“The United States was the only Western Democracy that executed prisoners last year, even as an increasing number of U.S. states are moving to abolish the death penalty, Amnesty International announced Monday.”
About the only nations still performing executions are the USA, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and North Korea… Does that put us in good company, or what? No other Western civilized democracy is still executing people.
The USA is the ONLY country among the G8, to still be executing people.
This illustrates how violent and behind the times the United States is. We used to be a leader in freedom and democracy. Now we seem to be ending up as a an example of the worst of the worst, and how NOT to do things. Most of the economy of the United States is based on violence in one way or the other.
Read more about this at: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2110239,00.html#ixzz1qLgMZI5lU
Watch this short 2 minute video about the global trend regarding death penalties and executions. It may surprise you how the USA fits into this….
A longer 25 minute video is available below, for those who want to see and experience what it is like for juveniles in Texas on death row.. Two 17 year old juveniles on Death Row are interviewed. Texas is executing a person like this about once a week.
January 2005
In the last five years, more juvenile offenders were killed in Texas than in the rest of the world combined. America continues to defend its right to execute children.
“They think we’re beasts. And we deserve nothing else other than our execution,” despairs Oswaldo.
There is another way that the death penalty does not work. There are many innocent people who are being executed. Here is the report from one of those who was lucky enough to be cleared, before he was executed.
“A Valley man who helped get the death penalty banned in Illinois is trying to do the same in Indiana.
Randy Steidl was locked up on death row for murders he didn’t commit.
He spoke Wednesday at Indiana State University about how easily his wrongful conviction happened.
“Ever been accused of something you didn’t do, that maybe your brother or sister did, and mom and dad blamed you for it?”
Randy Steidl told ISU criminology students how he was wrongly convicted of the 1986 murders of Dyke & Karen Rhoads in Paris, Illinois.
“Remember that pain and hurt that you felt when you were pleading your case and nobody would listen?”
No one listened to Steidl either until a judge freed him after 17 years in prison.
“There’s over 4,000 people on America’s death rows. How many of them are actually innocent and sitting there without a voice?”
The Coles County resident now travels the country speaking out against the death penalty.
“I feel like God spared me for a reason and that was to speak for these people that are actually innocent and expose the system for what it is,” says Steidl who helped get Illinois to ban the death penalty last month.
“I played a small role along with other great people of taking it away from them. It’s like they had a privilege that they abused,” says Steidl, “You can’t play God with people’s lives because there’s a lot of times that prosecutors aren’t that interested in justice, it’s about winning.”
Now that Illinois has banned capital punishment, Steidl is trying to also abolish it in the remaining 34 states, including Indiana.
“I hope Indiana lawmakers realize that this is a fallible system because fallible people implementing it. It’s the human factor,” Steidl says.
He’s also trying to convince future law enforcement and lawyers to oppose the death penalty.
“I’ve had several after five minutes of speaking with them that have changed their minds on capital punishment. They realized this is an irreversible punishment,” Steidl says, “Not just in what happens in Illinois but other states like Indiana, because we basically have the same system and it’s an irreparable system.
As we reported in March, Steidl is still wrongly convicted of those unsolved 1986 murders. Find out why the government never cleared his record by watching our investigation.”
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Finally, there is a financial reason to cut death penalties, especially in a time of financial crisis.. Here is the financial reason why death penalties should be abolished;
Related Articles:
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/03/us-ranks-5th-in-executions-ahead-of.html
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/03/tsa-nude-body-scanners-useless.html
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US ranks 5th in Executions; With Iraq, China, Russia; via A Green Road Blog
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/03/us-ranks-5th-in-executions-ahead-of.html
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