DPIC Report — At least 1,300 Prisoners are on U.S. Death Rows in Violation of U.S. Human Rights Obligations

At least 1,300 pris­on­ers have been impris­oned on U.S. death rows for more than two decades, in vio­la­tion of U.S. human rights oblig­a­tions, a Death Penalty Information Center report on death-row incar­cer­a­tion prac­tices has found. The num­ber rep­re­sents more than half of all U.S. death-row pris­on­ers as of January 1, 2020. Nearly one third of the pris­on­ers whose lengthy death-row incar­cer­a­tions vio­late their human rights are on death row in California. 

DPIC also found that an addi­tion­al 191 pris­on­ers have been exe­cut­ed 20 or more years after hav­ing been sen­tenced to death and that 13 men and women who had been wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death since 1973 had spent two decades or more on death row pri­or to their exon­er­a­tions, also in vio­la­tion of U.S. human rights oblig­a­tions. In all, the report doc­u­ment­ed more than 1,500 death-penal­ty-relat­ed human rights vio­la­tions by U.S. states and the federal government.

California, with 429 pris­on­ers on death row for 20 or more years, had the most human rights vio­la­tions of any state. Florida was next with 192 death-row pris­on­ers incar­cer­at­ed more than 20 years, fol­lowed by North Carolina with 95. Florida had the most human rights vio­la­tions aris­ing out of the exe­cu­tion of pris­on­ers who had been on death row for 20 or more years, with 34. Texas was next with 31, fol­lowed by Georgia with 28 and Alabama with 20.

Three of the exonerees — Paul Browning in Nevada, Henry McCollum in North Carolina, and Glenn Ford in Louisiana — had been on death row 30 years or more before they were exonerated.

DPIC’s analy­sis was moti­vat­ed by sev­er­al recent deci­sions of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) — the body of the Organization of American States (OAS) that reviews poten­tial breach­es of human rights by mem­ber nations in the Western Hemisphere — which deter­mined that extend­ed incar­cer­a­tion on death-row under the con­tin­u­ing threat of exe­cu­tion vio­lat­ed the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. In 2018, the IACHR declared in the case of Missouri death-row pris­on­er Russell Bucklew that “[t]he very fact of spend­ing 20 years on death row is … exces­sive and inhu­man” pun­ish­ment. In April 2020, the IACHR returned to the issue and found that California’s 27-year impris­on­ment of Nvwtohiyada Idehesdi Sequoyah (for­mer­ly Billy Ray Waldon) on death row vio­lat­ed U.S. human rights obligations.

The IACHR held the United States respon­si­ble for vio­lat­ing Sequoyah’s ​“right to humane treat­ment,” say­ing his extend­ed incar­cer­a­tion under threat of death con­sti­tut­ed ​“cru­el, infa­mous or unusu­al pun­ish­ment” under the American Declaration. It fur­ther ruled that his exe­cu­tion after such a lengthy peri­od on death row would con­sti­tute an addi­tion­al human rights vio­la­tion and rec­om­mend­ed as a rem­e­dy that his death sen­tence be com­mut­ed to life imprisonment.

DPIC reviewed data relat­ed to cur­rent and exe­cut­ed death-row pris­on­ers to assess the breadth of the nation’s human rights vio­la­tions aris­ing from lengthy con­fine­ment under sen­tence of death. The report found that 1,344 cur­rent pris­on­ers on 26 state, fed­er­al, or U.S. mil­i­tary death rows have been incar­cer­at­ed fac­ing exe­cu­tion for more than 20 years. With the 191 exe­cu­tions car­ried out by 20 states more than 20 years after pris­on­ers were first sen­tenced to death, these two cat­e­gories of death-row pris­on­ers account­ed for 1,535 human rights violations.

DPIC Executive Director Robert Dunham not­ed that the analy­sis sig­nif­i­cant­ly under­states the mag­ni­tude of U.S. human rights vio­la­tions. DPIC reviewed the por­tions of its death-penal­ty data­base relat­ing to the 2,620 pris­on­ers on death row as of January 1, 2020, the 1518 U.S. exe­cu­tions since 1977, and the 169 death-row exon­er­a­tions since 1973. The data reviewed did not include for­mer death-row pris­on­ers who spent 20 or more years on death row before being resen­tenced to life or less or hav­ing their death sen­tences com­mut­ed; or those who died in cus­tody after 20 years or more con­fine­ment on death row. 

The infor­ma­tion DPIC reviewed in deter­min­ing the scope of the U.S. human rights vio­la­tion is part of a larg­er data­base it is com­pil­ing for its Death Row Census of all per­sons sen­tenced to death in the United States since 1972. The first phase of this mul­ti-year project, which will con­tain infor­ma­tion on the sta­tus of more than 9,400 death sen­tences imposed across the coun­try since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down exist­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment statutes in June 1972, is expect­ed to be com­plet­ed this summer.