[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 6



VIETNAM:

Thai woman arrested in Vietnam with nearly 2kgs of cocaine


The cocaine, allegedly smuggled into Vietnam by a Thai woman whose name was 
only revealed as S.A, seized by Tan Son Nhat airport custom officials on 
Sunday. Photo credit: Tan Son Nhat Customs Agency

Vietnam court upholds death sentence to Thai drug mule

Tan Son Nhat airport's customs officers on Sunday arrested a Thai woman for 
allegedly smuggling 1.73 kilograms of cocaine into Vietnam.

The Thai woman, whose name was only revealed as S.A., allegedly hided the 
cocaine, worth around VND11 billion (US$519,000), in a holder of incense sticks 
and packed it in her checked-in suitcase.

During interrogation, she admitted to sneaking the cocaine through 4 countries 
before jetting in Vietnam, customs officials said, without revealing the names 
of those countries.

Further investigations are underway.

Vietnam has some of the world's toughest drug laws. Those convicted of 
smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or more than 2.5 kilograms of 
methamphetamine face the death penalty.

The production or sale of 100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal 
narcotics is also punishable by death.

Last April, a court of appeals upheld the death sentence to a Thai woman, 
32-year-old Chaimongkol Suracha, for smuggling 1.98 kilograms of cocaine from 
Brazil to Vietnam 2 years ago.

Death penalty statistics are not released in Vietnam, but the punishment is 
handed down most frequently to those convicted of murder or drug-trafficking.

Vietnam officially switched from the firing squad to lethal injection in 
November 2011. But it was not until last August that the country executed its 
1st prisoner with the new method due to the unavailability of drugs used for 
lethal injections.

There are currently around 500 people on the death row in Vietnam.

(source: Thanh Nien News)






SINGAPORE:

Crucial to substantiate deterrent effects of death penalty


The report "Calls to abolish death penalty 'do not focus on victims of drug 
trade'" (Sept 27) stated Law and Foreign Affairs Minister K Shanmugam's 
justification for the death penalty: Its deterrent effect and its importance in 
keeping us safe.

First, criminology studies have demonstrated that certainty of enforcement 
provides a stronger deterrent effect than the severity of punishment.

Further, the question is not whether the death penalty deters, but whether its 
deterrent effect is significantly greater compared with alternative punishments 
such as life imprisonment and caning to justify taking away the offender's 
right to life.

As the death penalty represents the gravest form of punishment, it needs sound, 
supportable justification. Substantiation of its deterrent effect and role in 
protecting society, including the interests of drug victims, is therefore 
crucial. Failing to do so undermines the case for retaining the death penalty.

And even if we assume that it does deter, there are moral limits to how far 
society should go to pursue the aim of deterrence.

A deeper problem is that the punishment deprives offenders of human dignity and 
life, which should be respected even if they may be deserving of punishment.

Therefore, whether capital punishment has a place in our society cannot be 
devoid of considerations of its moral permissibility. While the law is an 
expression of societal values, the death penalty is not the only way to express 
moral outrage. This can be expressed through alternative sentences such as life 
imprisonment.

Should the death penalty be removed, this would not signal that society 
condones such crimes, but that society diminishes itself whenever we take a 
life and that such a punishment offends our common respect for the value of 
life.

(source: Opinion, Priscilla Chia Wen Qi----todayonline.com)






PHILIPPINES:

What crime deterrence?


WITH media abuzz with rapes of minors or kasambahays, riding-in-tandem 
criminals on motorbikes, and the Philippine National Police unable to arrest 
suspects, can calls for the restoration of the death penalty be far behind?

The theory goes is that the death penalty can "strike fear in the hearts of the 
criminals." Even some lawyers who have sworn to "uphold the Constitution, obey 
the laws of the land and promote respect for law and legal processes, and shall 
not engage in unlawful, dishonest, immoral or deceitful conduct" or find 
extra-judicial killings or enforced disappearances acceptable to combat crimes.

What are the facts to prove this assertion? Amnesty International Philippines 
came out with myth-busters contesting the efficacy of the death penalty. Here 
are some interesting conclusions.

MYTH: The death penalty deters violent crime and makes society safer.

FACT: There is no convincing evidence that the death penalty has a unique 
deterrent effect. More than 3 decades after abolishing the death penalty, 
Canada's murder rate remains over 1/3 lower than it was in 1976.

A 35-year study compared murder rates between Hong Kong, where there is no 
death penalty, and Singapore, which has a similar size population and executed 
regularly. The death penalty had little impact on crime rates. In the 
Philippines, former Sen. Joker Arroyo, a long-time human rights lawyer and 
activist, asserted that the revival of the death penalty from 1993-2004 failed 
to reduce the number of violent crimes.

MYTH: The threat of execution is an effective strategy in preventing terrorist 
attacks.

FACT: The prospect of execution is unlikely to act as a deterrent to people 
prepared to kill and injure for the sake of a political or other ideology. Some 
officials responsible for counter-terrorism have repeatedly pointed out that 
those who are executed can be perceived as martyrs whose memory becomes a 
rallying point for their ideology or organizations.

Khalid al-Mihdhar, Nawaf al-Hazmi, hijacker-pilots Mohamed Atta, Marwan 
al-Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah looked forward to becoming shaheeds (martyrs) to 
earn their perpetual 72 virgins - and they did in 9/11.

MYTH: All people who are executed have been proven guilty of serious crimes.

FACT: With the advance of forensic science, the USA finds itself exonerating 
144 death row convicts recorded in the USA since 1973 showing that, regardless 
of how many legal safeguards are in place, no justice system is free from 
error. As long as human justice remains fallible, the risk of executing the 
innocent can never be eliminated.

Closer to home, the Free Legal Assistance Group (Flag profiled death row 
convicts and found that most of those who were sentenced to death are poor and 
improperly represented by lawyers during their trial. The majority was also 
arrested without warrants and unassisted by counsel during police 
investigation, questioning and interrogation.

Flag cites a 2004 Supreme Court decision which pegged the judicial error rate 
at 72 %. It says that the high tribunal found police irregularities
- including the use of shortcuts, or planted and recycled evidence - in
the investigation of capital crimes.

More statistics from the supreme tribunal. The Supreme Court revoked more than 
1/2 of the death sentences it reviewed, as of end March 2002. It scrutinized 
348 which affirmed a mere 158, or less than 1/.

More could probably be absolved if the Philippine facility and expertise for 
DNA testing go beyond identification and parentage testing and use this 
cutting-edge forensic science on rape cases.

Crime deterrence? Think again. Better that the PNP focus on crime detection to 
prove that crimes do exact payment of long stretches of jailtime.

(source: Sun Star)