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More about his case below and US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge William A. Fletcher's belief in his innocence.
The Chicago-based Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) aims to abolish it in America, hoping to grassroots activism will achieve it. The US is the only Western country still using it. In addition, since 1990, 30 countries abolished it, and among the 74 still executing, four are the main abusers - America, China, Vietnam and Iran.
Currently, about 3,200 US prisoners are on death row. In 1972, the Supreme Court (in Furman v. Georgia) said:
"the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, (and so) harsh, freakish, and arbitrary" to be constitutionally "unacceptable." The decision voided 40 death penalty statutes, thereby commuting the sentences of over 600 death row inmates nationally.
In 1976 (in Gregg v. Georgia, Jurek v. Texas, and Proffitt v. Florida - collectively called the Gregg decision), the High Court reinstated the death penalty and let states impose it. The Court held that new death penalty statutes in these states were constitutional under the Eighth Amendment, even with cruel and unusual punishment clauses that should have banned them.
In Gregg v. Georgia, the Supreme Court called the death penalty not inherently cruel, only "an extreme sanction, suitable to the most extreme of crimes."
In fact, it's extremely cruel and barbaric, flouting due process, judicial fairness and humanity, violating equal constitutional protection. It disproportionately affects people of color, the poor, and disadvantaged. It legitimizes state-sponsored murder, innocent as well as guilty prisoners affected. Moreover, it's ineffective in deterring crime, and unconscionable in civilized societies.
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