Death sentences and executions in 2013 15
Texas scheduled the execution of Mexican national Edgar Arias Tamayo in violation of an order from the International Court of Justice requiring that he have judicial “review and reconsideration” of the impact on his case of the denial of his consular rights after arrest. He was not advised of his right to seek consular assistance and the Mexican authorities did not learn of the case until a week before the trial. Without access to the sort of assistance the consulate subsequently provided, Edgar Tamayo’s trial lawyer failed to present evidence of the deprivations and abuse his client suffered as a child, his developmental problems, a serious head injury he sustained when he was 17 and its impact on his behaviour, including a worsening dependency on drugs and alcohol. In 2008 a psychologist put Edgar Tamayo’s intellectual functioning in the “mild mental retardation” range, which would render his execution unconstitutional under US law. On 12 June, William Van Poyck was executed in Florida after 25 years on death row. Claims persisted that he had received inadequate legal representation at the trial, including the defence lawyer’s failure to present the full mitigating evidence of his client’s background of childhood abuse and mental health problems. Three of seven Florida Supreme Court judges dissented against upholding the death sentence, arguing that the case represented a “blatant example of counsel’s failure to investigate and prepare a penalty phase defense”. Final appeals based on this issue, and on evidence that it was William Van Poyck’s co-defendant who had actually shot the victim, who was a prison guard, were unsuccessful. This codefendant, who was also given the death penalty, died in 1999 as a result of massive injuries sustained during an alleged beating by guards. Paul Howell’s execution in Florida was stayed on 25 February, one day before it was scheduled, to allow a federal appeals court to consider whether his claim of inadequate legal representation could be reopened in light of recent US Supreme Court rulings in other cases. The claim related not only to his initial appeal lawyer’s missing a deadline to file an appeal, thereby defaulting it, but also to the failure of his trial lawyer to present certain mitigating evidence, including of physical childhood abuse and deprivations in his native Jamaica, as well as details of mental health problems as an adult. In September the court ruled against Howell. One of the three judges dissented, describing Howell’s representation at trial and on initial appeal as “incompetent, ineffective and deeply unprofessional”. Florida passed the Timely Justice Act (TJA) aimed, in part, at speeding up the pace of executions. Such legislation is inconsistent with international human rights standards which seek eventual abolition of the death penalty, and ignores the reality of Florida’s high error rate in capital cases. Florida accounts for some 15% of the more than 140 inmates released from death rows in the USA since 1973 on grounds of innocence. When Florida’s Governor Rick Scott signed the TJA into law on 14 June 2013, Representative Matt Gaetz, the sponsor of the bill in the House of Representatives, responded by tweeting his thanks, adding: “Several on death row need to start picking out their last meals”.
DEATH PENALTY AND MENTAL DISABILITIES International standards on the use of the death penalty state that the death penalty should not be imposed against people with mental disabilities. This safeguard continues to be ignored in the USA. Florida executed John Ferguson on 5 August, despite his decades-long history of mental illness which pre-
Amnesty International March 2014
Index: ACT 50/001/2014