(08/21/00) -- —Georgia's Board of Pardons and Parole should prevent the execution of Alexander Williams, Human Rights Watch urged in a letter released today. Williams, a mentally ill death row inmate, is scheduled to be put to death on August 24 for a murder he committed when he was seventeen.
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What's shocking about these executions is that they're becoming routine. It should be out of the question for a mentally ill person to face the electric chair for a crime he committed as a teenager.
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A total of seventeen juvenile offenders have been put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Approximately seventy more now sit on death row; three, including Williams, are in Georgia.
"What's shocking about these executions is that they're becoming routine," said Michael Bochenek, counsel to the Children's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch. "It should be out of the question for a mentally ill person to face the electric chair for a crime he committed as a teenager."
International law prohibits capital punishment for offenses committed below the age of eighteen. Other than the United States, the only countries known to execute juvenile offenders are Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Williams' execution also raises concerns because his mental illness and history of child abuse were never presented to the jury. His defense attorney made no effort to investigate these critical facts. The attorney has since been removed from the state courts' list of attorneys who are qualified to handle criminal cases.
