Testimony and Statements

December 10 is Human Rights Day, the 65^th anniver­sary of the United Nations’ adop­tion of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To mark this anniver­sary, for­mer New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (pic­tured) joined Federico Mayor, President of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty, in draw­ing atten­tion to the steady decline inter­na­tion­al­ly in the use of the death penal­ty. As gov­er­nor, Richardson…

On May 22, Governor John Hickenlooper of Colorado grant­ed an indef­i­nite stay of exe­cu­tion to Nathan Dunlap, who was fac­ing exe­cu­tion in August. In his Executive Order, the gov­er­nor expressed con­cerns about the state’s death penal­ty sys­tem, call­ing it flawed and inequitable. He also not­ed the nation­al trend away from cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, with five states recent­ly vot­ing to repeal the death penal­ty and oth­er states rarely using it. Hickenlooper stat­ed, ​“If the…

On November 19, 110 coun­tries vot­ed for a res­o­lu­tion at the United Nations General Assembly call­ing for a world­wide mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions as a step towards the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty. The vote marked record sup­port for the res­o­lu­tion com­pared to pre­vi­ous years. Among the coun­tries sup­port­ing the res­o­lu­tion were the European Union nations, Australia, Brazil, South Africa and Israel. The United States, Japan, China, Iran, India, North Korea, Syria and Zimbabwe were…

On October 23, the United Nations’ spe­cial rap­por­teur on tor­ture, Juan Mendez, told a UN General Assembly human rights com­mit­tee that coun­tries around the world are increas­ing­ly view­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as a form of tor­ture because of the severe men­tal and phys­i­cal pain it inflicts on those sentenced to…

On October 17, the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights, a state agency that enforces civ­il rights, unan­i­mous­ly passed a res­o­lu­tion in favor of end­ing the death penal­ty. The Commission urged the Kentucky General Assembly to repeal the death penal­ty and Governor Steven Beshear to sign any such leg­is­la­tion that is brought before him. The res­o­lu­tion under­scored the unfair­ness of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment: “[S]tatistics con­firm that the impo­si­tion of the death penalty is…

The main sup­pli­er to the U.S. of a drug pro­posed for lethal injec­tions has announced it will not allow the drug to be sold for exe­cu­tions. Fresenius Kabi USA, a German-based com­pa­ny with offices in Illinois, issued a state­ment for­bid­ding the sale of propo­fol to cor­rec­tion­al insti­tu­tions for death penal­ty use. Earlier in 2012, Missouri announced it intend­ed to switch to propo­fol as the sole drug in its lethal injection protocol,…

On June 19, the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights held hear­ings on soli­tary con­fine­ment in U.S. pris­ons, includ­ing the con­di­tions of many state death rows. The hear­ings marked the first time law­mak­ers on Capitol Hill have con­sid­ered this issue. Anthony Graves (pic­tured r., along with Sen. Richard Durbin), a for­mer Texas death row inmate, described the con­di­tions of his incar­cer­a­tion in…