PhD studies in human rights: Maryland Abolishes the Death Penalty

Saturday, 16 March 2013

Maryland Abolishes the Death Penalty

Maryland has become the 18th state in the United States to abolish the death penalty. Its legislature voted 82 to 56 in favour of the measure, which must now be signed by Governor Martin O'Malley. ‘Evidence shows that the death penalty is not a deterrent, it cannot be administered without racial bias and it costs three times as much as life in prison without parole,’ Governor O'Malley said. ‘What's more, there is no way to reverse a mistake if an innocent person is put to death

One important aspect of this development is its role in the attitude of the United States Supreme Court. It interprets the ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ clause in article 8 of the Bill of Rights with reference to ‘evolving standards of decency’. These are assessed in large measure with reference to the behaviour of the state legislatures.

For example, in 2005, when the Court declared executions of persons for juvenile offences to be unconstitutional, it relied on evidence of legislative repeal of such measures, even though a considerable number of states in the United States continued to retain such legislation (after all, if they did not, what would be the point of a challenge in the Court).

Change is underway in the United States, and the movement is all in one direction. Abolition of the death penalty is a matter of time. It will probably come sooner than most people expect.

Thanks to Alfred de Zayas.

1 comment:

Richard Mooney Attorney said...: Nice to come this post. Great to read this post. Information is really helpful. Thanks for sharing.

Richard Mooney Attorney; 2 April 2013 at 12:10

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William A. Schabas is professor of international law at Middlesex University in London. He is also professor of international criminal law and human rights at Leiden University, emeritus professor human rights law at the Irish Centre for Human Rights of the National University of Ireland Galway, and an honorary professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in Beijing and Wuhan University. He is the author of more than 20 books and 300 journal articles, on such subjects as the abolition of capital punishment, genocide and the international criminal tribunals. Professor Schabas was a member of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Technical Cooperation in Human Rights and president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. He serves as president of the Irish Branch of the International Law Association chair of the Institute for International Criminal Investigation. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. Here is the full c.v.

Dr Yvonne McDermott is Senior Lecturer in Law at Bangor University, UK, where she is also Director of Teaching and Learning and Co-Director of the Bangor Centre for International Law. Yvonne is a graduate of the National University of Ireland, Galway (B. Corp. Law, LL.B.), Leiden University (LL.M. cum laude) and the Irish Centre for Human Rights (Ph.D.). Her research focuses on fair trial rights, international criminal procedure and international criminal law. She is the author of Fairness in International Criminal Trials (Oxford University Press, 2016).

Niamh Hayes has been the Head of Office for the Institute for International Criminal Investigations (IICI) in The Hague since September 2012. She is about to complete her Ph.D. on the investigation and prosecution of sexual violence by international criminal tribunals at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland Galway. She previously worked for Women's Initiatives for Gender Justice as a legal consultant, and as an intern for the defence at the ICTY in the Karadzic case. She has lectured on international criminal law and international law at Trinity College Dublin and, along with Prof. William Schabas and Dr. Yvonne McDermott, is a co-editor of The Ashgate Research Companion to International Criminal Law: Critical Perspectives (Ashgate, 2013). She is the author of over 45 case reports for the Oxford Reports on International Criminal Law and has published numerous articles and book chapters on the investigation and prosecution of sexual and gender-based violence as international crimes.

Joseph Powderly is Assistant Professor of Public International Law at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden University. Between September 2008 and January 2010, he was a Doctoral Fellow/Researcher at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, where he worked, among other projects, on a Irish Government-funded investigation and report into the possible perpetration of crimes against humanity against the Rohingya people of North Rakhine State, Burma/Myanmar. He is currently in the process of completing his doctoral research which looks at the impact of theories of judicial interpretation on the development of international criminal and international humanitarian law. The central thesis aims to identify and analyze the potential emergence of a specific theory of interpretation within the sphere of judicial creativity. Along with Dr. Shane Darcy of the Irish Centre for Human Rights, he is co-editor of and contributor to the edited collection Judicial Creativity in International Criminal Tribunals which was published by Oxford University Press in 2010. He has written over 80 case-reports for the Oxford Reports on International Criminal Law, as well as numerous book chapters and academic articles on topics ranging from the principle of complementarity to Irish involvement in the drafting of the Geneva Conventions. In December 2010, he was appointed Managing Editor of the peer-reviewed journal Criminal Law Forum. His research interests while focusing on international criminal and international humanitarian law also include topics such as the history of international law and freedom of expression.