciplinary system.
In November the Los Angeles city authorities and the federal government reached an agreement (known as a consent decree) to reform the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), following a lengthy federal investigation into systemic problems including racism and excessive force. The decree mandated a range of measures, including a requirement that the LAPD collect data on the ethnicity and gender of people subjected to traffic and pedestrian stops and the establishment of an independent monitor to oversee reforms.
An investigation continued into the scandal arising from the LAPD\'s Rampart division, in which officers were accused of having beaten, shot, robbed and framed people. More than 70 current or former police officers were under investigation and more than 100 criminal convictions had been thrown out, with scores more under review. In November, three officers were convicted of conspiracy and other offences involving framed gang members.
Two New Jersey state troopers faced trial in connection with the 1998 shooting and wounding of three unarmed black and Hispanic men during a traffic stop on the New Jersey Turnpike. The troopers had fired 11 shots at the van in which the youths were travelling to college basketball trials.
Earlier studies, showing that state troopers practised racial profiling, had forced the department to reform its practices and to monitor stops and searches for racial and ethnic bias.
In November the US Justice Department announced that it was investigating an alleged pattern of abuses involving the Prince George\'s County Police Department, Maryland, following a spate of police shootings and complaints of brutality in recent years, including complaints filed by more than two dozen people who said they had been maimed by police dogs.
Ruling on pepper spray In May a federal appeals court reinstated a lawsuit filed against law enforcement agencies in Humboldt County, California, for swabbing liquid pepper spray into the eyes of non-violent environmentalists during protests in 1997, action which AI had said at the time was \'\'tantamount to torture\'\'. The appeals court ruled there was evidence that the protesters had suffered \'\'excruciating pain\'\' and that use of pepper spray could in some circumstances constitute an \'\'unreasonable use of force\'\'. The case was remanded to a jury for further proceedings.
Torture/ill-treatment in prisons and jails
Torture and ill-treatment were reported in prisons, jails and juvenile detention facilities. Abuses included beatings and excessive force; sexual misconduct; the misuse of electro-shock weapons and chemical sprays; and the cruel use of mechanical restraints, including holding prisoners for prolonged periods in four-point restraint as punishment. Many reported abuses took place in isolation units or during forced removal of prisoners from cells (\'\'cell extractions\'\').
Cruel conditions in supermaximum security (supermax) prisons, where prisoners are held in prolonged isolation, continued to be reported. AI\'s requests to tour such facilities in Illinois and Virginia were turned down by the authorities.
Up to 30 guards were alleged to have been involved in the systematic ill-treatment of five prisoners in a high security wing of Cook County Jail, Illinois, in July. It was alleged that guards kicked and punched the prisoners without provocation during cell searches and subjected them to racist abuse in retaliation for having reported earlier ill-treatment of jail inmates. The prisoners - who were also reportedly beaten after they were shackled - sustained lacerations, bruising and bone fractures. A civil lawsuit in the case was pending at the end of the year.
In July, three Cook County sheriff\'s deputies were indicted on first degree murder charges for the beating of inmate Louis Schmude in a holding cell in another detention facility in May; he died hours later of a ruptured spleen.
In September the US Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation into Red Onion State Prison, one of two supermax prisons in Virginia where there had been persistent allegations of excessive use of force by guards, including misuse of firearms, restraints and electro-shock weapons. AI renewed its call for the suspension of the use of all electro-shock weapons in Virginia prisons following the death in Wallens Ridge Prison, the state\'s other supermax prison, of a diabetic prisoner shocked with a stun weapon in July (see below). The Department of Corrections refused to ban the equipment and turned down a request by AI to tour Wallens Ridge Prison.
Abuse of incarcerated children Children in detention were subjected to ill-treatment which included the cruel use of restraints and prolonged isolation as punishment. Many children continued to be prosecuted as adults and sent to adult prisons where, in some states, they were not separated from adults and were held in inhumane or inappropriate conditions. A study of the juvenile justice system published in April, sponsored by the US Justice Department and six of the country\'s leading foundations, found that youths from ethnic minority groups, especially African Americans, were more likely to be imprisoned and to serve longer sentences than white youths charged with similar offences.
In February a lawsuit was filed alleging widespread abuse at the State Training School in Plankinton, South Dakota, a juvenile detention facility. Children were reportedly placed in punitive handcuffs and shackles; forced to lie spread-eagled in four-point restraints for hours at a time, including overnight; and girls were forcibly stripped by male staff while held in four-point restraint. It was also alleged that children, some of them mentally ill, were routinely held in isolation for 23 hours a day, sometimes for months at a time.
In December a federal judge approved a settlement which placed strict limits on the use of force and punishment at Plankinton. This included a ban on restraints as punishment and the removal of four-point rings used to tie inmates to beds, and the setting of limits on the length of time children could be confined to cells.
Ill-treatment of women prisoners Male guards continued to have unsupervised access to women prisoners or detainees in women\'s prisons and local jails. There were allegations of sexual abuse of female prisoners by male staff in states including California, Connecticut, New York, South Carolina and West Virginia. Draft legislation was introduced in New York to ban pat-down searches of women prisoners by male staff.
Reports of ill-treatment of inmates at Wayne County Jail, West Virginia, included claims that women prisoners were made to parade partially naked in front of male inmates, forced to undergo strip searches by male guards, fondled by male officers or watched while dressing. One prisoner said she was coerced into a sexual relationship with a guard who later resigned. There were also allegations of assaults by guards against both male and female inmates and the abusive use of pepper spray. The results of a Justice Department investigation into allegations of federal criminal civil rights violations by guards at the jail were not known by the end of the year. In October a state legislative committee held hearings on ill-treatment in two California prisons, Valley State Prison for Women and the California Institute for Women. Women prisoners testified about medical neglect and sexual abuse by male staff.
Deaths in prison
Lawrence Frazier, a diabetic, died in July after being restrained by guards and zapped with a 45,000 volt electro-shock stun gun after becoming delirious and \'\'combative\'\' in the Wallens Ridge Prison infirmary where he had been taken for hypoglycemia. Although the prison authorities said afterwards that a doctor had ruled out the stun weapon as a cause of death, this was discounted by many observers as the doctor had had no access to the autopsy results. Inquiries into the death were still pending at the end of the year. In October a state jury acquitted a former prison guard on a charge of aggravated battery and coercion to falsify reports in the case of Frank Valdez who died in Florida State Prison in July 1999. The guard was accused of beating Valdez and breaking his jaw after he was handcuffed. Frank Valdez died the next day after an altercation with four other guards whose trial on second-degree murder charges was still pending at the end of 2000. In June, eight prison guards accused of staging \'\'gladiator style\'\' fights among prisoners at Corcoran State Prison, California, between 1989 and 1995, were acquitted of criminal charges after a jury trial. Guards had shot 31 prisoners, seven of them fatally, while breaking up the fights. Although the guards were acquitted, the state had earlier been forced to change its policies after an independent panel found that 80 per cent of the shootings had been unjustified. State legislative hearings in 1998 had found a pattern of brutality at the prison.
Death penalty In 2000, 85 prisoners were executed in 14 states, bringing to 683 the total number executed since the US Supreme Court lifted a moratorium on executions in 1976. The USA continued to violate international standards by using the death penalty against the mentally impaired, individuals who were under 18 at the time of the crime, and defendants who received inadequate legal representation.
In January, the Governor of Illinois declared a moratorium on executions in his state owing to its \'\'shameful\'\' record of wrongful convictions in capital cases. His decision fuelled calls for executions to be halted elsewhere in the country, as concern about the fairness and reliability of the capital justice system grew. The New Hampshire legislature voted to abolish the death penalty, but the state governor vetoed the bill. Amidst a wave of national and international appeals, the Governor of Maryland commuted the death sentence of Eugene Colvin-El shortly before he was due to be executed in June, because of lingering doubts about his guilt. In November, the Governor of North Carolina commuted the death sentence of Marcus Carter hours before his execution, after 11 years on death row. The governor cited concern about the fairness of Marcus Carter\'s trial.
A Justice Department review of federal death sentences, made public in September 2000, found widespread geographic and racial disparities in the application of the federal death penalty nationwide. The first federal execution since 1963, scheduled to take place on 12 December, was stayed for six months by President Clinton pending more analysis of the Justice Department review.
Texas executed 40 prisoners during the year, a record in any one year. In December, the 150th prisoner was executed under the five-year governorship of president-elect George W. Bush.
Execution of child offenders
Chris Thomas, Steve Roach, Glen McGinnis and Gary Graham were executed for crimes committed when they were 17. Gary Graham was put to death in Texas in the face of widespread national and international protest and serious doubts about his guilt. More than 80 prisoners remained on death row in 16 states at the end of the year for crimes committed when they were 16 or 17.
Execution of the mentally impaired
Thomas Provenzano, who was executed in Florida in June, suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. A judge found him competent for execution despite agreeing that the prisoner believed he was being killed because he was Jesus Christ. On 20 June, Thomas Provenzano was already strapped down for execution, with the lethal injection needles inserted, when a court issued a stay. Twenty-four hours later, Thomas Provenzano was put through the same ordeal and executed.
Ineffective legal assistance
On 27 October, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated a lower court ruling that death-row inmate Calvin Burdine should get a new trial because his lawyer had slept during the original proceedings. The State of Texas argued that it had not been proved that the lawyer\'s sleeping had rendered him ineffective, and the Fifth Circuit court agreed. A dissenting judge described the case as one which \'\'shocks the conscience\'\'.
Violation of the Vienna Convention
A Mexican national, Miguel Angel Flores, was executed in Texas on 9 November, despite appeals for clemency from the Mexican and other governments. He was denied his treaty-based consular rights, as were most of the 90 foreign nationals on death row in the USA. In November, the International Court of Justice in The Hague heard arguments in a case brought against the USA by Germany following the execution of two German nationals in Arizona in 1999. The Court had not issued a ruling by the end of 2000.
Other concerns In June the parole board denied parole in the case of Leonard Peltier, imprisoned since 1977 for the murder of two FBI agents. There were concerns about the fairness of the proceedings leading to his conviction. In December President Clinton announced that he was reviewing the case for a possible pardon. AI had repeatedly called on President Clinton to grant clemency in the case.
Mazen Al-Najjar, a Palestinian immigrant jailed for more than three years on the basis of secret government evidence, was released in December after a court ruled that a summary of that evidence, which purported to show his links with a terrorist group, was insufficient to justify his detention. New proceedings had been ordered into the case by a court in May which found that his due process rights had been violated. AI called for a ban on the use of secret evidence to detain people during deportation proceedings.
In August AI wrote to the government to express concern about the treatment of Dr Wen Ho Lee, who was shackled and held in solitary confinement in federal detention pending his trial on charges of leaking nuclear secrets to China. Dr Wen Ho Lee was released in September after pleading guilty to one of the charges against him; the other charges were dropped.
|
See also:
http://web.amnesty.org/web/ar2001.nsf/webamrcountries/UNITED+STATES+OF+AMERICA?OpenDocument
|
|
