With death penalty, the U.S. stands alone among democracies of the world

Question: What does the U.S. have in common with China, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia?

Answer: These five countries carried out the overwhelming majority of state-sponsored executions in 2009.

Amnesty International (AI) recently released a report titled Death Sentences and Executions in 2009, which examines the use of the death penalty last year around the world. And the U.S. stands out as one of the world's most brutal nations in this regard.

In 2009:

• China executed more people than the rest of the world put together. (Exact figures are not available, since China refuses to provide that information. However, according to AI, evidence from previous years and current sources indicate that the figure remains in the thousands.)

• Iran executed at least 388.

• Iraq executed at least 120.

• Saudi Arabia executed at least 69.

• The U.S. executed 52.

In the realm of criminal "justice", this is the company we keep.

Virtually all other recognized democracies have abolished the use of the death penalty in favor of life imprisonment.

To add insult to injury, we also learned last year that Texas (the execution capital of the U.S.) executed an innocent man, Cameron Todd Willingham, in 2004. Given the proven fallibility of the "justice" system, how many others may have been executed for crimes that they did not commit? Why take any more chances?

The death penalty does not represent justice, it represents revenge -- sometimes misdirected revenge.

Shouldn't we as a society be above that sort of thing?

Isn't it time we joined the other democracies of the world in abolishing this barbaric practice?

>> Learn more about AI's opposition to the death penalty.

>> Download the full report. (PDF)