Death_Penalty_2005_nowy.qxd 2005-09-08 17:00 Page 36 THE DEATH PENALTY IN THE OSCE AREA Executions 2004 According to official statistics, 59 individuals were executed in 2004. Of these, 23 executions were carried out in Texas, seven in Ohio, six in Oklahoma, five in Virginia, four in North Carolina, four in South Carolina, two in Alabama, two in Florida, two in Nevada, one in Arkansas, and one in Maryland. 2005 According to unofficial statistics, 28 individuals were executed during the first half of 2005. Of these, nine executions were carried out in Texas, three in Indiana, three in Missouri, two in Alabama, two in Georgia, two in North Carolina, two in Oklahoma, one in California, one in Connecticut, one in Florida, one in Ohio, and one in South Carolina. INTERNATIONAL SAFEGUARDS Pregnant women and children Pregnant women cannot be executed under federal or state law. Women can be executed, and, according to unofficial statistics, there were 54 women on death row as of 1 July 2005.115 At the federal level, individuals who were below the age of 18 at the time of the crime cannot be sentenced to death.116 The United States has entered a reservation to Article 6 of the ICCPR that provides that “the United States reserves the right, subject to its constitutional constraints, to impose capital punishment on any person (other than a pregnant woman) duly convicted under existing or future laws permitting the imposition of capital punishment, including such punishment for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age.”117 The UN Human Rights Committee has expressed concern that this reservation may be incompatible with the object and purposes of the ICCPR, and the Inter-American Commission has found the United States to be 115 116 117 Death Row U.S.A. Summer 2005, Criminal Justice Project of the NAACP Legal Defence and Educational Fund, Inc., www.naacpldf.org. 18 U.S.C. § 3591(a)(2)(D), 18 U.S.C. § 3591 (b)(2). See concluding observations of the Human Rights Committee, CCPR/C/79/Add.50, A/50/40, Paragraph 279, 3 October 1995. 36