Philadelphia Bar Association Resolution Calling for a Moratorium on Capital Punishment

PHILADELPHIA BAR ASSOCIATION RESOLUTION CALLING FOR A MORATORIUM ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENT UNTIL SUCH TIME THAT FAIRNESS IN ITS ADMINISTRATION CAN BE ENSURED
Adopted by the Board of Governors November 25, 1997, vot­ing 18 to 10.

WHEREAS, the American Bar Association, on February 3, 1997, adopt­ed a res­o­lu­tion call­ing for a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions until such time that poli­cies and pro­ce­dures are imple­ment­ed to “(1) ensure that death penal­ty pro­ce­dures are admin­is­tered fair­ly and impar­tial­ly, in accor­dance with due process, and (2) min­i­mize the risk that inno­cent per­sons may be exe­cut­ed;” n1

WHEREAS, the Pennsylvania Bar Association, on October 31, 1997, adopt­ed a res­o­lu­tion call­ing for a mora­to­ri­um on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment ​“until such time as the fair and impar­tial admin­is­tra­tion of the death penal­ty can be ensured;” n2

WHEREAS, Pennsylvania has the fourth largest death row in the coun­try with 215 peo­ple, 115 of whom are from Philadelphia.

WHEREAS, the rec­om­men­da­tions made in the July, 1990 Report of the Joint Task Force on Death Penalty Litigation in Pennsylvania, call­ing for the cre­ation and fund­ing of a cap­i­tal case resource cen­ter, the adop­tion of statewide stan­dards for the com­pe­ten­cy of cap­i­tal coun­sel, and ade­quate fund­ing for cap­i­tal coun­sel, have not been ful­ly imple­ment­ed; n3

WHEREAS, it appears most defen­dants in cap­i­tal cas­es are with­out the resources nec­es­sary to mount an ade­quate defense at tri­al and to chal­lenge their con­vic­tions in post-conviction litigation.

WHEREAS, the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Philadelphia Bar Association in 1993 call­ing for the estab­lish­ment of a com­mis­sion to inves­ti­gate eth­nic and racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in Philadelphia crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem have not been imple­ment­ed, notwith­stand­ing an announce­ment by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that it would ini­ti­ate a statewide study on racial, eth­nic, and gen­der fair­ness upon the receipt of state fund­ing; n4

WHEREAS, there exists a sub­stan­tial risk, in Philadelphia and else­where, that the death penal­ty con­tin­ues to be imposed in an arbi­trary, capri­cious and dis­crim­i­na­to­ry man­ner; n5

WHEREAS, there has been a sub­stan­tial change in due process pro­tec­tions in cap­i­tal cas­es, includ­ing an increase in the num­ber of aggra­vat­ing fac­tors such that the statute now fails to gen­uine­ly nar­row the class of offend­ers eli­gi­ble for impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty, n6 lim­i­ta­tions on state and fed­er­al habeas cor­pus review, n7 an amend­ment per­mit­ting vic­tim impact evi­dence that does not pro­vide guid­ance for its use, n8 and a repeal of the require­ment that the Supreme Court con­duct pro­por­tion­al­i­ty review; n9 

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Philadelphia Bar Association here­by joins the American Bar Association and the Pennsylvania Bar Association and calls for a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in Pennsylvania until such time as the fair and impar­tial admin­is­tra­tion of the death penal­ty can be ensured and the risk that inno­cent per­sons may be exe­cut­ed is minimized. 

Endnotes
1. Recommendations and Resolutions Concerning the Death Penalty and Calling for a Moratorium on Executions, as approved by the American Bar Association House of Delegates, February 3, 1997. See also Report Regarding Implementation of the American Bar Association Recommendations and Resolutions Concerning the Death Penalty and Calling for a Moratorium on Executions, Coyne and Entzeroth, Georgetown Journal on Fighting Poverty, Fall 1996, 3.

2. Resolution Requesting a Moratorium on Capital Punishment in Pennsylvania, adopt­ed by the PBA House of Delegates, October 31, 1997.

3. TASK FORCE REPORT, Joint Task Force on Death Penalty Litigation in Pennsylvania (July, 1990).

4. Petition of the Philadelphia Bar Association Seeking the Appointment of a Commission to Investigate the Presence and Effect of Racial and Ethnic Bias in the Philadelphia Justice System (filed November 23, 1993). The com­mit­tee reviewed reports from com­pa­ra­ble com­mis­sions in oth­er states and con­clud­ed that their find­ings mer­it­ed the estab­lish­ment of a com­mis­sion to inves­ti­gate racial and eth­nic bias in our juris­dic­tion. Id. at 4.

5. That such dis­crim­i­na­tion is wide­spread is well doc­u­ment­ed. See U.S. General Accounting Office, Death Penalty Sentencing: Research Indicates Pattern of Racial Disparities, 5 (1990). The GAO report reviewed twen­ty-eight empir­i­cal stud­ies and con­clud­ed they doc­u­ment­ed a pat­tern ​“indi­cat­ing racial dis­par­i­ties in the charg­ing, sen­tenc­ing, and impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty.” Id. at 1. See also Baldus, David, George Woodworth, and Charles Pulaski, Equal Justice and the Death Penalty: A Legal and Empirical Analysis (1990); Bowers, The Pervasiveness of Arbitrariness and Discrimination Under Post-Furman Capital Statutes, 74 Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 1067 – 1100 (1983); Ekland-Olson, Structured Discretion, Racial Bias and the Death Penalty: The First Decade after Furman in Texas, 69 Social Science Q 853 – 873 (1988); Foley, Florida after the Furman Decision: The Effect of Extralegal Factors on the Processing of Capital Offense Cases, 5 Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 457 – 465 (1987); Gross, Samuel and Robert Mauro, Death and Discrimination (1989); Gross and Mauro, Patterns of Death: An analy­sis of Racial Disparities in Capital Sentencing and Homicide Victimization, 37 Stanford Law Review 27 (1984); Jacoby and Paternoster, Sentence Disparity and Jury Picking, 73 Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 379 (1982); Keil, Vito, Race, Homicide Severity, and Application of the Death Penalty: A Consideration of the Barnett Scale, 27 Criminology, 511 – 535 (1989); Nakell, Barry and Kenneth Hardy, The Arbitrariness of the Death Penalty (1987); Paternoster, and Kazyaka, The Administration of the Death Penalty in South Carolina: Experiences Over the First Few Years, 39 South Carolina Law Review, 245 – 414 (1988); Paternoster, Prosecutorial Discretion in Requesting the Death Penalty: A Case of Victim-Based Racial Discrimination, 18 Law & Society Review 437 (1984); Pasternoster, Race of Victim and Location of Crime: The Decision to Seek the Death Penalty in South Carolina, 74 J.Crim.L. and Criminology 754 Penalty, 46 American Society Review 918 (1981); Radelet, Michael and Glenn Pierce, Choosing Those Who Will Die: Race and the Death Penalty in Florida, 45 Florida Law Review 1 (1991); Vito and Deil, Capital Sentencing in Kentucky: An Analysis of the Factors Influencing Decision Making in the Post-Gregg Period, 79 Journal Criminal Law & Criminology, 483; Smith D. Patterns of Discrimination in Assessments of the Death Penalty: The Case of Louisiana, 15 Journal of Criminal Justice, 279 – 286 (1987); Zeisel, Race Bias in the Administration of the Death Penalty: The Florida Experience, 95 Harvard Law Review 456 (1981).

6. Pennsylvania now has sev­en­teen aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances, up from an orig­i­nal ten. See Zant v. Stephens, 462 U.S. 862, 103 S.Ct. 2733, 2742 (1983) (“[A]n aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance must gen­uine­ly nar­row the class of per­sons eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty and must rea­son­ably jus­ti­fy the impo­si­tion of a more severe sen­tence on the defen­dant com­pared to oth­ers found guilty of mur­der.”); Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262, 96 S.Ct. 2950, 2955 (1976) (find­ing that Texas statute ​“lim­its the cir­cum­stances under which the state may seek the death penal­ty to a small group of nar­row­ly defined and par­tic­u­lar­ly bru­tal offens­es” quot­ing State v. Jurek, 522 S.W.2^d at 939); Lowenfield v. Phelps, 484 U.S. 231, 108 U.S. 546, 554 (1988) (“The use of ​‘aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances’ is not an end in itself, but a means of gen­uine­ly nar­row­ing the class of death-eli­gi­ble per­sons and there­by chan­nel­ing the jury’s discretion”).

7. See Pa. Rules Crim. Proc. 1500 et. seq.; Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, 28 U.S.C. 2254.

8. See 42 Pa.C.S. 9711(a) (2):

In the sen­tenc­ing hear­ing, evi­dence con­cern­ing the vic­tim and the impact that the death of the vic­tim has had on the fam­i­ly of the vic­tim is admis­si­ble. Additionally, evi­dence may be pre­sent­ed as to any oth­er mat­ter that the court deems rel­e­vant and admis­si­ble on the ques­tion of the sen­tence to be imposed. Evidence shall include mat­ters relat­ing to any of the aggra­vat­ing or mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances spec­i­fied in sub­sec­tions (d) and (e), and infor­ma­tion con­cern­ing the vic­tim and the impact that the death of the vic­tim has had on the fam­i­ly of the vic­tim. Evidence of aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stances shall be lim­it­ed to those cir­cum­stances spec­i­fied in sub­sec­tion (d).

The amend­ment was held to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al on October 14, 1997 by the Honorable Gary S. Glazer of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. The statute per­mits a ver­dict of death only if the aggra­vat­ing fac­tors out­weigh the mit­i­gat­ing fac­tors. The amend­ment allows for the intro­duc­tion vic­tim impact evi­dence that is not applic­a­ble to any statu­to­ry aggra­vat­ing fac­tor, and fails to guide the jury as to how it should be used. See Commonwealth v. Alfred Means, CP9610-0661 – 11 (opin­ion pending).

9. See Act 28 of 1997 delet­ing 42 Pa.C.S. 9711(h) (3) (iii).