A new study by the orga­ni­za­tion Together Against the Death Penalty exam­ined the sta­tus of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the U.S. through a series of inter­views and vis­its to death penal­ty states in 2010. The report, 999 — The Death Penalty in the United States, was writ­ten by Arnaud Gaillard and it expos­es some of the seri­ous prob­lems with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in this coun­try from a human rights per­spec­tive. The report calls on deci­sion-mak­ers to take a clos­er look at the con­di­tions of those await­ing exe­cu­tion and at the risk of arbi­trari­ness in the imple­men­ta­tion of the death penal­ty. Gaillard wrote, ​“Indeed death rows are not full of inno­cents. Some of them have com­mit­ted hor­ri­ble crimes… When one looks clos­er, it is like­ly that the authors of the worst ills in American soci­ety are not nec­es­sar­i­ly the ones found on death row. With luck, suf­fi­cient funds and net­works, the priv­i­leged have the means to escape the death penal­ty.” The report con­sists of empir­i­cal research, inter­views and ques­tion­naires from states like California, Utah, Oklahoma, Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

(A. Gaillard, ​“999 — The Death Penalty in the United States: A Polymorphous Torture,” Mission Reports of ECPM (Ensemble con­tre la peine de mort), 2011; post­ed Jan. 20, 2012). See International and Studies.

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