China, Iran, Vietnam totally pwn the US

[MikeH]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/05/amnesty.death/index.html

Executions in 2004:

China: 3400 (although this is alleged to be only the tip of the iceberg, could be as many as 10,000 or more)
Iran: 159
Vietnam: 64
USA: 59

If you work hard I'm sure the US can catch Vietnam in 2005!

The next two top scorers are Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

During 2004 six names were added to the list of US prisoners sentenced to death and later released on grounds of innocence, bringing to 118 the number of such cases since 1973.

http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engact500112005

[Ecthy]

you should rather look at the rate of executions, the number of executed related to the country's population.

China: 0%

USA: 100%

[Dinner]

I'd bet the majority were in Texas. In California were lucky if we can get one or two serial killers or child rapists executed in one year.

BTW what about places in the middle east or former Soviet Union? I also understand that many parts of Asia also carry capital punishment. Basically, the EU outlawed and Latin America did exactly what the Vatican told it to do but everyone else still understands the deterence value of capital punishment.

[MikeH]

23/59 were in Texas.

USA – Texas
Texas accounted for 23 of the 59 executions carried out in the USA in 2004. Eight people prosecuted in the Texas jurisdiction of Harris County were executed during the year, despite concern around the reliability of forensic evidence processed through the Houston Police Department (HPD) crime laboratory where serious problems had been uncovered in 2003. In October 2004 a judge on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said that there should be "a moratorium on all executions in cases where convictions were based on evidence from the HPD crime lab until the reliability of the evidence has been verified". His was the only dissenting voice when the Court denied death row inmate Dominque Green’s request for a stay of execution on the basis of concern around the accuracy of the HPD’s ballistics work in his case, and the discovery of 280 boxes of mislabelled evidence that could affect thousands of criminal cases. Dominque Green was executed on 26 October. (See also Amnesty International USA: Dead wrong: The case of Nanon Williams, child offender facing execution on flawed evidence, January 2004, AI Index: AMR 51/002/2004.)

The US isn't scared of executing the mentally ill but has hampered it's chances of increasing it's league position next season by banning the execution of children.

[alva]

Shoudn't North Korea be on that list?

[MikeH]

Yes, almost certainly. These are only the ones that Amnesty can definitely confirm.

"The figures released today are sadly only the tip of the iceberg. The true picture is hard to uncover as many countries continue to execute people secretly -- contravening United Nations standards calling for disclosure of information on capital punishment," said Amnesty International.

Five countries abolished the death penalty for all crimes in 2004 - Bhutan, Greece, Samoa, Senegal and Turkey. - quitters!

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
you should rather look at the rate of executions, the number of executed related to the country's population.

China: 0%

USA: 100%

Somebody sucks at basic statistics.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by alva
Shoudn't North Korea be on that list?

Yeah, but its almost impossible to get reliable information about that.

But then how do you count the NKorean refugees that China sends back to their deaths in NKorea on a regular basis? Do they get double-counted?

[KrazyHorse]

The US has such untapped potential for greatness. 59 means that only 1 in 300 murderers is executed.

That's pure laziness.

[MikeH]

China - 2.72 executions per million pop'n
US - 0.2 executions per million pop'n

(assuming populations of 1.25 billion for China and 300 million for the US)

[MikeH]

Texas has a mighty 1 execution per million population, five times the national average.

Although Texas has a big population if every state pulled its finger out and executed 23 people a year that'd be 1100 people a year and 3.6 people per million. You could totally pwn china!

[KrazyHorse]

Once the US is executing all 18000 of its murderers every year they can start on other crimes usually unfairly ignored by the general public in the context of capital punishment.

Speeding, income tax evasion, littering, etc.

[KrazyHorse]

Now I know why the US hates communist and fundamentalist Muslim countries so much: they're providing too healthy a level of competition.

[DeathByTheSword]

i dont think the US will get to the play off next season if they dont start killing more people...as it is now the players of the capital punishment team US dont stand a chance against the top league players like china and Iran...

[DinoDoc]

I think my gives a **** is broken. If you want to troll about the death penalty, the moral arguement provides a much more fertile ground than this.