ABA Report Calls for Georgia Death Penalty Moratorium

ABA REPORT CALLS FOR GEORGIA DEATH PENALTY MORATORIUM

A new report by the American Bar Association Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project found that Georgia’s death penal­ty fails to meet 43 ABA stan­dards for improv­ing the fair­ness and accu­ra­cy of the death penal­ty. The assess­ment team assem­bled in Georgia by the ABA was so trou­bled by its find­ings that it called for a mora­to­ri­um on not only exe­cu­tions but also the pros­e­cu­tion of death penalty cases.

The 21-mem­ber assess­ment team urged the state to study a vari­ety of prob­lems and made a series of rec­om­men­da­tions to address these issues. Among the team’s most sig­nif­i­cant rec­om­men­da­tions were the following:

INADEQUATE FUNDING FOR DEFENSE COUNSEL

Georgia should ensure that all defen­dants receive com­pe­tent coun­sel and pro­vide the nec­es­sary fund­ing for the full cost of high qual­i­ty legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion by the defense team and access to selected experts.

LACK OF DEFENSE COUNSEL FOR STATE HABEAS

Georgia does not appoint coun­sel for state habeas pro­ceed­ings, and Georgia is one of only two states to not pro­vide indi­gent cap­i­tal defen­dants with attor­neys at this stage. To help ensure that all cap­i­tal defen­dants receive ade­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion, Georgia should pro­vide them with at least two attor­neys in state habeas pro­ceed­ings.



RACIAL DISPARITIES IN CAPITAL SENTENCING

Among all homi­cides with known sus­pects, those sus­pect­ed of killing whites are 4.56 times as like­ly to be sen­tenced to death as those who are sus­pect­ed of killing blacks. Georgia should ful­ly inves­ti­gate and eval­u­ate the racial dis­par­i­ties in its death penal­ty sys­tem and devel­op strate­gies that strive to elim­i­nate them.

INAPPROPRIATE BURDEN OF PROOF FOR MENTALLY RETARDED DEFENDANTS

Georgia’s bur­den of proof for defen­dants with men­tal retar­da­tion is inap­pro­pri­ate; Georgia is the only state requir­ing that a defen­dant prove men­tal retar­da­tion beyond a rea­son­able doubt. Georgia should place the bur­den of dis­prov­ing men­tal retar­da­tion on the pros­e­cu­tion when the defense presents a sub­stan­tial show­ing that the defen­dant may have men­tal retar­da­tion. If Georgia con­tin­ues to place the bur­den of proof on the defense, this bur­den should be lim­it­ed to proof by a pre­pon­der­ance of the evi­dence.

INADEQUATE PATTERN JURY INSTRUCTIONS ON MITIGATION

Approximately 41% of jurors inter­viewed in the assess­ment did not under­stand that any evi­dence could be used in con­sid­er­a­tion of mit­i­ga­tion, and 62% thought the defense had to prove mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors beyond a rea­son­able doubt. Georgia should revise its jury instruc­tions to ensure that jurors under­stand applic­a­ble law and mon­i­tor the extent to which jurors under­stand the revised instruc­tions to per­mit fur­ther revi­sion as nec­es­sary.

INADEQUATE PROPORTIONALITY REVIEW

To ensure fair­nesss in cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing, Georgia should engage in mean­ing­ful por­por­tion­al­i­ty review by review­ing cas­es in which a death sen­tence was imposed, cas­es in which the death penal­ty was sought but not imposed, and cas­es in which the death penal­ty could have been sought but was not.

(Georgia ABA Death Penalty Assessment Report, January 2006).

Read the Executive Summary.

Read the Full Report.

See DPIC’s Represenation, Race, Arbitrariness Web pages.