PRINTER'S NO. 4204
No. 812 Session of 2004
INTRODUCED BY WASHINGTON, KIRKLAND, HORSEY, JAMES AND THOMAS,
JUNE 29, 2004
REFERRED TO COMMITTEE ON JUDICIARY, JUNE 29, 2004
A RESOLUTION
1 Urging the Federal Government and states with death penalty
2 statutes to pass bills imposing a moratorium on the death
3 penalty.
4 WHEREAS, The odds of receiving a death sentence are nearly
5 four times higher if the defendant is African American; and
6 WHEREAS, More than half the persons under death sentences are
7 people of color; and
8 WHEREAS, Nationally, more than 80% of those who have been
9 executed were convicted for the murder of a white person despite
10 the fact that more than half of all murder victims are people of
11 color; and
12 WHEREAS, Ninety percent of the persons that United States
13 Federal prosecutors seek to execute are African American or
14 Latino; and
15 WHEREAS, Of the more than 100 people that have been released
16 from death row with evidence of their innocence, more than half
17 have been people of color; and
18 WHEREAS, More than two-thirds of mentally retarded persons
1 who have been executed in the United States were people of
2 color; and
3 WHEREAS, Nearly two-thirds of minors sentenced to death in
4 the United States have been people of color; and
5 WHEREAS, Governor Parris Glendening of Maryland declared a
6 moratorium on executions citing the need to investigate whether
7 there is racial bias in the use of the death penalty; and
8 WHEREAS, Following the exoneration of 13 people from death
9 row in Illinois, Governor George H. Ryan declared a moratorium
10 on executions in January of 2000 and appointed a commission to
11 study the death penalty in Illinois; and
12 WHEREAS, Governor Ryan's Commission on Capital Punishment,
13 the nations most thorough review of the death penalty,
14 recommended 85 changes to the capital punishment system; and
15 WHEREAS, In the last decade the African countries of Angola,
16 Cote d'Ivoire, Namibia, Mauritius, Mozambique and South Africa,
17 along with 20 other countries worldwide, have abolished the
18 death penalty for all crimes; and
19 WHEREAS, The United Nations Human Rights Commission has
20 called upon all countries to impose a moratorium on the death
21 penalty; and
22 WHEREAS, The United States Supreme Court has restricted the
23 rights of death row prisoners to appeal their convictions and
24 death sentences in Federal court, even in cases where prisoners
25 present compelling evidence of innocence; and
26 WHEREAS, In 1996 legislation was enacted that limited Federal
27 court review of death penalty appeals and drastically cut public
28 funding of legal aid services for death row prisoners; and
29 WHEREAS, Those sentenced to death are overwhelmingly poor
30 because indigent defendants are often subject to grossly
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1 incompetent, even racist, counsel and prosecutorial misconduct;
2 and
3 WHEREAS, The death penalty has not been shown to be a
4 deterrent to murder; and
5 WHEREAS, The death penalty is far more expensive than life in
6 prison without the possibility of parole; therefore be it
7 RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives urge the Federal
8 Government and states with death penalty statutes to pass bills
9 imposing a moratorium on the death penalty until such time as an
10 investigation can be made evaluating the fairness, effectiveness
11 and costs of the death penalty versus alternative sentencing.
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