The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area against children. Montana allows the death penalty for a second rape conviction. Texas policy makers are considering a provision to allow for the death penalty for repeat sex offenders whose victims are children. No one convicted only of a sex offence has been executed since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976; in 2007, however, the Louisiana Supreme Court upheld a death sentence for one person for the rape of his step-daughter. The constitutionality of his sentence has not been reviewed by the US Supreme Court. The death penalty is retained at the federal level. The United States Code identifies 42 crimes (38 homicide and four non-homicide) for which the death penalty may be used. The Uniform Code of Military Justice provides for the death penalty as a possible punishment for 15 offences, many of which must occur during a time of war. In March 2006, Congress enacted the USA Patriot Act Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005.103 The Act created a number of new offences, including some for which death is a potential punishment, and shortened the appeals process by expediting capital habeas corpus petitions in federal court. In addition, the Act clarifies appropriate death-penalty procedures for certain cases under the Controlled Substances Act,104 and expands on the regulations governing provision of counsel to defendants liable to the death penalty and who are unable to afford counsel. The death penalty may be imposed in accordance with the military order establishing military commissions to prosecute individuals currently detained at Guantanamo Bay.105 On 29 June 2006, the Supreme Court ruled that the military commissions were illegal under both military law and the Geneva Conventions.106 Legislation to abolish capital punishment was recently considered and subsequently defeated in Colorado, Kansas, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and South Dakota. Abolition bills remain under consideration in Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, New Jersey, and New York. Moratorium There is no moratorium on executions in place at the federal level. At the state level, Illinois instituted a moratorium on the use of the death penalty in 2000. In January 103  109th Congress: Bill H.R. 3199. 104  The Controlled Substances Act (Title II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970) is the legal basis by which the manufacture, importation, possession, and distribution of certain drugs are regulated by the federal government of the United States. 105  Military Commission Order No. 1, “Procedures for trials by military commissions of certain nonUnited States citizens in the war against terrorism”, 21 March 2002, Part 6 (g). 106  Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. ___ (2006); 126 S. Ct. 2749, 29 June 2006. 32

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