A new Constitution abolished the death penalty in 1987,...

A new Constitution abolished the death penalty in 1987, but gave Congress the option of restoring it for "heinous" crimes. Alarmed by a rise in crime, lawmakers did just that in 1994. Forty-six crimes have been made subject to the death penalty by the 1994 law, including 21 for which capital punishment is mandatory. This number goes against the standards of the UN Human Rights Committee which considers 11 capital crimes a "high number." Since 1994, the number of prisoners under sentence of death has swelled to well over 1,200, one of the highest death row populations in the world. Research has shown that many convictions in capital cases have been made on the basis of coerced confessions and many of those on death row - often the poorest and most disadvantaged members of society - have not received fair trials, heightening the risk of executing the innocent.