U.N. Special Investigator Report: U.S. Death Penalty Leads to Miscarriage of Justice

U.N. Special Investigator Philip Alston has sub­mit­ted a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva crit­i­ciz­ing the appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty in the U.S. Alston calls for the U.S. to enact more strin­gent safe­guards to pro­tect the inno­cent, say­ing the cur­rent appli­ca­tion some­times leads to mis­car­riages of jus­tice. ​“It is wide­ly acknowl­edged that inno­cent peo­ple have most like­ly been exe­cut­ed in the U.S,” Alston said. ​“Yet, in Alabama and Texas, the 2 States that I vis­it­ed, I found a shock­ing lack of urgency about the need to reform crim­i­nal-jus­tice sys­tem flaws.” Alston’s report encour­ages the U.S. Congress to enact leg­is­la­tion autho­riz­ing a review of state and fed­er­al death penal­ty cas­es. The full report may be found here.

(L., Schlein ​“UN Investigator Says US Death Penalty Leads to Miscarriage of Justice,” Voice of America News, June 3, 2009). See Studies, International, and Innocence.