Human Rights
,Military
,Jul 21, 2021
After clashing with Biden administration officials over the propriety of using statements obtained through torture from Guantánamo detainees, Army Brigadier General Mark S. Martins (pictured), the chief prosecutor…
History of the Death Penalty
,Feb 20, 2017
In his newest book, The Death Penalty As Torture: From the Dark Ages to Abolition, John Bessler chronicles the historical link between torture and the death penalty from the Middle Ages to the present day and argues that …
Human Rights
,International
,Race
,Women
,Nov 10, 2022
The Death Penalty Information Center, supported by the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany, launched a new project on Human Rights and the U.S. Death Penalty on November 4, 2022, with a live…
Human Rights
,Military
,Feb 15, 2022
In what one analyst described as “an important step to restore the rule of law,” the U.S. Department of Justice has pledged not to use statements obtained by torture in its Guantánamo Military Commissions prosecut…
Human Rights
,Mental Illness
,Federal Death Penalty
,Military
,Sep 28, 2023
On September 21, 2023, a military judge in Guantanamo Bay ruled that Ramzi Bin al Shibh, one of five defendants in the 9/11 case for whom the death penalty is being sought, is mentally incompetent to stand trial. Mr. Bin al Shibh, who has been det…
Human Rights
,Military
,Sep 16, 2022
A second military commissions prosecutor who had advocated using testimony obtained by torture against defendants in the death penalty trial of the Guantánamo detainees charged with the October 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. C…
Human Rights
,International
,Sep 14, 2017
A coalition of 23 human rights groups, including Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, and Reprieve, has urged the United States government to issue sanctions against foreign government official…
Human Rights
,International
,Death Row
,Oct 31, 2012
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 beca…
Military
,Mar 22, 2017
Lawyers for Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, the man accused of plotting the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, are seeking U.S. Supreme Court intervention to prevent his trial before a military tribunal in which Nashiri fa…
Prosecutorial Accountability
,Military
,Aug 20, 2018
A Guantánamo military commission judge has barred prosecutors from using statements five accused 9/11 plotters made to the FBI after they had been subjected to years of torture in CIA black sites. On August 17, 2018, the military …
Federal Death Penalty
,Military
,Mar 18, 2022
Military prosecutors and defense attorneys are reportedly discussing plea deals that could take the death penalty off the table in the Guantánamo military commission cases of five men accused of involvement in the September 11, 2001 terrorist atta…
Intellectual Disability
,Executions Overview
,Death Row
,Time on Death Row
,Aug 15, 2013
According to some experts, the process of repeatedly submitting a person to imminent execution is a form of psychological torture that should be banned. The Center for Constitutional Rights has said that “the intense strain of repeatedly …
Human Rights
,International
,Juveniles
,Apr 25, 2019
In an action condemned by the United Nations and human rights groups as a flagrant violation of international law, Saudi Arabia beheaded 37 people, including juvenile offenders, in six separate locations on April 23, 2019. It was …
Arbitrariness
,Race
,Death Row
,Nov 01, 2013
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 th…
Human Rights
,Death Row
,Apr 27, 2017
The conditions in which prisoners on Texas’ death row are confined are “harsh and inhumane,” violate international human rights norms, and amount to “a severe and relentless act of torture,” according to a new study by the Univers…
Human Rights
,Intellectual Disability
,International
,Juveniles
,Race
,Methods of Execution
,Foreign Nationals
,Time on Death Row
,Nov 12, 1998
Ford Foundation SymposiumNovember 12, 1998by Richard C. Dieter, Esq. Executive Director, Death Penalty Information Center Introduction
