The death penalty is inhuman, degrading
Jul 16, 2003
Uganda has over 400 people on death row. The majority of these have lived in the condemned section of Luzira Maximum Prison for years
By Sandra Kibenge
Uganda has over 400 people on death row. The majority of these have lived in the condemned section of Luzira Maximum Prison for years.
This section originally designed to accommodate 200 prisoners, has over 400 inmates. It should not take great imaginary talent to conceive the living conditions therein. A few have been transferred to Kirinya Prison, Jinja.
Many of these inmates have witnessed fellow inmates being taken to the gallows to be executed, heard their cries of protest from their death chambers, received their last notes to pass on to friends and relatives, heard their bodies fall, heard the nails being hammered into their coffins.
The executions are carried out a floor directly above the cells of other inmates on death row and these inmates continue to live in these tormenting conditions as they await their own turn and yet many of them are probably innocent.
One example of the innocence of an inmate is illustrated by the story of one Eddie Mary Mpagi of Masaka a former death row inmate, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The appellate court confirmed the death sentence. He spent 18 years on the death row, waiting to be hanged.
During these 18 years he witnessed five occasions of execution. Each day for 18 years he expected his turn. In his eighteenth year of incarceration, it was discovered, almost too late, that the person he was convicted of having murdered was actually still alive and had never had any problem with Mpagi or anyone else!
Mpagi, like many, lived on death row all those years, each day pleading his innocence but no one was listening. "That's what they all say" was and still is the standard response to their pleas.
Given the finality and gravity of the death sentence and the possibilities of error, every person's worst nightmare should be: "What if we hang an innocent person?"
Execution removes the possibility of correction of police, prosecution, defence or judicial error. Mistakes are not as farfetched as might appear. The New Vision recently reported the case of a man hanged in 1953 in UK but who has now been confirmed innocent. This is just one of several cases in many countries, including the USA.
If this can happen in the developed countries with a well established police force, with superior investigative machinery supporting a better facilitated judicial system, how much more in countries like Uganda?
During my Firm's research and preparation for the forthcoming court petition by the death row petitioners in Luzira, we interviewed each one of them as well as their warders, officers and several other people.
We discovered that most of the condemned prisoners, nearly 90% are poor, rural, uneducated and disenfranchised members of our society. Many are illiterate and do not understand English (the language of court).
Most of them did not have fair trials, in that the alleged crime was committed in one district and their trials conducted in another district, making it impossible to summon or transport witnesses to defend their cases.
Many death row in-mates complain that they first met their lawyers (chosen for them and tokenly paid by the State) in court. They complain that many of these lawyers did not even talk, let alone interview them before, during or after the trial and conviction.
Some lawyers presented no evidence to contradict that of the accusers. They were just performing a duty imposed upon them for no adequate remuneration.
And once the prisoner's side of the story is not presented, it is not possible to present that evidence on appeal. Quite often the lawyers, again appointed by the State, who argue the appeal, are not the same lawyers who argued the first cases. So they do not know the original facts or story. This is mainly because appeals usually come five years or more after conviction.
With all these possibilities of error and injustice, should the State go ahead to execute people? Should we still have the death penalty as a legitimate punishment in our laws?
Some have argued that the death penalty deters would-be murderers. Studies have however revealed that this is a false assumption. People murder for a variety of reasons and under differing circumstances.
Statistics show that the greatest number of homicides in Uganda are on the spur of the moment, when people have no time or rational ability to consider what they are doing or the penal consequences of such actions. Many homicides are usually during domestic feuds when tempers are high, or under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
There is some fear that abolishing the death penalty would lead to increased crimes. Again statistics prove otherwise. All European Union countries abolished the death penalty. The crime rate has not increased.
In fact the rate of violent crimes is now very low in most of them. Nor has the crime rate gone up in those states in the US, which do not have the death penalty. On the contrary the crime rate in states, which still have the death penalty, keep going up.
People in favour of the death penalty seem to argue that if a man kills in cold blood he too deserves to be killed. If the proper punishment for a person who kills is to kill him, why doesn't the state punish rapists by having them raped or thieves by arranging to have their properties stolen?
The death penalty also undermines the principle of rehabilitation of criminals, which is the main objective of modern criminology and criminal law. How do you rehabilitate a person by killing him?
The greatest number of death row prisoners are rehabilitated. Many are now born again Christians. The Muslim inmates are steadfast in their religion. Their warders testify to their rehabilitation. None of the former death row inmates who has been pardoned and released over the years under the Presidential prerogative of mercy has ever been re-arrested for any other crime.
Does abolition of the death penalties mean that murderers should go free? Of course not. Convicted murderers should be punished by appropriate periods of imprisonment. This works well in European Union countries, South Africa and other countries where the death penalty has been abolished.
Many of these prisoners have been imprisoned for long. Some for over 20 years. Fifteen years is pretty common. This is excluding the period spent on remand before conviction usually between three to six years. If the death penalty is abolished suitable periods of imprisonment should be substituted.
The death penalty is cruel, inhuman and degrading. The mental torture a death row prisoner has to endure is unimaginable. The certainty that one day you will be brutally and deliberately hanged, the knowledge that that day could be today, and internal hurt of feeling so each day, is a cruel punishment.
Some death row inmates and other persons who have actually witnessed the executions have told tales of botched executions. For example, prisoners being decapitated by the rope instead of being hanged. They tell tales of the hanging failing and a prisoner crushing with a huge metal hammer to kill him. One inmate is rumoured to have taken over an hour between hanging him and being pronounced dead.
It is not surprising that the Commissioner of Prisons, Joseph Etima, while advocating for the abolition of the death penalty before the Constitutional Review Commission, stated that he and his officers do not want to carry out executions anymore. That if government insists, it should privatise this brutal task.
All this is cruel and inhuman. Our Constitution prohibits punishments which are cruel, inhuman or degrading.
The writer is advocate with Katende, Ssempebwa and Co. Advocates
Uganda has over 400 people on death row. The majority of these have lived in the condemned section of Luzira Maximum Prison for years.
This section originally designed to accommodate 200 prisoners, has over 400 inmates. It should not take great imaginary talent to conceive the living conditions therein. A few have been transferred to Kirinya Prison, Jinja.
Many of these inmates have witnessed fellow inmates being taken to the gallows to be executed, heard their cries of protest from their death chambers, received their last notes to pass on to friends and relatives, heard their bodies fall, heard the nails being hammered into their coffins.
The executions are carried out a floor directly above the cells of other inmates on death row and these inmates continue to live in these tormenting conditions as they await their own turn and yet many of them are probably innocent.
One example of the innocence of an inmate is illustrated by the story of one Eddie Mary Mpagi of Masaka a former death row inmate, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The appellate court confirmed the death sentence. He spent 18 years on the death row, waiting to be hanged.
During these 18 years he witnessed five occasions of execution. Each day for 18 years he expected his turn. In his eighteenth year of incarceration, it was discovered, almost too late, that the person he was convicted of having murdered was actually still alive and had never had any problem with Mpagi or anyone else!
Mpagi, like many, lived on death row all those years, each day pleading his innocence but no one was listening. "That's what they all say" was and still is the standard response to their pleas.
Given the finality and gravity of the death sentence and the possibilities of error, every person's worst nightmare should be: "What if we hang an innocent person?"
Execution removes the possibility of correction of police, prosecution, defence or judicial error. Mistakes are not as farfetched as might appear. The New Vision recently reported the case of a man hanged in 1953 in UK but who has now been confirmed innocent. This is just one of several cases in many countries, including the USA.
If this can happen in the developed countries with a well established police force, with superior investigative machinery supporting a better facilitated judicial system, how much more in countries like Uganda?
During my Firm's research and preparation for the forthcoming court petition by the death row petitioners in Luzira, we interviewed each one of them as well as their warders, officers and several other people.
We discovered that most of the condemned prisoners, nearly 90% are poor, rural, uneducated and disenfranchised members of our society. Many are illiterate and do not understand English (the language of court).
Most of them did not have fair trials, in that the alleged crime was committed in one district and their trials conducted in another district, making it impossible to summon or transport witnesses to defend their cases.
Many death row in-mates complain that they first met their lawyers (chosen for them and tokenly paid by the State) in court. They complain that many of these lawyers did not even talk, let alone interview them before, during or after the trial and conviction.
Some lawyers presented no evidence to contradict that of the accusers. They were just performing a duty imposed upon them for no adequate remuneration.
And once the prisoner's side of the story is not presented, it is not possible to present that evidence on appeal. Quite often the lawyers, again appointed by the State, who argue the appeal, are not the same lawyers who argued the first cases. So they do not know the original facts or story. This is mainly because appeals usually come five years or more after conviction.
With all these possibilities of error and injustice, should the State go ahead to execute people? Should we still have the death penalty as a legitimate punishment in our laws?
Some have argued that the death penalty deters would-be murderers. Studies have however revealed that this is a false assumption. People murder for a variety of reasons and under differing circumstances.
Statistics show that the greatest number of homicides in Uganda are on the spur of the moment, when people have no time or rational ability to consider what they are doing or the penal consequences of such actions. Many homicides are usually during domestic feuds when tempers are high, or under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
There is some fear that abolishing the death penalty would lead to increased crimes. Again statistics prove otherwise. All European Union countries abolished the death penalty. The crime rate has not increased.
In fact the rate of violent crimes is now very low in most of them. Nor has the crime rate gone up in those states in the US, which do not have the death penalty. On the contrary the crime rate in states, which still have the death penalty, keep going up.
People in favour of the death penalty seem to argue that if a man kills in cold blood he too deserves to be killed. If the proper punishment for a person who kills is to kill him, why doesn't the state punish rapists by having them raped or thieves by arranging to have their properties stolen?
The death penalty also undermines the principle of rehabilitation of criminals, which is the main objective of modern criminology and criminal law. How do you rehabilitate a person by killing him?
The greatest number of death row prisoners are rehabilitated. Many are now born again Christians. The Muslim inmates are steadfast in their religion. Their warders testify to their rehabilitation. None of the former death row inmates who has been pardoned and released over the years under the Presidential prerogative of mercy has ever been re-arrested for any other crime.
Does abolition of the death penalties mean that murderers should go free? Of course not. Convicted murderers should be punished by appropriate periods of imprisonment. This works well in European Union countries, South Africa and other countries where the death penalty has been abolished.
Many of these prisoners have been imprisoned for long. Some for over 20 years. Fifteen years is pretty common. This is excluding the period spent on remand before conviction usually between three to six years. If the death penalty is abolished suitable periods of imprisonment should be substituted.
The death penalty is cruel, inhuman and degrading. The mental torture a death row prisoner has to endure is unimaginable. The certainty that one day you will be brutally and deliberately hanged, the knowledge that that day could be today, and internal hurt of feeling so each day, is a cruel punishment.
Some death row inmates and other persons who have actually witnessed the executions have told tales of botched executions. For example, prisoners being decapitated by the rope instead of being hanged. They tell tales of the hanging failing and a prisoner crushing with a huge metal hammer to kill him. One inmate is rumoured to have taken over an hour between hanging him and being pronounced dead.
It is not surprising that the Commissioner of Prisons, Joseph Etima, while advocating for the abolition of the death penalty before the Constitutional Review Commission, stated that he and his officers do not want to carry out executions anymore. That if government insists, it should privatise this brutal task.
All this is cruel and inhuman. Our Constitution prohibits punishments which are cruel, inhuman or degrading.
The writer is advocate with Katende, Ssempebwa and Co. Advocates