Capital Punishment Delay, Efficiency and Fairness in the United States
Capital Punishment in the United States: Delay, Efficiency, and Fairness
When executions do happen in the United States, they are usually conducted a decade or more after the condemned prisoner has been convicted of the capital crime. There are two reasons why a gap of many years exists between a state death penalty and an actual execution. The first is the obvious point that all legal appeals of the death sentence must be finished before an execution can take place; otherwise, the defendant’s appeal would be meaningless. Consequently, imposition of the preferred punishment for the crime – death – is postponed during the appeal process. By contrast, punishment for individuals sentenced to prison rather than death need not be postponed during the appeal process. Criminals who serve their sentences while the appeal continues are subjected to their punishment simultaneously.
A second factor contributing to delay between sentencing and execution is the procedural rule known as exhaustion of remedies. Under the U.S. federal system, defendants must finish all appeals in state courts before they can even begin to seek review of their convictions in the federal courts. This requirement that a prisoner first ‘exhaust state remedies’ provides states with the opportunity to correct errors in their own courts before the federal courts step in. However, as a result of this doctrine, a defendant may wait many years before the case even begins in a federal court. Yet if the federal courts did not scrutinize cases where a defendant alleges a violation of constitutional rights, the states could enforce only those constitutional rights they wish to uphold. If the federal courts wait their turn and then provide a full inquiry, a long delay between conviction and execution will result.
This long gap between crime and punishment frustrates supporters of capital punishment. In recent years the Congress of the United States has passed two separate federal laws intended to reduce the delay between sentencing and execution. These laws limit the authority of federal courts to hear appeals in death penalty cases. Critics of this attempt to curtail appellate review include the nation’s largest organization of attorneys, the American Bar Association (ABA). In 1997 the ABA adopted a resolution calling upon all jurisdictions that utilize capital punishment to refrain from conducting executions until those jurisdictions had implemented certain policies to ensure that death penalty cases are administered fairly and impartially. One of the ABA’s recommended policies focused on “preserving, enhancing, and streamlining state and federal courts’ authority and responsibility” regarding appeals. (1)
The Capital Punishment contents in this American legal encyclopedia also includes: Capital Punishment Distribution of Authority, Capital Punishment and the Constitution, Capital Punishment Current Conditions, Capital Punishment Delay, Efficiency and Fairness, Capital Punishment Disparity in Application and Capital Punishment Conflicting Efforts at Reform. For a worldwide overview click here
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