Series 2558: Constituent Correspondence, 2000-2003

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38751

From: 		Martin Franco <martinf@sirius.com>
To: 		RM.GOV_PO.GOV_MAIL
Created: 	2/8/2000 1:37 AM
Subject: 	Oppose Death Penalty for Youth
Message: 		

Date:       02/08/2000

Dear Governor Fordice:

In July, the Florida Supreme Court outlawed the state's use of
the death penalty against sixteen-year-olds, and the Montana
legislature recently voted for a bill abolishing the death
penalty for those under eighteen at the time of their crimes.
Montana's new law will come into effect on 1 October 1999.

In June, the US Supreme Court asked the federal government for
its position on the USA's continuing use of the death penalty
against children. Amnesty International members worldwide are
urging the government to honor its international obligations
when formulating its response to the Court, and to begin to
match its repeated claims to be a world leader in human rights.

The global ban on the death penalty against children is now so
widely recognized and adhered to that it has become a norm of
customary international law, binding on all countries regardless
of which international instruments they have or have not agreed
to be bound by.

Worldwide, in the past two years, only four people are known to
have been executed for crimes committed when they were under 18.
All four were put to death in the USA. Sean Sellers was the most
recent to be killed, and the first in the USA for a crime
committed at sixteen in forty years.

"In the past seven years there have been 11 known executions of
child offenders worldwide, eight of them in the USA."  Amnesty
International said. The other three executions since 1992 were
in Pakistan, Iran and Yemen. Yemen has since changed its law to
abolish the death penalty for those under 18 at the time of the
crime. In 1997, China, the country responsible for the highest
annual judicial death toll in the world, also abolished the
death penalty for those under eighteen at the time of the crime.

Governor Fordice, please place Mississippi at the head of the
line following the international community in banning the use of
the death penalty for those under eighteen at the time of their
crime.

Sincerely,



Martin Franco




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