This document reiterates the concerns presented in an Open Letter to President Bill Clinton in January 1994 (AMR 51/04/94), in which AI called for the establishment of a Presidential Commission on the death penalty, with a moratorium on executions until its findings were reported. By the end of 1994, AI had received no substantive response from the US Government. Meanwhile, AI’s grounds for concern about the application of the death penalty in the US steadily increased. These concerns are outlined in a companion paper to the present report, “USA: Developments on the death penalty during 1994” (AMR 51/01/95), issued in January 1995.
