-------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Add your name to the CLEAN GOA INITIATIVE | | | | by visiting this link and following the instructions therein | | | | http://shire.symonds.net/pipermail/goanet/2005-October/033926.html | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 'One person executed every 10 days in the US'
Press Trust of India Washington, November 25, 2005 There are more than 3,400 prisoners -- including 118 foreign nationals -- on death row in the United States and in the last 28 years, the country has on an average executed one person every 10 days, according to official statistics. Next week will witness the execution of the '1000th' person in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Gary Gilmore was the first to be executed a year after the reinstatement. Since 1976, 58 per cent of those executed in the US were white while 34 per cent were black, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre. Death sentences nationwide have dropped by 50 per cent since the late 1990s, with executions carried out down by 40 per cent -- as many as twelve states do not have the death penalty, and at least two -- Illinois and New Jersey -- have formal moratoriums on capital punishment. The subject of death penalty is an emotional as well as a high profile political issue in the United States. A Gallup poll in October has shown that 64 per cent of Americans support death penalty, or the lowest level in 27 years, down from a high of 80 per cent in 1994. Yet at the same time there are law makers who are considering Bills that will speed up the execution process by refusing to have defendants in capital cases appeal to the federal courts. The increasing use of DNA evidence is said to be having an impact on death sentences. Since 1973, 122 prisoners have been freed from death row and that the vast majority of these cases have come up in the last 15 years as a result of DNA evidence being used widespread, statistics revealed.
