By Anna Arceneaux, Staff Attorney, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 4:15pm
This week I am in Guantánamo Bay observing a hearing in the case of Abd al-Rahim Hussayn Muhammad al-Nashiri (pronounced al-NAH-shiri), the first death penalty case to be tried by military commission. Mr. al-Nashiri faces charges for his alleged participation in the attack on the destroyer USS Cole over 11 years ago. Apprehended in 2002, he was held by the CIA for four years in secret before his transfer to military custody. U.S. officials brutally tortured Mr. al-Nashiri: he was waterboarded, and threatened with a power drill and handgun next to his head. Sadly, this week's pretrial hearing in his case continues to erode the commission's purported commitment to fairness, transparency, and justice and instead affirms a commitment to Guantánamo's shameful legacy of injustice.
By Anna Arceneaux, Staff Attorney, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 5:02pm
As 2011 comes to end, we’re taking a look back at the year in criminal justice. Over the next few days, we’ll run a series of blog posts on the developments, good and bad, that have shaped our justice system – from overincarceration and sentencing policy to the treatment of prisoners and capital punishment. Read the series here.
By Anna Arceneaux, Staff Attorney, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 3:35pm
In 1951, in response to the burgeoning civil rights movement, Caddo Parish, Louisiana defiantly raised a Confederate flag outside the entrance to its courthouse. It flies there today.
In 2009, long-time Caddo Parish resident Carl Staples, an African-American man, was summoned to jury service for a capital case. During jury selection, Mr. Staples courageously told the judge his great concern with serving as a juror when the Confederate flag flew outside the courthouse:
By Anna Arceneaux, Staff Attorney, ACLU Capital Punishment Project & Brian Stull, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 3:17pm
More than two years after the North Carolina Legislature enacted an historic law barring race discrimination in death penalty cases, Marcus Robinson and his lawyers were in Cumberland County Superior Court earlier this week to argue his claim under the Racial Justice Act (RJA). They came prepared to present statistics showing that prosecutors across North Carolina discriminated against African-Americans who had come to court willing and able to serve on juries. A courtroom of concerned citizens came to hear this evidence. Prosecutors, however, were not ready to confront it. In fact, the entire hearing centered on why the prosecutors claimed not to be ready.
By Anna Arceneaux, Staff Attorney, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 2:13pm
For me, the new year is an occasion to reflect on the triumphs and disappointments of the year past, to renew my goals and commitments, and to resolve again to face the new challenges and opportunities in the year ahead. This New Year's Eve, I am toasting to life.
In North Carolina, where our office is based, death sentences dropped dramatically in 2008: only one man was sent to death row as juries across the state resoundingly voted in favor of life sentences. Not one person was executed. Two innocent men left North Carolina's death row and stepped on free soil, including our client Bo Jones. For the first time in over 16 years, Bo spent the holiday season at home with his family.
By Anna Arceneaux, Staff Attorney, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 5:08pm
This week, I've been in Guantánamo Bay observing a hearing in the first capital case before this latest iteration of military commissions, that of Abd al-Rahim Hussayn Muhammad al-Nashiri. As the hearing has progressed over the last few days, a recurring theme has surfaced: the military commission system will not provide basic legal protections inherent in every other American courtroom. But, the prosecution says, in essence, not to worry: even with these protections swept aside, you can trust us to do the right thing. As I wrote yesterday, the prosecution — and perhaps the judge — does not believe the Constitution applies to Guantánamo prisoners. Chief Prosecutor Brig. Gen. Mark Martins emphasized in a press conference yesterday that the Guantánamo military commissions will be held consistent with our country's values — but apparently just not our constitutional values. In court, Judge James Pohl similarly seems to follow a loose notion of "fundamental fairness" but has so far refused to ground that notion in constitutional law. But trust us.
By Anna Arceneaux, Staff Attorney, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 4:38pm
Twenty years ago this week, Warren McCleskey, an African-American man convicted of killing a white police officer in Atlanta, was executed in the state of Georgia. His case became famous for highlighting the gross racial discrimination in Georgia's death penalty system, and for revealing the remarkable indifference of the United States Supreme Court to the evidence of racism in death penalty cases.
Georgia chose a tragic way to remember the anniversary with last week's execution of Troy Davis, also an African-American man convicted of killing a white police officer despite serious concerns about his guilt. Davis's execution should cause us great concern, not only because he was likely innocent, but because the racial disparities observed in Georgia's death penalty system more than 20 years ago still resonate in Georgia — and the rest of the country — today.
By Anna Arceneaux, Staff Attorney, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 2:45pm
Last night, Texas executed Mark Stroman for a string of hate crimes against men he thought were Arab-Americans, including two murders, in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Texas went through with the execution despite a powerful plea for clemency from a surviving victim of Stroman’s attack, Rais Bhuiyan. Joined by family members of the deceased victims, Bhuiyan called on Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to halt Stroman’s execution and commute his sentence to life imprisonment without parole. Bhuyian, drawing from his Muslim faith, wanted to do more than forgive Stroman, he wanted to save his life.
By Anna Arceneaux, Staff Attorney, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 12:43pm
On September 30, 2011, a unanimous Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a new trial for ACLU client Montez Spradley. Spradley, a young African-American man, has always maintained his innocence in the 2004 murder of a 58-year-old white grandmother in Birmingham, Alabama. No physical evidence or eyewitness testimony connected him to the murder.
By Anna Arceneaux, Staff Attorney, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 6:03pm
This week, UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston released an advance copy of his report on the state of extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions in the United States. Chief among Alston’s concerns was the capital punishment system in the United States, which, he found, creates the intolerable risk that innocent people are sentenced to death.
