Preventing The Execution Of Innocents
A resolution to improve worldwide human and civil rights.
Category: Civil Rights
Strength: Mild
Proposed by: Imperium Anglorum
Whereas there is considerable disagreement in the Assembly about the merits of banning capital punishment:
And whereas it is best to set a compromise, where the Assembly does its best efforts to permit, with effective regulations, capital punishment so to best reduce the chance of it falling upon those who have not committed the crime they are accused of:
Be it enacted by the World Assembly, as follows :—
Subject to World Assembly legislation, member nations are permitted to sentence and carry out capital punishment within their jurisdictions.
There shall be created a Capital Cases division in the Judicial Committee of the Compliance Commission, here referred to as the Division, staffed with competent jurists and forensic scientists, to review submitted cases. To prevent the Division from being overwhelmed by requests for review, any one jurisdiction shall submit no more than than one capital case per million inhabitants per year. For the purposes of avoiding confirmation bias in assessments, the Division shall not keep records of capital punishment procedures.
Member nations shall not attempt to pervert justice by unduly influencing the defendant or defence counsel. Nor shall member nations require or coerce the defendant or defence counsel to make decisions which may damage their defence or, in the case of counsel, the welfare of their client.
Member nations, when prosecuting capital cases, shall:
establish an office of a solicitor, specialised in the prosecution of capital cases, who shall conduct the prosecution of all capital cases within their jurisdiction,
provide the defendant with adequate representation at the state's expense, barring concurrent representation, if the defendant is unable to pay for such counsel,
provide the defence with all evidence collected in the process of investigation,
provide the defence ample time, no less than one year, to review and examine that evidence,
prohibit evidentiary barriers from barring the defence admission of evidence,
prove, such that there could not arise evidence (foreseeable at the time of trial) that would cast doubt on the guilt of the defendant for any charge which could carry a capital sentence, and
submit for review, to the Division, all facts of the case and conclusions reached at trial, at which time the Division shall decide whether to certify that all burdens of proof are met, there has been due process, and all conclusions on evidence are justifiable. If certification is withheld, the Division may dismiss or remand the case.
In all cases where a capital sentence is issued, before it is carried out,
member nations shall serially provide the Division and all counsel assigned or associated with a case, six months to discover, examine, and verify exculpatory evidence which could exonerate the defendant,
permit the defendant full access to the national appellate system and appeal to the Division upon discovery of possibly exonerating evidence or admissible evidence which casts into doubt the narrative put forth by the prosecution at the time of trial, and
provide to the defendant, in any legal proceedings related to their capital conviction, the same privileges afforded to defendant during and after the original trial.
Member nations shall not issue a capital sentence on any mentally incompetent person, as punishment for any non-violent crime, or as punishment for any crime not directly affecting more than one person. All capital sentences shall be carried out via a method which is, upon review demanded by any party to a capital case, proven beyond any reasonable doubt not to cause pain or suffering.
Member nations shall not extradite, except to World Assembly judicial institutions or jurisdictions without capital punishment, any person charged or likely to be charged with a capital offence. Nor shall any person be extradited to a place likely to commence judicial proceedings, which would contravene World Assembly legislation, against that person.
No member nation shall carry out a capital sentence on any person which has not had their case record certified by the Division within the last year. Nor shall member nations carry out such a sentence before the Division has certified that there exist no irregularities in the case record, the defendant has exhausted all available appeals, or the Division has certified that all procedures involved with carrying out that capital sentence comply with provisions set forth in World Assembly legislation.
All individuals currently sentenced to capital punishment or charged of a capital crime shall be afforded the protections of this resolution.
