Alabama executions "highly problematic": U.N. envoy

[flashl]

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The criminal justice system in the U.S. state of Alabama needs to be improved to ensure that no innocent people are executed but officials there seem indifferent to the problem, a U.N. envoy said on Monday.

A U.S. official, however, rejected the envoy's views.

Alabama has the highest U.S. per-capita rate of executions, which was the reason Philip Alston, U.N. Human Rights Council special envoy on executions, went there during an official visit to the United States. He also went to Texas, which has the highest number of executions and prisoners on death row.

Speaking to reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York, Alston said a number of officials in Texas acknowledged that innocent people might have been executed and expressed a desire to improve their criminal justice system.

"In Alabama, the situation remains highly problematic," he said. "Government officials seem strikingly indifferent to the risk of executing innocent people and have a range of standard responses, most of which are characterized by a refusal to engage with the facts."

Yahoo

Maybe Bush should threaten a preemptive strike against Alabama to ensure human rights?

[zanne]

1. We need human rights in this country...

Before we arrogantly declare that we're going to "win" them for other countries.

[Solly Mack]

2. the ONLY way to "ensure that no innocent people are executed" is to STOP the DP.

and our rights MUST be protected in order to achieve full and actual due process. Due process isn't about making the victim or even the victim's family feel better (and I have been a victim of a brutal crime) it's about protecting the innocent from false imprisonment caused by the violations of rights. Sure, such a system means the guilty will sometimes walk free...but it also helps to ensure that the innocent won't go to jail....and if the innocent don't go to jail, the state can't kill them.

Now, corrupt people are working throughout the criminal justice system, so innocent people will still go to jail because of corrupt cops, corrupt prosecutors and judges, corrupt public defenders, and even because of corrupt and stupid jurors - as well as jurors that the cops and prosecution have duped....so that's why the DP must stop.


What some people call technicalities, I call my rights.

"He got off on a technicality - the warrant wasn't valid"

NO. He got off because someone didn't do their job according to the law/rules/regulations designed to protect the rights of the accused.

And we all have to remember - ANYONE can become the accused..innocent or not. (especially in Bush's America)