Sergio D'Elia, General Secretary of HOC

DEATH PENALTY. D'ELIA, LETHAL INJECTION ISN’T THE PROBLEM BUT THE ANACHRONISM OF THE DEATH PENALTY

April 17, 2008: regarding the US Supreme Court’s decision on the constitutionality of using lethal injection, Hands Off Cain Secretary, Sergio D'Elia, said:
"The US Supreme Court wasn't called on to decide on the death penalty itself but whether the method of execution was cruel and unusual. However the real problem isn't whether it is humane or not, or the civility of the mode of carrying out a capital sentence. The problem is the anachronism of the death penalty in the third millennium that we are now in.
The Supreme Court’s decision can’t be considered an impediment to the abolition process, and it doesn't go against the UN resolution on the universal Moratorium on capital punishement. The UN resolution has political value but it is not judicially binding.
The recent abolition of the death penalty in New Jersey and the legal or de facto moratoriums in place in Illinois, Maryland, California, New York and North Carolina are proof of an irreversible process in motion, even in the United States, where abolition and moratoria can be decided only by Congress or, given the federal system, by the legislative assembly or by the governors of single federated states." (Sources: HOC, 17/04/2008)