Blog of Rights

James Watson, Discoverer of DNA: Patenting Human Genes Is “Lunacy”

By Sandra S. Park, ACLU Women's Rights Project at 12:11pm

Recently, Dr. James Watson filed an amicus brief opposing gene patents in our lawsuit challenging the patents on two human genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. Dr. Watson, along with Francis Crick, identified DNA’s ability to create life through its double helical structure and its information-coding sequences in 1953. His brief explains why, from the perspective of a scientist whose work laid the foundation for all genetic research, gene patenting is “lunacy.”

Remembering Executed Veterans

By Denny LeBoeuf, Capital Punishment Project at 12:05pm

Memorial Day is over, with its picnics, parades, and poignant remembrances of the veterans who gave their lives in America's wars. But there is one group of vets few want to remember: the ones who went to war, came back tragically changed, committed a crime and were executed.

Vets like Wayne Felde, who arrived in Vietnam on his 19th birthday by choice, not by the draft; who saw heavy action and was wounded; who came back to the U.S. hounded by his memories of death and crippled by what those memories did to him. Drunk, unable to hold down a job or a marriage, in trouble with the law, he was probably trying to kill himself when his gun went off while he was in the back of a police car. The bullet ricocheted and killed an officer. He was sent to death row, and in March of 1988, executed by the state of Louisiana.

Will the Supreme Court Stop Georgia from Executing an Intellectually Disabled Man?

By Brian Stull, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 12:24pm

When Georgia death-row prisoner Warren Hill was young, his sister remembers their mother and grandfather calling him "stupid retard,"...

What Does $10,000 Buy in Alabama? Less-than-Truthful Testimony Used to Sentence Someone to Death

By Anna Arceneaux, Staff Attorney, ACLU Capital Punishment Project & Sarah Solon, Communications Strategist, ACLU at 11:22am

A trial is supposed to be a search for the truth. That can never be more important than in a death...

An Innocent Man’s Tortured Days on Texas’s Death Row

By Anthony Graves, who spent years in solitary confinement on Texas’ death row before being proven innocent in 2010. Yesterday he testified about the experience at a Senate subcommittee hearing on solitary confinement. His website is www.anthonybelieves.com.

On November 1, 1994, I heard the gavel fall and the judge announce, “Anthony Graves, I hereby sentence you to death by lethal injection.” The jury had already convicted me of murdering six people and burning down their house down to cover up the crime. I was completely innocent: they had the wrong guy. I was scared of dying for a crime I did not commit, but I believed in my innocence and hoped someone, somewhere would make it right.

The Importance of the Sixth Amendment Right to Counsel in Capital Cases

By Brian Stull, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 5:09pm

A person does not need to go any farther than a Law & Order episode to understand the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. We hear the officers on TV tell suspects that if they cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for them. The Framers of the Constitution made the statement more artfully when they wrote that the accused in every criminal prosecution “shall enjoy the right to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”

In Gideon v. Wainright, the Supreme Court explained the importance of this right, stating, “[I]n our adversary system of criminal justice, any person haled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him.” The right to counsel protects all of us from being subjected to criminal prosecution in an unfair trial. But nowhere is this right more important than when the accused faces the death penalty.

States Take Sizeable Steps in 2012 to End Overincarceration

By Inimai Chettiar, ACLU & Alex Stamm, ACLU Center for Justice at 3:48pm

As states begin to realize that they can reduce their prison populations safely, the pace of reform has begun to pick up a bit this year. State legislative sessions are coming to a close, which makes it a good time to review the actions lawmakers have taken to reduce their unsustainable prison populations in 2012. Here are the some of the legislative reform highlights:

Alabama

Faced with a system of overcrowded prisons and fearing the same sort of court order that forced California to reform its prison system, Alabama took an indirect route toward depopulating its prisons. The state passed SB 386 inMay, which will allow the Alabama Sentencing Commission to set sentencing guidelines for nonviolent crimes that judges would generally have to follow. Under the new law, the Commission can make sentencing changes for nonviolent crimes, which will take effect unless the legislature takes action to reject any such the changes. The Sentencing Commission, which is insulated from the electoral pressure to reject proposals to soften criminal sentences, may now be poised to take action to reduce prison sentences for nonviolent offenses.

International Human Rights Body Seeking Answers on U.S. Civil and Political Rights Record

By Allison Frankel, ACLU Human Rights Program at 4:16pm

An international human rights body is set to question the United States on its obligations under a key human rights treaty. The U.N. Human Rights Committee, an independent body of experts tasked with monitoring compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), this week released its list of issues, which will serve as the basis for its upcoming review of U.S. compliance with the treaty. The U.S. ratified the ICCPR in 1992 and is obligated to submit to periodic reviews of its treaty implementation efforts.

Executing Human Dignity: US Death Penalty System to Undergo International Scrutiny

By Katie Haas, ACLU Human Rights Program at 10:16am

The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) recently released its 2012 Year End Report, which contained some important news: the number of death sentences in the U.S. remained very close to its 2011 historic low. The 78 death sentences handed down in 2012 represented a 75 percent decline since 1996.  In addition, several states that have historically been high users of the death penalty had no new death sentences or executions, including North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.

Tomorrow, Willie Manning Is Scheduled To Die. Shouldn't Mississippi Find Out If He's Innocent First?

By Cassandra Stubbs, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 10:33am

Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant alone has the power to save Willie Manning, who is scheduled to die tomorrow, May 7, 2013...