AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA
PRESS RELEASE
Monday, September 18, 2006
Clarence Hill Scheduled for Execution September 20, Even Though Courts Still Have Not Fully Considered His Civil Rights Claim
(Washington, DC) — Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) today urged Florida Governor Jeb Bush to issue a stay of execution to Clarence Hill, who is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday, September 20. AIUSA Executive Director Larry Cox has written to Governor Bush, calling for a moratorium on all executions in the state.
Hill was originally scheduled to be executed on January 24 and was strapped to the gurney, awaiting the administration of the lethal injection cocktail, when the U.S. Supreme Court intervened in his case. The Court decided to consider whether Hill was entitled to file a challenge to the constitutionality of lethal injection under federal civil rights law.
This action by the Court set off a flurry of legal activity in more than a dozen states regarding the constitutionality of lethal injection as it is currently administered. On June 22, 2006, the Justices ruled unanimously in favor of Hill, allowing him to proceed with his challenge to the state's lethal injection process as a civil rights claim. Yet to date, no court has granted the required thorough consideration of his claim. In an attempt to spur the courts to act, Governor Bush announced in August that Hill's execution would proceed. This order directly contradicts the governor's statement earlier in the year that he would not sign a death warrant until the issues raised in Hill's case were fully resolved.
"Governor Bush's about-face in this case is outrageous," said Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn, the Director of AIUSA's Program to Abolish the Death Penalty. "Allowing this execution to proceed without a single examination of the numerous problems associated with Florida's administration of lethal injection is an affront to common sense and common decency."
This execution is scheduled at a time when other groups are raising significant questions about Florida's death penalty system. Yesterday, a blue-ribbon assessment panel appointed by the American Bar Association (ABA) revealed that Florida's capital punishment policies fail to meet basic standards of fairness and justice. The nine-member assessment team's close examination of eight key areas of death penalty administration found that the state does not have adequate safeguards in place to prevent the execution of an innocent person; 22 people have been released from death row in Florida due to evidence of their wrongful conviction. In addition, Florida is the only state in the country that does not require a jury to be unanimous in recommending the death penalty.
"Now is the time for citizens and policymakers to engage in a thoughtful and honest assessment of our state's death penalty," said Mark Elliott, AIUSA's Florida Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator. "Now is not the time to rush to execute Clarence Hill — or any other death row inmate for that matter. It is stunning that we are proceeding with such haste at the very moment when our state's death penalty system has been revealed to be so fundamentally flawed."
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