USA - Kentucky. The Commission on Human Rights unanimously passed a resolution in favor of ending the death penalty.

The Kentucky Commission on Human Rights (KCHR), a state agency that enforces civil rights, unanimously passed a resolution in favor of ending the death penalty. The Commission urged the Kentucky General Assembly to repeal the death penalty and Governor Steven Beshear to sign any such legislation that is brought before him. The resolution underscored the unfairness of capital punishment: “Statistics confirm that the imposition of the death penalty is disproportionately imposed on minorities and the poor." Moreover, the resolution pointed to the high error rate in Kentucky capital cases: "Since 1976, when Kentucky reinstated the death penalty, 50 of the 78 people sentenced to death have had their death sentence or conviction overturned, due to misconduct or serious errors that occurred during their trial. This represents an unacceptable error rate of more than 60 percent.” The resolution will be given to each legislator and to the governor. As of today, Kentucky has 34 inmates on death row. Kentucky last executed an inmate in 2008. On March 22 the Kentucky House had approved House Concurrent Resolution 173 to establish a task force to develop a plan for implementing the recommendations of an American Bar Association report on the death penalty released the past Dec. 7 (see).