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"The international standard forbidding the execution of adolescent offenders reflects the reality that children are different from adults; that they lack the experience, perspective, judgment, and maturity, and restraint of an adult; and that with help even the most errant may be rehabilitated."
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Michael Bochenek
Counsel to the Children's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch
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August 17, 2000
Walter S. Ray
Chairman
Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles
Floyd Veterans Memorial Building
Balcony Level, East Tower
2 Martin Luther King, Jr., Drive, S.E.
Atlanta, Georgia 30334-4909
Dear Mr. Ray:
We are writing to urge the Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute the death sentence of Alexander Williams, who is scheduled for execution on August 24. Mr. Williams is a mentally ill inmate on death row for a crime he committed at the age of seventeen.
If his death sentence is carried out, Mr. Williams will be the fifth juvenile offender nationwide to be put to death this year. His execution would be the first in Georgia since 1993 and only the second since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
Georgia is obligated to refrain from executing adolescent offenders under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, an international human rights treaty ratified by the United States. Although the United States purports to reserve the right to impose capital punishment on juvenile offenders, the U.N. Human Rights Committee, the treaty body charged with interpreting the Covenant, has concluded that the U.S. reservation is incompatible with the object and purpose of the treaty and therefore void as a matter of international law.
The United States is one of only five countries that defy the international prohibition on executing juvenile offenders. The others are Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudia Arabia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The international standard forbidding the execution of adolescent offenders reflects the reality that children are different from adults; that they lack the experience, perspective, judgment, and maturity, and restraint of an adult; and that with help even the most errant may be rehabilitated.
Mr. William's mental illness and history of severe childhood abuse—facts which were never considered by the jury—are additional compelling reasons for the commutation of his sentence. U.S. law reserves capital punishment for the most blameworthy offenders, based on a careful consideration of their background, character, motivation, and the circumstances of their crimes.
A person who was mentally ill and a child at the time of his crime can never meet the extraordinary level of blameworthiness that is required to impose a death sentence. As former First Lady Rosalynn Carter wrote to you last month, "imposing the death penalty on mentally ill children should be unthinkable in a civilized society."
We urge the Board to uphold this basic principle of justice and morality by commuting Alexander Williams' sentence.
Sincerely,
Michael Bochenek
Counsel
Children's Rights Division
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