A new report by the human rights orga­ni­za­tion Amnesty International urges President Joe Biden to act upon his cam­paign pledge to work to abol­ish the death penal­ty by exer­cis­ing his con­sti­tu­tion­al author­i­ty to com­mute the sen­tences of all fed­er­al death row prisoners.

The report, titled The Power of Example: Whither the Biden Death Penalty Promise?, was released on June 27, 2022, just two days before the 50th anniver­sary of the United States Supreme Court’s deci­sion in Furman v. Georgia, which struck down all exist­ing death penal­ty statutes. Amnesty International argues that ​“the 50th anniver­sary of Furman is an oppor­tune moment for the US admin­is­tra­tion and mem­bers of Congress to be remind­ed that the world is wait­ing for the USA to do what almost 100 coun­tries have achieved dur­ing this past half cen­tu­ry — total abo­li­tion of the death penalty.”

The report cites the 2020 – 2021 fed­er­al exe­cu­tion spree under President Donald Trump as an exam­ple of the egre­gious nature of the United States’ appli­ca­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, high­light­ing the arbi­trari­ness, racial dis­par­i­ties, issues of trib­al sov­er­eign­ty, and the exe­cu­tions of peo­ple with intel­lec­tu­al and men­tal dis­abil­i­ties. ​“When the Trump admin­is­tra­tion resumed fed­er­al exe­cu­tions in July 2020 after a 17-year hia­tus, it pro­vid­ed a stark reminder of the hor­ror show that is cap­i­tal jus­tice in the United States,” said Justin Mazzola, Deputy Director, Research, at Amnesty International USA.

“The President, his admin­is­tra­tion and Congress must rec­og­nize that respect for human dig­ni­ty and reten­tion of the death penal­ty are incom­pat­i­ble; that respect for the rule of law must include inter­na­tion­al human rights law guar­an­tee­ing pro­tec­tion of the rights of those fac­ing the death penal­ty; that uphold­ing uni­ver­sal rights must include uphold­ing the right of every­one to life and free­dom from cru­el, inhu­man or degrad­ing treat­ment or pun­ish­ment; and that mak­ing inter­na­tion­al insti­tu­tions stronger must include imple­ment­ing the con­clu­sions of UN human rights treaty bod­ies,” the report urged.

One focus of the report is that, in the 50 years since Furman, most United States pres­i­dents have tout­ed the U.S. as a shin­ing exam­ple of human rights, while con­tribut­ing to human rights abus­es by advo­cat­ing for, allow­ing, or oth­er­wise fur­ther­ing the use of the death penal­ty in the United States. ​“Over the decades, there have been too many throw­away state­ments made by US offi­cials claim­ing exem­plary US lead­er­ship on human rights,” the report says. Amnesty International argues that the con­tin­ued use of the death penal­ty in the United States is in vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al human rights treaties. ​“The USA has car­ried out more than 1,500 exe­cu­tions since Furman, even as it has labelled itself as a glob­al human rights cham­pi­on. Yet inter­na­tion­al human rights law requires abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty with­in a rea­son­able time­frame,” Mazzola said, refer­ring to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which the United States rat­i­fied 30 years ago. 

The report also called the United States a ​“ser­i­al vio­la­tor” of the Inter-American Human Rights system’s pro­hi­bi­tion of exe­cu­tions with­out full exhaus­tion of appeals. Amnesty International argued that “[t]he rein­state­ment of the fed­er­al death penal­ty in 1988 and expan­sion of it in 1994 were incom­pat­i­ble with the object and pur­pose of the [American Convention on Human Rights].”

Ultimately, the report argued that President Biden needs to end the use of the fed­er­al death penal­ty in order to lead by exam­ple and start to bring about the end of the death penal­ty in the United States. The report urges President Biden to com­mute all fed­er­al death sen­tences, cit­ing the arbi­trari­ness present in the fed­er­al death penal­ty. The report points out that the geo­graph­ic arbi­trari­ness of the fed­er­al death penal­ty – ​“Eleven of the 16 fed­er­al exe­cu­tions (69%) car­ried out since Furman v. Georgia were of indi­vid­u­als tried and con­vict­ed in the South, the region where 82% of the peo­ple exe­cut­ed at state lev­el since 1972 had been sen­tenced to death. Six of the 16 (37.5%) were tried in a sin­gle state, Texas. Texas accounts for 38% of all state exe­cu­tions in the USA.” Of the 42 indi­vid­u­als on fed­er­al death row, 29 (70%) were sen­tenced to death in the South, and specif­i­cal­ly, 7 (17%) were tried, con­vict­ed, and sen­tenced in Texas.

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Read the report here.

Read the Press Release here.