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 had signed New Mexico​’s death-penal­ty repeal bill in 2009. In an op-ed in the Global Post, Richardson and Mayor not­ed that, in the late 1970s, only 16 countries…

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 State of Colorado is going to under­take the respon­si­bil­i­ty of exe­cut­ing a human being, the sys­tem must operate…

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 among 39 coun­tries oppos­ing the non-bind­ing res­o­lu­tion in the Assembly’s Third Committee, which address­es human rights…

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 death.

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 dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly imposed on minori­ties and the poor.” Moreover, the res­o­lu­tion point­ed to the high error rate in Kentucky capital…

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, becom­ing the first state to do so. Fresenius Kabi offi­cials react­ed with a state­ment: ​“Fresenius Kabi objects to the…

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 a 8 by 12 foot cage with no phys­i­cal human con­tact for years. Meals were passed through a slot, as if feed­ing an…