AI REPORT 1998: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(This report covers the period January-December 1997)



Seventy-four prisoners were executed in 16 states and more than 3,300 remained on death row. There were reports of shootings in disputed circumstances and torture and ill-treatment by police and prison officers, sometimes resulting in deaths in custody. A prisoner whose prosecution was found to have been politically motivated was released.
In September the un Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions visited the usa.
The death penalty continued to be used extensively. Seventy-four people were executed, bringing the number executed since the end of the moratorium on the death penalty in 1977 to 432.
In Texas, 37 prisoners were executed, including Terry Washington, who was said to have had the mental age of a seven-year-old. The jury which sentenced him to death for murder in 1987 was unaware of his mental illness. Irineo Tristán Montoya, a Mexican national, was executed in Texas in June. He had reportedly signed a four-page confession in English – a language he did not read, speak or understand – after lengthy police interrogation without the presence of a lawyer or the assistance of the Mexican Consulate, in contravention of the un Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which the usa has ratified. Of 62 foreign nationals known to be under sentence of death, most had effectively been denied access to consular assistance.
Harold McQueen was the first person to be executed in Kentucky for 35 years. He was executed in July although the jury which sentenced him to death was unaware of crucial mitigating factors, including medical evidence of brain damage. Flint Gregory Hunt, a black man, was executed in July in the first execution to take place in Maryland without the prisoner's consent for 36 years. Of the 17 people on death row in Maryland at the end of the year, 14 were from ethnic minorities. In Colorado the first execution for 30 years took place when Gary Lee Davies was executed by lethal injection in October.
Three men were executed on 8 January in Arkansas. According to reports, Kirt Wainwright, who was awaiting the outcome of a last-minute appeal to the us Supreme Court, lay strapped to a mobile stretcher, with the needle which would administer the lethal dose in his arm, for over 45 minutes before being executed.
Pedro Medina, a Cuban refugee with a history of mental illness, was executed in Florida in March. A malfunction in the 74-year-old electric chair caused Pedro Medina's black leather face mask to burst into flames during his execution.
Joseph O'Dell was executed in July in Virginia despite continuing doubts about the safety of his conviction. He had been convicted of murder in 1986 on the basis of the testimony of a prosecution witness who subsequently testified that he had lied in the hope of receiving a reduced sentence himself. dna test results which had not been available during the trial contradicted evidence presented by the prosecution. In 1994 the us Supreme Court ruled that juries in capital cases should be told if defendants would have no possibility of parole if sentenced to life imprisonment, but the ruling was not made retroactive. This information had not been given to the jury at Joseph O'Dell's original trial.
In August William T. Boliek Jr was granted a stay of execution. The Governor of Missouri appointed a three-member board of inquiry to investigate claims that William T. Boliek Jr had received inadequate legal representation during his original trial for murder in 1984.
There were further reports of torture and ill-treatment and shootings in disputed circumstances by police. In April Kevin Cedeno, a black teenager, was shot in the back by a New York City Police Department (nypd) officer. Initial police reports stated that Kevin Cedeno had threatened the officer with a machete. However, other witnesses raised doubts about whether Kevin Cedeno had posed an immediate danger to the officer or to others.
In August Abner Louima, a Haitian, was allegedly tortured and racially abused by nypd officers. According to reports, he was kicked and beaten in the police car and, on arrival at the station, an officer thrust the handle of a toilet cleaner into his rectum and then jammed it into his mouth. Despite serious injuries, including a punctured small intestine and damage to his bladder, Abner Louima was not taken to hospital for two and a half hours. Two officers were charged with aggravated sexual abuse and another two with beating Abner Louima. Investigations continued at the end of the year and the trials of the police officers were pending.
Allegations of police brutality caused widespread protests in Chicago in several cases, including that of Jeremiah Mearday, a black teenager who suffered serious injuries, including a broken jaw, after he was beaten and allegedly subjected to racial slurs by two white police officers in September. The police department's Office of Professional Standards recommended that both officers be dismissed. A Justice Department investigation was pending at the end of the year.
In June Mexican immigrants Leticia González and Enrique Funes Flores agreed to accept substantial damages in an out-of-court settlement of their claim alleging ill-treatment by the Riverside County Sheriff's Department (see Amnesty International Report 1997). One of the two deputies involved was dismissed and the other suspended for a month; both were appealing against those decisions at the end of the year.
There were concerns about the use by police of oc spray, a form of pepper spray, which many us police departments permit for the temporary disablement of combative suspects. In June police wearing gas masks reportedly sprayed oc spray at
non-violent demonstrators for prolonged periods in Eugene, Oregon. One protester was reportedly beaten and sprayed on various parts of the body, including the face and genitals. He required hospital treatment for burns. An investigation by the Eugene Police Department had not been completed by the end of the year.
In October a police videotape showed sheriff's deputies in Humboldt County, California, swabbing liquid pepper spray directly into the eyes of anti-logging demonstrators. A 17-year-old protester, whose eyelids were prised apart to apply the spray, described acute pain and burning in the eyes. A federal district judge refused to grant a temporary injunction banning police from using pepper spray against non-violent demonstrators. A civil action seeking a permanent injunction and a federal Justice Department civil rights investigation were pending at the end of the year. In November the Attorney General of California announced that he was conducting a state-wide review of the use of the spray by law enforcement officers.
In June Sammy Marshall, a prisoner in San Quentin Prison, California, died of heart failure after prison officers sprayed him periodically with oc spray for more than an hour. A coroner found that the most likely cause of death was an allergic reaction to oc spray.
The case of 15-year-old Frank Arzuega, who was shot dead in January 1996 by an nypd officer, was closed in March on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence of police misconduct to refer the case to a grand jury (seeAmnesty International Report 1997).
In April the judge considering the request for a retrial of two police officers from the Pittsburgh area of Pennsylvania – whose trial on charges of the involuntary manslaughter of Johnny Gammage in October 1995 had ended in a mistrial in 1996 – ruled that they could not be retried on the same charges. Another officer, acquitted of manslaughter in the case in November 1996 (seeAmnesty International Report 1997), was promoted.
In May a New York police officer
was convicted of the manslaughter of Nathaniel Gaines Jr, an unarmed black man shot in the back in 1996 (seeAmnesty International Report 1997), and sentenced to between 18 months' and four and a half years' imprisonment.
In February the federal Justice Department charged the City of Pittsburgh with tolerating a longstanding pattern of civil rights abuses, including brutality, by the Pittsburgh Police Department against citizens, especially members of the black community. While denying allegations of systematic abuses, the city entered into a Consent Decree (a court-supervised agreement), under which it agreed to implement wide-ranging reforms within the police department, including detailed procedures for monitoring officers' behaviour and for improving the investigation of complaints as well as revised policies on the use of force.
This was the first case brought by the Justice Department under legislation passed by Congress in 1994 enabling it to bring civil actions against police departments accused of a ''pattern and practice'' of abuses. At the end of the year the Justice Department was actively investigating at least three other police departments under these powers.
In November a former nypd police officer convicted of slapping and choking a teenager in September 1993 was sentenced to seven and a half months' imprisonment. The officer had previously been acquitted of criminally negligent homicide in the death of Anthony Baez in December 1994 (see Amnesty International Reports 1996 and1997), but had subsequently been expelled from the police.
In December an nypd officer received a sentence of 20 years to life following conviction for the murder of Charles Campbell in 1996 (see Amnesty International Report 1997).
There were further reports of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in prisons and jails, including the abusive use of restraints such as specially designed chairs with arm and leg shackles (four-point restraint chairs), which completely immobilize the prisoner. In Utah, mentally ill inmates in state prisons were reportedly held in such chairs for several hours or even several days. In March Michael Valent died after being held in a four-point restraint chair for 16 hours. He was reported to have died of a blood clot caused by prolonged immobilization. The Department of Corrections stopped using the restraint chair.
In March the federal Justice Department filed lawsuits against the Departments of Corrections in Arizona and Michigan for failing to protect female inmates from sexual misconduct and invasion of privacy, after a series of complaints by women inmates about abuses by prison guards, including rape and sexual assault.
In July pre-trial hearings were held in the federal lawsuit brought by inmates at Hays State Prison, Atlanta, Georgia, against the Commissioner of Prisons and others. The Commissioner was alleged to have supervised the beating of inmates during a ''shakedown'' (search) at the prison in July 1996 (see Amnesty International Report 1997). Eight prison employees testified in support of the inmates' complaints.
A videotape, apparently compiled for training purposes, showed guards in a privately-run section of Brazoria County Detention Center, Texas, kicking and beating inmates, coaxing dogs to bite prisoners and using stun guns. An investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation into the allegations had not been completed by the end of the year. The federal authorities announced an investigation into conditions in other privately-run county jails in Texas which housed hundreds of inmates from Montana and Hawaii, following complaints by inmates about strip searches and the use of warning shots by guards when giving orders.
In October the federal authorities announced that there would be no criminal charges brought following their investigation into the death of Kenneth Trentadue, who allegedly committed suicide in a federal prison in Oklahoma in August 1995 (see Amnesty International Report 1997). The District Attorney of Oklahoma County stated that he would continue to investigate whether Kenneth Trentadue's death was a homicide or a suicide.
An Amnesty International observer attended the court hearing in March of Elmer ''Geronimo'' Pratt, former leader of the Black Panther Party (bpp), who was released in June. His retrial followed the discovery of evidence supporting his allegations that his prosecution had been politically motivated because of his bpp activities (see previous Amnesty International Reports). Amnesty International had called for an inquiry into the case since 1981.
Amnesty International continued to call for clemency for prisoners on death row. In October and November two high-level Amnesty International delegations visited Texas and Pennsylvania. They visited death row facilities and raised awareness of death penalty issues, particularly among minority communities.
Amnesty International reiterated its call for an independent inquiry into allegations of brutality and excessive use of force by New York City police.
Amnesty International wrote to the authorities in Eugene, Oregon and Humboldt County expressing concern about the use of pepper spray by police. In a public statement issued in November, Amnesty International called for a national review of the use of pepper spray by law enforcement agencies. The organization said that police departments should either cease using the spray or introduce strict limits on its use.
Amnesty International expressed grave concern about ill-treatment in prisons and jails. In June Amnesty International delegates visited several jails and met officials and others in Maricopa County, Arizona. Among the issues raised in subsequent correspondence were the death of Scott Norberg in Madison Street Jail in June 1996 after a struggle with guards in which he sustained numerous contusions, was repeatedly hit with a stun gun and strapped into a restraint chair; allegations that other inmates in the same jail had been ill-treated; misuse of the restraint chair in other cases; the conditions for female juvenile detainees; and poor conditions in a facility in which jail inmates were housed in tents. Sheriff Joseph Arpaio replied to Amnesty International in October stating, among other things, that any instances of excessive force were adequately dealt with by the jail authorities, and defending the use of the restraint chair and stun devices. However, in October Maricopa County reached an agreement with the federal Justice Department to improve conditions in the tents and to revise its procedures on the use of restraints, stun guns and force.
In July Amnesty International called on the Governor of Utah to ensure that multi-point restraints were used only as a last resort, within strict time limits and under the direct supervision of adequately trained staff. The organization expressed concern to the Texan authorities about the death of Daniel Avellaneda, who was shot and killed by a corrections officer at French Robertson Unit in July 1996. The authorities replied that he was shot while trying to escape and that such use of lethal force was lawful in Texas. A grand jury had previously exonerated the officer involved.
In November Amnesty International wrote to the California Department of Corrections expressing concern about the death of Sammy Marshall and to the California Attorney General, welcoming his announcement of a review of the use of oc spray by state law enforcement agencies and urging him to include in the review the use of oc spray in prisons and jails.

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