ARIZONA LEGAL TEAM URGES REFORMS OF STATE DEATH PENALTY SYSTEM,
IDENTIFIES BROAD PROBLEM AREAS

CHICAGO, July 17, 2006 – A team of leaders of the Arizona legal community today recommended major reforms in how the state administers the death penalty, based on a comprehensive study that identified four broad problem areas to rectify to ensure a fair and accurate system for every capital defendant.

The team conducted the study under the Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project of the American Bar Association, housed in the Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities.  Its report and recommendations have not been presented to ABA House of Delegates, and so do not constitute ABA policy.  The ABA neither supports nor opposes the death penalty, but it does urge a moratorium on executions in each death penalty jurisdiction until fairness and due process are assured.

Although the Arizona team did not endorse a moratorium on executions in the state, team members identified the following problem areas:

• Because the state has a decentralized system of providing indigent criminal defense services, it relies on a “mixed and uneven system” that does not provide uniform, quality representations to indigent defendants in all capital proceedings.
• Defense counsel are not adequately compensated to meet their obligations in capital cases. 
• The state has no mechanism to ensure sentences are imposed proportionately in capital cases, described as the single best protection against arbitrary capital sentencing, and the Arizona Supreme Court has rejected arguments that lack of proportionality review denies capital defendants equal protection under the law.
• Arizona does not effectively define “especially cruel, heinous or depraved” circumstances of a capital case, one of the statutory aggravating factors that can support a death sentence.  The team noted a state bar committee is discussing a proposed definition, but has not yet submitted it for approval.

Professor Sigmund “Zig” Popko of the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University chaired the team, which included the chief counsel of the Capital Litigation Section at the Arizona Attorney General's Office, a former Arizona Supreme Court justice, three partners in law firms and the director of the Center for Urban Inquiry at ASU.

ABA President Michael S. Greco noted the thoroughness of the Arizona team’s work.

“It is only through such systemic and detailed analysis that states can address shortcomings in death penalty jurisprudence that are more and more frequently exposed across the country by attention from news media bolstered by developing sophistication in scientific evidence.  We must not rely on fortuitous news reporting to protect against executing innocents, but must instead involve experts from all components of the legal system to assure capital punishment is just, the way that Arizona has done,” said Greco.

“This is not an academic issue,” said Popko.  “Real people, victims’ family members as well as defendants, rely on our systems to get this right.  Unfortunately, the evidence shows that we have not always done so.  Since 1973, Arizona has exonerated eight inmates who already had been sentenced to death and resided on death row awaiting execution.”

“Our concern for public safety means that each citizen of Arizona has a stake in achieving justice, and we must not allow shortcomings to persist with public safety at stake,” he said.

In assessing the state system, the team measured Arizona law, procedure and practices against protocols developed by the ABA to evaluate death penalty jurisprudence.  It found Arizona is in compliance with five protocols, in partial compliance with 27, and not in compliance with 19.  One was inapplicable.  For 28 of the protocols, the team was unable to obtain enough information to assess compliance.

The full report and executive summary, including charts that identify specific recommendations and state compliance levels, are available on the ABA’s Web site at http://www.abavideonews.org/ABA340.  Additional information about the Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project and the assessment project also is posted there.

Arizona is the third state assessed under the ABA project, which developed its protocols in 2001.  Assessments in Georgia and Alabama also are complete, and are accessible on the ABA’s Web site.  Other assessments are being conducted in Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia.  Neither the protocols nor individual state assessment reports have been adopted by the ABA House of Delegates.           

With more than 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is the largest voluntary professional membership organization in the world.  As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law in a democratic society.

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