USA; CROLLANO CONDANNE, L'AMERICA RIFLETTE/ANSA MINIMO STORICO NEL 2003, DIMINUISCONO ANCHE LE ESECUZIONI

(di Marco Bardazzi)

NEW YORK,  - Le condanne a morte negli Stati Uniti sono crollate del 50% negli ultimi cinque anni e nel 2003 hanno raggiunto il minimo storico dal 1976, quando la pena capitale e' stata reintrodotta negli Usa. Le statistiche raccontano un'America impegnata in una profonda riflessione sulle esecuzioni, alimentata dalle campagne pubbliche che negli ultimi anni hanno portato alla luce un numero sempre crescente di casi di innocenti finiti nel braccio della morte.

Un nuovo rapporto del Death Penalty Information Center (Dpic), il piu' autorevole tra i centri studi che si occupano di tenere sotto controllo l'applicazione della pena capitale, dimostra come le giurie popolari negli ultimi anni siano state innegabilmente influenzate dalle continue rivelazioni sugli errori giudiziari. Secondo il Dpic, sono 116 le persone che in 25 stati degli Usa sono state scarcerate dai bracci della morte, delle quali 16 solo negli ultimi 20 mesi.

Il dato viene contestato dai sostenitori della pena di morte, secondo i quali le persone veramente innocenti tra i condannati a morte dal 1976 ad oggi non sono piu' di una trentina. ''Stiamo parlando di un numero estremamente piccolo, dobbiamo considerarlo in paragone alle circa 7.000 condanne alle pena capitale decise da allora'', ha detto Ward Campbell, un procuratore di Sacramento, in California.

Ma il Dpic, forte delle cifre del proprio rapporto, insiste sul fatto che la maggiore attenzione che viene data da anni al tema dell'innocenza, anche grazie al ricorso piu' frequente ai test del Dna, ''ha cambiato in modo significativo il dibattito sulla pena capitale, con il risultato che il pubblico e' ora piu' scettico e meno disponibile a imporre una condanna a morte''. Nel 2003, secondo la ricerca, le condanne alla massima pena decise nelle aule di giustizia americane sono state 143. Un numero esiguo, se paragonato alla media di circa 290 condanne a morte che venivano decise ogni anno negli anni Novanta, quando anche le esecuzioni hanno raggiunto il loro apice, prima di cominciare un lento declino.

Il 1999 e' stato in assoluto l'anno in cui il boia ha lavorato di piu' negli Usa, con 98 persone giustiziate. Da allora i numeri sono andati calando e nel 2003 le esecuzioni si sono fermate a quota 65. Nell'anno in corso sono state giustiziate fino ad ora 43 persone e 15 altre esecuzioni sono in programma prima della fine dell'anno. Ma molte sono destinate ad essere sospese all'ultimo momento, come accade solitamente a una buona parte dei condannati che hanno appuntamenti con il boia sul calendario. Anche il 2004, quindi, dovrebbe concludersi nel segno della riduzione del ricorso alle iniezioni letali (e alla sedia elettrica, che ancora non e' andata in pensione del tutto: quest'anno e' stata usata una volta nella Carolina del Sud).

Nel braccio della morte dei vari stati degli Usa che prevedono la pena capitale, ci sono ancora circa 3.500 persone in attesa di veder deciso il loro destino.

USA: Fewer Death Sentences Being Imposed in U.S.

 Juries imposed far fewer death sentences in each of the last 4 years than they did on average over the previous decade, according to a new report.

The Death Penalty Information Center, which is to release the report tomorrow, attributes the decline largely to growing public awareness of death-row exonerations and concerns that innocent people might be sentenced to die.

In the 1990's, an average of 290 people were sentenced to death each year. For the last 4 years, the average has been 174.

In 2003, there were 143 death sentences issued, the fewest since 1977, the year after the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty.

"This is the single most interesting fact about the death penalty in the United States in the last two or three decades," said James S. Liebman, a law professor at Columbia and an expert on capital punishment.

The report's description of the decline in death sentences is based largely on data from the Justice Department and is not disputed by supporters of the death penalty.

But the report's thesis - that exonerations play a major role - as well as its data on the number of people exonerated are the subject of debate. The report says that 116 innocent people have been released from death row since 1973, after serving an average of 9 years each.

The center, a research group, says it takes no position on capital punishment, though it has been critical of the way the death penalty is applied. Supporters of the death penalty say the group's real agenda is the abolition of the capital punishment.

Prosecutors said the report overstates the number of innocent people who have been released from death row. They said 20 to 30 is more accurate. "You're talking about an extremely small, microscopic number," said Ward A. Campbell, a supervising deputy state attorney general in Sacramento.

In a 2002 death penalty case, Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Federal District Court in New York wrote that the center had used "reasonably strict and objective standards" in preparing an earlier list of former death-row inmates it said were exonerated. But Judge Rakoff, using what he described as a more conservative methodology, said he counted 32 who served time on death row in recent decades and were indisputably innocent.

Many prosecutors accept that number. "I think 30 is fair," said Joshua Marquis, the district attorney in Astoria, Ore., and co-chairman of the capital litigation committee of the National District Attorneys Association. "I have no doubt that people who really didn't do it have been sentenced to death."

DNA has played a role in only 14 death-row exonerations. Biological evidence that can prove guilt or innocence is typically unavailable in murder cases, unless the cases also involved a rape. According to the Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, 151 people have been exonerated by DNA evidence in all kinds of cases.

The death penalty center said it used three criteria in counting exonerations: pardons, acquittals after retrials and dismissals by prosecutors. But supporters of the death penalty say that those criteria may reflect the absence of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, not innocence.

"There is an impression left that literally the wrong person was convicted and that there is a guilty person still at large," Mr. Campbell said.

Richard C. Dieter, the center's executive director, said its standards were objective and based on determinations made by the justice system. Prosecutors who object to the center's roster, he said, are making subjective and impressionistic judgments about the guilt or innocence of those released from death row.

"We've executed 928 people and freed 116," Mr. Dieter said, referring to recent decades. "Those are not good numbers."

The correct comparison, Mr. Campbell said, is between the roughly 7,000 death sentences issued since 1976 and the number of death-row inmates who were freed as authentically innocent.

Whatever the correct numbers, many legal experts say that the possibility of executing innocent people has become the central focus of the death penalty debate in recent years.

"They can't win the debate on the straight moral issue," Mr. Campbell said of death-penalty opponents. "They've refocused the debate by talking about innocence, and there is no denying that they've had an impact."

Mr. Marquis said there were other reasons for the decline in death sentences. "Prosecutors in America are far more discriminating in the kinds of cases they submit to juries," he said. "There is a recognition that the death penalty should be reserved for the worst of the worst. If you look back 20 years, there clearly were jurisdictions where some prosecutors overused the death penalty."

He also noted that capital trials were expensive and that capital convictions were inevitably followed by years of litigation. Those factors have discouraged some prosecutions, he said.

A study by Professor Liebman and others published in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies in July found that 5 % of the 5,826 death sentences imposed from 1973 to 1995 were carried out in those years. By contrast, the study found, there was a 68 % chance that death sentences in those years would be overturned by the courts.

Other possible reasons for fewer death sentences, legal experts said, are the increasing sophistication of defense lawyers and resources available to them, particularly at the sentencing phase of a capital trial.

The report largely rejected the drop in the murder rate itself as an explanation.

"That decline has been over the last decade," the report says, "while the drop in death sentences is more recent. Moreover, during the same period, crime in general has also declined and yet the prison population has increased, including the number of people imprisoned for murder."