These,
and many other legal questions, will be answered by the Supreme Court in its
2004/2005 session scheduled to begin on Monday.National Anti-Death Penalty Conference to Convene in Washington, D.C. Oct. 14-17
WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 / --Is capital punishment a good deterrent or cruel and unusual punishment when imposed on people who commit crimes as teenagers? Is the United States -- one of only a few countries that allows teens to face the death penalty -- behind the times or a leader in crime prevention?
These,
and many other legal questions, will be answered by the Supreme Court in its
2004/2005 session scheduled to begin on Monday.
"This is already shaping up to be a very important year for criminal law," said Supreme Court reporter Jan Crawford Greenburg. The juvenile death penalty issue, she noted, is an "enormously controversial issue that comes on the heels of their ruling two years ago that the government could not execute mentally retarded criminals."
One day after the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on whether a consensus has evolved against executing youthful offenders, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty will kick off its annual conference at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.
"NCADP 2004," scheduled for Oct. 14-17, comes at a time when doubts about the death penalty are surfacing across the nation, involving issues such as innocent people mistakenly sent to death row, faulty crime laboratory procedures, lawyer competence and even police and prosecutorial misconduct.
"The death penalty debate in the United States is evolving in a very fundamental way," said Diann Rust-Tierney, NCADP executive director. "The blunders and biases we are seeing in the death penalty system are finally receiving more media attention and added public scrutiny. This is creating an environment that is fertile for change -- change in the court of public opinion and, ultimately, change in the state legislatures and Congress."
"NCADP 2004" will feature plenary sessions examining the juvenile death penalty and mental illness and the death penalty. More than two dozen workshops will address such diverse topics as family members of murder victims who oppose the death penalty; Attorney General John Ashcroft's efforts to pursue death penalty prosecutions in non-deathpenalty jurisdictions; and a special panel featuring several persons freed from death row due to actual innocence.
In addition to four days of workshops, plenary sessions, artistic performances and author signings, the conference will be highlighted by a Saturday night awards dinner. Elaine Jones, former director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and a longtime lawyer in the fight against the death penalty, will receive NCADP's Lifetime Achievement Award. Abraham J. Bonowitz, a Florida activist and director of Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, will receive the organization's Abolitionist of the Year Award.
For more information about "NCADP 2004," please visit http://www.ncadp.org/2004_conference_home.html