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by James Clark · Aug 01, 2011 · HUMAN RIGHTS↵ recent storiesRead More »
No one is surprised to learn that California’s death penalty is a broken and dysfunctional system. After all, you don’t have to go far in California to find any government bureaucracy that’s broken or dysfunctional – it’s finding a functional government program that might take a while. The question is: How do we fix it? How do we punish the worst criminals in a way that maximizes public safety without bankrupting the budget?A new bill in the California State Senate, SB 490, has a shockingly simple solution: give voters the facts and let the voters decide. (The shock is that it’s taken 30 years to figure that out.)
In 1978, when California voters first reinstated the death penalty, no one knew how much it would cost. No one knew how long executions would take, how many attorneys would be required to prosecute and defend the appeals, how large a facility would be needed to house death row inmates – in short, no one knew what a big, expensive mess it would be.
Thirty-three years later, we know. We now know that the death penalty is a hollow promise to victims’ family members. These families wait 25 years-- on average-- for resolution on a death sentence. 99% of those sentenced to die are never executed and die from old age or sickness instead.
by Mindy Townsend · Dec 12, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTSRead More »
Regardless of what each of us thinks of the death penalty, we can agree that executing an innocent person is just wrong.But that is exactly what California is about to do.
Kevin Cooper is a black California man who was convicted of the quadruple homicide of a white family. But as Nicholas Kristof reported, his conviction is shady and the evidence against him is fraught with fatal flaws.
The murders of Doug and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter and 11-year-old guest occurred in 1983, and left one survivor, the Ryen’s son Josh. Josh initially told the police that three white people committed the crime, but at the trial later on suggested that the crime had been perpetrated by one man with an Afro. As Kristof points out, the former theory makes more sense because there had been three murder weapons: a hatchet, an ice pick and at least one knife.
by Benjamin Joffe-Walt · Nov 16, 2010 · HUMAN RIGHTSRead More »
Eid al-Adha: to Muslims all over the world, today's 'Festival of Sacrifice' marks the willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his son Isma'il (Ishmael) in an act of divine servitude.As part of the celebrations women and men will dress in their very best, decorations will sparkle throughout the streets, excessive amounts of meat will be served, folks will wish one another Eid Mubarak ("blessed festival") and the poor will be fed.
But to the less fortunate in Saudi Arabia, Eid al-Adha means something entirely different: the beginning of death penalty season.
Saudi Arabia has one of the highest executions rates in the world, with an average of one to two people killed every week, usually by beheading in a public square. The majority of those killed are foreign workers, and since 1990 the kingdom has put 40 women to death, 22 of them female foreign workers.
But for a period of over two months between Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, and today's Eid al-Adha, the annual Hajj pilgrimage is performed by millions of Muslims all over the world. Out of respect for this holy period, and the tourism and money it brings into the country, Saudi Arabia tends to graciously delay the head chopping until after Eid al-Adha.
Meaning that while Eid al-Adha is a joyous day for mainstream Saudis, not everyone, particularly the millions of foreign workers in the country who serve the Saudis, are so happy.
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