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USA: JIMMY CARTER CALLS FOR FRESH MORATORIUM ON DEATH PENALTY
November 11, 2013: Former US president Jimmy Carter has called for a new nationwide moratorium on the death penalty, arguing that it is applied so unfairly across the 32 states that still have the death sentence that it amounts to a form of cruel and unusual punishment prohibited under the US constitution.
In an interview with the Guardian in advance of his appearance at the American Bar Association's symposium on capital punishment in Atlanta on November 12, Carter calls on the US supreme court to reintroduce the ban on capital punishment that it imposed between 1972 and 1976.
The death penalty today, he said, was every bit as arbitrary as it was when the 9 justices suspended it on grounds of inconsistency in the case of Furman v Georgia 41 years ago.
As governor of Georgia, Carter signed the revised death penalty law that the Supreme Court upheld in Gregg v. Georgia (1976), but he told the paper, "In complete honesty, when I was governor I was not nearly as concerned about the unfairness of the application of the death penalty as I am now. I know much more now. I was looking at it from a much more parochial point of view – I didn’t see the injustice of it as I do now."
He said he is particularly concerned about the arbitrariness of death sentences, “In America today, if you have a good attorney you can avoid the death penalty; if you are white you can avoid it; if your victim was a racial minority you can avoid it. But if you are very poor or mentally deficient, or the victim is white, that’s the way you get sentenced to death.” Carter said the Supreme Court should put a hold on executions and reconsider the death penalty: “It’s time for the Supreme Court to look at the totality of the death penalty once again. My preference would be for the court to rule that it is cruel and unusual punishment, which would make it prohibitive under the US constitution.” (Sources: The Guardian, 11/11/2013)
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