STUDIES: Human Rights Groups Examine Death Penalty in California and Louisiana

The Center for Constitutional Rights and the International Federation for Human Rights recent­ly released an analy­sis of the death penal­ty in California and Louisiana. The report con­clud­ed that those states’ appli­ca­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment ​“vio­lates U.S. oblig­a­tions under inter­na­tion­al human rights law to pre­vent and pro­hib­it dis­crim­i­na­tion and tor­ture, cru­el, inhu­man or degrad­ing treat­ment.” Researchers con­duct­ed inter­views with many of those involved in the legal sys­tem and exam­ined data on charg­ing, sen­tenc­ing, and exe­cu­tions. They found that racial dis­par­i­ties in the death penal­ty in both states constituted discrimination. 

The report was par­tic­u­lar­ly crit­i­cal of death row con­di­tions, say­ing, “[E]xtreme tem­per­a­tures, lack of access to ade­quate med­ical and men­tal health care, over­crowd­ing and extend­ed peri­ods of iso­la­tion, do not respect and pro­mote human dignity…Such deplorable cir­cum­stances have been con­demned by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture as con­sti­tut­ing cru­el, inhu­man, or degrad­ing treat­ment, or, in cer­tain cir­cum­stances, torture.”

The report offered a series of rec­om­men­da­tions for improv­ing con­di­tions and pro­vid­ing full due process to defen­dants, stat­ing: “[A] mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions must be imposed to pro­tect con­demned pris­on­ers’ right to life. In addi­tion, states must alter tri­al pro­ce­dures to ensure that more defen­dants are not sen­tenced to death in tri­als rife with dis­crim­i­na­tion. Further, reforms to prison con­di­tions must be imple­ment­ed to ensure that those already under a sen­tence of death are not suf­fer­ing tor­ture or oth­er cru­el, inhu­man, or degrading treatment.”