[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., TENN., NEB., USA

[Rick Halperin]

May 19



TEXAS:

Texas House OKs keeping execution drug suppliers secret



The identity of execution drug makers for America's busiest death chamber would 
remain confidential under a bill preliminarily approved by the Texas House.

Lawmakers passed the measure via voice vote without debate Monday, 6 days after 
a 32-year-old Houston man became the 7th convicted killer executed in Texas 
this year.

The Senate passed the plan last week, and a final House vote is now all that's 
needed to send it to Gov. Greg Abbott to be signed into law.

An ongoing court challenge already prohibits Texas from disclosing where the 
state buys execution drugs. That ruling came after manufacturers reported being 
threatened by death penalty opponents.

But the push to permanently keep suppliers secret, even form death row inmates 
and their attorneys, is on the verge of becoming law.

(source: Associated Press)

********************

Capital murder charges expected in Waco biker shootout



The unprecedented, deadly biker gang violence on display Sunday at the Twin 
Peaks restaurant in Waco, Texas, has led to mass arrests, massive bail figures, 
the specter of numerous death penalty cases, the likely shuttering of a 
business, and an irate police force who said they did everything they could to 
stop it.

About 170 motorcycle gang members charged with engaging in organized crime are 
each being held on a $1 million bond in the wake of the shootout in Waco that 
left at least nine dead and 18 injured, and authorities say capital murder 
charges are expected. By early afternoon about 1/3 of the suspects had been 
booked into the McLennan County Jail, reports CBS affiliate KWTX in Waco.

While they haven't been filed yet, capital murder charges open the possibility 
that prosecutors will seek the death penalty for some of the suspects, in a 
state that puts far more inmates to death annually than all others.

McLennan County Justice of the Peace W.H. Peterson set the bond Monday for each 
suspect and described the amount as "appropriate" given the level of violence 
that occurred a day earlier at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco.

Peterson also performed inquests on the nine dead bikers but declined to 
identify them pending notification of family. Peterson said all 9 were from 
Texas.

Waco Police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said while capital murder charges are 
likely, it's too early to determine how many motorcycle gang members will face 
the charge.

The head of the Texas Department of Public Safety says the violence that 
unfolded in Waco when rival motorcycle gangs opened fire on each other in a 
restaurant parking lot is unprecedented. The shootout erupted shortly after 
noon at a busy shopping center where members of at least 5 rival gangs had 
gathered for a meeting.

DPS Director Steve McCraw, a former FBI agent, said Monday that the shootout 
Sunday was the 1st time "we've seen this type of violence in broad daylight."

McCraw's agency sent Texas Rangers to process the crime scene and special 
agents who target motorcycle gangs.

He wouldn't reveal details about what prompted the melee. Waco police say a 
dispute that began in a Twin Peaks restaurant bathroom spilled into the parking 
lot.

Police and the operators of Twin Peaks - a national chain that features 
waitresses in revealing uniforms - were aware of the meeting in advance and at 
least 12 Waco officers, in addition to state troopers, were outside the 
restaurant when the fight began, Swanton said.

As a result, the whole incident, involving an estimated 100 guns in total, 
"happened very fast," Swanton said.

"We were there within seconds, meaning within 35 to 40 seconds," Swanton said.

So far, officials have admitted that some of the bikers were shot by police, 
but have not said whether or not any of those killed died as a result of police 
gunfire.

The Twin Peaks restaurant in the Waco Market Place shopping center is coming 
under increasing fire from authorities over the shootout. The Texas Alcoholic 
Beverage Commission suspended alcohol sales at Twin Peaks for 7 days because of 
the shooting.

State law allows the agency to suspend a business license to sell alcohol after 
a shooting, stabbing or murder on premises that's likely to result in 
subsequent leadership.

"Any wrongdoing uncovered during the investigation could result in further 
action against the restaurant, including monetary fines, further suspension, or 
cancellation of its TABC license to sell alcohol," the agency said in a press 
release Monday.

Additionally, the Twin Peaks corporate office Monday revoked the franchise of 
the restaurant, reports KWTX.

"Unfortunately the management team of the franchised restaurant in Waco chose 
to ignore the warnings and advice from both the police and our company, and did 
not uphold the high security standards we have in place to ensure everyone is 
safe at our restaurants," the company said in a statement.

Swanton said law enforcement had repeatedly asked the restaurant owners to 
suspend the event that drew the bikers in the first place.

"If you have a police department asking for your assistance as a business, you 
ought to pay attention," Swanton said. "We asked for assistance to keep this 
from happening and we didn't get that."

Texas officials said they are constantly monitoring biker gangs and that 
motorcycle gang violence dates back to at least the 1970s.

Swanton said authorities had received threats against law enforcement 
"throughout the night" from biker groups and stood ready to confront any more 
violence resulting from Sunday's gunfire.

"We have a contingency plan to deal with those individuals if they try to cause 
trouble here," Swanton said at a news conference.

The interior of the restaurant was littered with bullet casings, knives, bodies 
and pools of blood, he said.

Authorities were processing the evidence at the scene, south of Dallas. About 
150 to 200 bikers were inside during the shootout.

"I was amazed that we didn't have innocent civilians killed or injured," 
Swanton said.

Parts of downtown Waco were locked down, and officials stopped and questioned 
motorcycle riders. Agents from the FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, 
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were assisting local and state authorities.

McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara, whose office is involved in the 
investigation, said all nine who were killed were members of the Bandidos or 
Cossacks gangs.

In a 2014 gang threat assessment, the Texas Department of Public Safety 
classified the Bandidos as a "Tier 2" threat, the second highest. Other groups 
in that tier included the Bloods, Crips and Aryan Brotherhood of Texas.

The Bandidos, formed in the 1960s, are involved in trafficking cocaine, 
marijuana and methamphetamine, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

El Paso authorities in 2012 said several Bandido members were involved in an 
assault and robbery at two bars, according to the assessment. State arrest 
warrants were issued for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, engaging in 
organized crime and other crimes, and 6 of the suspects were arrested.

In 2006, eight men were found dead inside vehicles on a farm in Canada, and 
authorities linked the Bandidos to the slayings.

The Bandidos conduct their activities as covertly as possible to avoid 
publicity, according to the DPS assessment. Members are not covert, however, 
about making their presence known by wearing their colors and insignia, and 
riding in large groups.

The Texas assessment does not mention the Cossacks.

There's at least 17 previously documented instance of violence between the 2 
groups. In November 2013, a 46-year-old from Abilene who police say was the 
leader of a West Texas Bandidos chapter was charged in the stabbings of 2 
members of the Cossacks club.

Swanton said the local biker gangs have little regard for law enforcement, 
which is why they did not hesitate to start a shootout with uniformed officers 
in plain sight.

"They could care less whether we were here or not," Swanton said. "That's the 
violence we were dealing with."

(source: CBS news)








FLORIDA:

Davis found guilty of killing couple to start illicit pot grow business



Jurors have found a Walton County man guilty of killing a couple to further a 
marijuana growing operation.

He now faces the death sentence when a penalty phase commences.

After 3 weeks of testimony and a full day of closing arguments, jurors found 
Barry Davis Jr., 34, guilty Monday in a "no body" murder trial after a little 
more than 2 hours of deliberation. Davis also was found guilty of numerous 
other charges related to the deaths of John "Gregory" Hughes, of Santa Rosa 
Beach, and Hiedi Rhodes, of Panama City Beach, neither of whom have been seen 
or heard from since May 7, 2012.

Tiffani Steward, former girlfriend and the mother of Davis' child, said she 
felt "relief" as the verdict was being read. Steward testified she was present 
the night of the slayings.

"I just hope the family will finally get closure, and I will get closure 
myself," she said.

Prosecutor Bobby Elmore faced what seemed like an uphill battle since the 
bodies of neither Hughes nor Rhodes were ever recovered.

Elmore used bank account records, cellphone records and the lack of contact 
with friends and family to argue Davis killed the couple. Many family members 
were present Monday for closing arguments in the trial of Davis when Elmore 
made a final push to convince jurors that Davis killed the couple and robbed 
Hughes' home "down to the very last salt shaker" in order to have enough money 
to assemble a marijuana growing business.

"If everyone lived happily ever after, then why have they never been heard from 
again?" Elmore asked. "Why did (Davis) go back and take everything (Hughes) 
owned and why did he take Hiedi Rhodes' dog she never parted with? ... Because 
no one lived happily ever after."

Elmore argued Rhodes was collateral damage in a robbery attempt that turned 
deadly, after which Davis dismembered and chopped up both of the couple's 
bodies and burned the pieces.

Davis did not testify on his own behalf during the trial.

Defense attorney Spiro Kypreos highlighted the inconsistencies in the stories 
told by witnesses, to whom Davis allegedly admitted the killing. He compared 
the lies told by the state???s witnesses told against Davis to lies told in the 
Salem witch trials. Kypreos mostly attempted to puncture the testimony of the 
key witness, Steward, who claimed to be in Hughes' home at the time.

Kypreos said the inconsistencies in her story could be explained by her fear - 
not of Davis - but of serving prison time for possibly being considered an 
accomplice.

"She's always eager to make her testimony fit the state theory ... and she 
always does," Kypreos said. "Give her an idea and, if she thinks long enough 
and hard enough, she'll come up with a story."

Steward told jurors that the night of May 7, 2012, she and Davis went to 
Hughes' home unannounced so Davis could collect on a drug debt. Hughes invited 
them into his home for dinner and margaritas, she said.

Steward told jurors she and Rhodes left to get margarita mix, only to find 
Hughes motionless and bleeding on the floor when they returned. Steward said 
Davis then grabbed Rhodes by the throat until she slipped into unconsciousness. 
He then bound both Hughes and Rhodes and submerged their head in a bathtub, she 
testified.

Davis would later return to collect their bodies, chop them up and burn them at 
his own home, the state argued.

However, Davis' attorney said Davis and Hughes discussed business that night 
before amicably parting. Hughes even allowed him to leave with his Cadillac 
Escalade, Kypreos said.

Kypreos also said that when 2 independent human remain detection dogs, also 
called cadaver dogs, alerted on the Escalade, they were actually smelling blood 
from some previous incident.

"The name 'cadaver dog' is misleading," Kypreos said. "They are trained to 
detect remains - bones or blood, as in this case."

A cadre of people who helped Davis in some way after May 7 told investigators 
they feared Davis and misled law enforcement under his direction, including a 
group who assisted in removing Hughes' possessions from his home. In total, 
authorities said they recovered more than $18,000 in Hughes' property from 
Davis' home.

Authorities also claimed Davis forged about $16,000 worth of Hughes' checks for 
moving Hughes out of his house and "property maintenance." Those funds went 
toward planting the seeds of a business, the prosecution said.

"He was broke," Elmore said. "He couldn't even turn his lights on, but here 
comes the future. He took Hughes' money to build the marijuana grow room."

Prosecutors also claimed a trail of cellphone calls and texts highlighted the 
truths of witness testimony and traced Davis' actions in the days and weeks 
after the killings of Hughes and Rhodes as investigators attempted to close in 
on Davis.

Davis previously was acquitted of stealing a 2008 Corvette from Hughes 
following his disappearance. Jurors on Monday found Davis guilty of 15 counts 
of robbery, theft and fraud to attain Hughes' possessions, including 1st-degree 
premeditated murder of Hughes and Rhodes.

Circuit Court Judge Kelvin Wells was expected to give the jury a day off and 
resume the penalty phase Wednesday to determine if Davis will be sentenced to 
death.

Steward said she did not think a person who takes another's life should have to 
give their own life as a penalty.

"He should have to think about what he's done every day for the rest of his 
life," she said. "My son will never know his father because of his decision. I 
just hope he can find peace within himself and find God."

(source: Panama City News Herald)








TENNESSEE:

Death Penalty To Be Considered In Kirsten Williams Murder Case



It could be years down the road, but Shelby County District Attorney Amy 
Weirich says she is prepared to consider the death penalty in the murder of 
7-year-old Kirsten Williams.

4 men have been charged with 1st degree murder in the April shooting, which 
resulted in the death of the young girl as she played down the street from her 
home.

The preliminary hearing in this case will take place on June 23, but legal 
maneuverings have already begun on both sides.

Weirich explained the upcoming process to FOX13.

"If those charges are murder 1st degree, then the conversation begins with the 
D.A.'s Office about the death penalty and that's a decision that I make in 
meeting with the prosecutors assigned to the case," Weirich said.

FOX13 did some digging regarding both the statistics and recent histories 
concerning death penalty cases in Memphis and Shelby County. Our research 
revealed three convicted murderers have been sent to Death Row since 2010.

We looked specifically at Jessie Dotson, the infamous Lester Street killer of 
six, and Sedrick Clayton, who was convicted in 2014 for 3 murders.

Well before their respective trials, both underwent a mental evaluation. It is 
a process that's apparently being conducted with some, but not all, of the 
co-defendants in the Williams murder.

"The mental exams were on the co-defendants, not on Mr. Stokes," Carlos Stokes' 
Attorney, Marty McAffee, said. "I didn't see any problem at this point. No need 
to have an evaluation of Mr. Stokes at this point."

When the time comes, the District Attorney's office will have to make the call 
of whether or not they want to pursue the death penalty. For those having to 
make the decision, it is not a choice that is made lightly.

"It is a difficult decision to make and it's completely guided by the law of 
the State of Tennessee," Weirich said. "Not everyone in a 1st degree murder 
case is eligible for the death penalty."

(source: myfoxmemphis.com)








NEBRASKA:

The death penalty's dying breaths, even in Nebraska



Someday when they write the history of the death penalty in the United States, 
it will include the fact that on the day Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar 
Tsarnaev was being sentenced to death in federal court in 
anti-capital-punishment Massachusetts, the Nebraska legislature was voting 
nearly 2-to-1 to repeal the state's death penalty law.

Yes, Nebraska.

When Nebraska is considering abolishing the death penalty - although the 
governor has promised a veto - you know where this is headed.

When governor after governor - in states not Nebraska - say that he or she no 
longer wants to be part of the death machine, you know where this is headed.

When the polls - which not so long ago showed upwards of 80 % favoring the 
death penalty - fall closer to 50 % when life without parole is an option, you 
definitely know where this is headed. You don't know how long it will take, but 
the direction seems clear.

The people in Massachusetts don't want the death penalty. Governor after 
governor no longer wants to be part of the death machine. Overall public 
support is 50 %. You know where this is headed.

The conversation that John Hickenlooper promised - and has since avoided - on 
the death penalty is everywhere now, including Colorado. The Aurora theater 
trial makes it impossible not to have the conversation. If James Holmes is 
convicted of his terrorist act, will he get the death penalty? And if he does, 
will it ever be administered in Colorado, where no one has been executed since 
1997?

The only thing certain is the uncertainty. And the death penalty - the ultimate 
penalty - cannot survive without certainty. It's built on it. It's about the 
promise not only that the person being put to death is guilty - and we've see 
how often DNA testing has upended that promise - but that there's justice in 
determining who gets life and who gets death.

And although the Supreme Court keeps shifting the rules to try to make the 
death game equitable, there's no real argument here. Convicted murderers are 
sentenced to die disproportionately according to race, gender, geography, the 
ability to hire a good lawyer, how they scored on an IQ test.

And now we have the bizarre uncertainty of whether an execution will even end 
in a predictable death. This is partly how Nebraska got into the argument. In 
Nebraska, as in many states, they've run out of the 3-drug cocktail that most 
states use for lethal injection. They've run out because the 1 place in America 
that made 1 of the drugs refused to sell them anymore. And so, in what has 
turned into a black comedy, desperate states finally found a London middleman 
who shared offices with a driving school, until the FDA stepped in.

Then they tried a place in India - that's apparently where the governor of 
Nebraska finally scored - but it's unclear whether this import business is even 
legal. States had tried other countries in Europe, but the European Union ruled 
that Europe was out of the death business.

The 3-drug cocktail was invented with little to no scientific input in 
Oklahoma, where they were desperate enough to try a substitute drug in the 
botched execution of Clayton Lockett. You may know the story. It has, in large 
part, changed the debate.

The executioner couldn't find a vein in Lockett's arms or legs, and so he ended 
up with the groin, where the needle didn't hold. The sedative didn't work 
properly, and when Lockett was supposed to be unconscious, he was struggling 
for breath. And when the death cocktail was supposed to have killed him, he was 
still alive. Eventually they had to call off the execution, just in time for 
Lockett to die. And suddenly cruel and unusual were back in the conversation.

You don't have to feel sorry for Lockett, who kidnapped a woman in a botched 
robbery, shot her and then buried her alive. The killers themselves are often 
the best argument for the death penalty. Heinous, after all, is usually the 
right word. It certainly applies to the Boston bombings, where the bombs were 
built to inflict maximum damage to innocent people at an event that, as much as 
any other, defines the city.

And yet, if you trust the polling, the people in Massachusetts didn't want this 
ending. The death penalty has been off the books in Massachusetts for 3 
decades, and no one has been executed since 1947. But the trial was taken to 
federal court, where the death penalty was in play.

And even though a Boston Globe poll showed that only 15 % of Boston residents 
were in favor of putting Tsarnaev to death, the jury voted unanimously for the 
death penalty. It was not a surprise. The jury was selected so that only those 
who are death-qualified - meaning those drawn from the minority in 
Massachusetts who believe in the death penalty - could be on the jury.

The verdict, in the words of The New York Times, left the city's residents 
"unsettled," which may leave unsettled those who argue that the death penalty 
brings closure. It may, if closure means waiting 10 or 20 years as the long 
series of appeals play out. It may not, if, say, you live in Pennsylvania, 
where there are 185 people on death row - and no executions since 1999. The 
Democratic governor there has issued a moratorium on what he calls an 
"ineffective, unjust and expensive" system.

And in very Republican Nebraska, an unlikely combination of Republicans, 
Democrats and independents are close to sending the governor a bill to abolish 
their ineffective, unjust and expensive system. This is not as shocking as you 
may think. The legislature voted in 1979 to end the death penalty, but it was 
vetoed by the governor. And 20 years later, it voted for a moratorium, again 
vetoed by the governor.

In the next week or so, the legislature, on third reading, will try again. In, 
yes, Nebraska.

(source: Mike Littwin, The Colorado Independent)








USA:

Death penalty, even for Tsarnaev, a stain on U.S.: DiManno ---- Forget 
Tsarnaev's reported remorse or his negligent upbringing. His death sentence is 
wrong because of what it does to the U.S., writes Rosie DiManno



Outside of war, there is only 1 justification for killing the enemy - an 
immediate and mortal threat.

Self-defence or defence of others.

Not for retribution. Not for vengeance, as in eye-for-an-eye Old Testament 
decree.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one half of the Boston Marathon bomber-brothers, is a threat 
to no one anymore and the option was there to make certain he would never be a 
menace to society in the future - a future spent entirely behind bars, in grim 
solitude, 23 hours a day of utter isolation at a "supermax" federal prison. 
(Such solitary confinement has come under legal challenge in the United States 
and has been increasingly reined in by various state jurisdictions.)

Instead, the 21-year-old was condemned to death by a Boston jury last week, 
execution by lethal injection.

It will be years - if ever - before the sentence is administered, with appeals 
after appeals guaranteed, in a state which hasn't executed anybody since 1947.

America is a great nation, perhaps the greatest ever. But its stubborn cleaving 
to the death penalty is an ugly stain on every principle of enlightenment so 
passionately espoused and deeply cherished in U.S. history. It puts America in 
the company of China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Libya and North Korea - among the 58 
countries where the death penalty is still permitted. According to Amnesty 
International, 140 countries - including Canada - have abolished this most 
primitive form of "justice."

Its persistence south of the border diminishes America immeasurably.

Its wielding as punishment against Tsarnaev prolongs the anguish caused by the 
April 15, 2013 attack against innocents at the finish line of the beloved 
Boston Marathon that killed 3 and seriously injured more than 240, including 17 
people who lost at least 1 leg. Worst, but not most deadliest, terrorist attack 
on American soil since 9/11.

A 4th person, MIT police officer Sean Collier, was killed a few days later, 
during the massive manhunt that ensued, shot several times by Tsarnaev and his 
older sibling Tamerlan as they attempted to flee in a carjacked SUV. In the 
chaos of the subsequent gunfight with cops, Dzhokhar ran over Tamerlan, killing 
him.

Interestingly, the jury did not vote to give the death penalty based on the 
death of Officer Collier, but did for his role in killing Boston University 
student Lingzi Lu and 8-year-old Martin Richard. Both bled to death at the 
scene, bodies ripped apart by flying shrapnel when the 2 pressure-cooker bombs 
exploded, and linked directly to the device Tsarnaev placed outside a 
restaurant. He was not sentenced for the death of a 3rd victim killed by the 
blast from the 1st bomb. But the jury found that death was the appropriate 
punishment for 6 of the 17 capital counts in which he'd been convicted.

Martin Richard's remarkable parents, Bill and Denise Richard, had made it clear 
they did not want the death penalty for Tsarnaev. In an elegant statement 
published in the Boston Globe, they wrote: "We understand all too well the 
heinousness and brutality of the crimes committed. We were there. We lived it. 
The defendant murdered our 8-year-old son, maimed our 7-year-old daughter, and 
stole part of our soul. We know that the government has its reasons for seeking 
the death penalty, but the continued pursuit of that punishment could bring 
years of appeals and prolong reliving the most painful day of our lives. We 
hope our 2 remaining children do not have to grow up with the lingering, 
painful reminder of what the defendant took from them, which years of appeals 
would undoubtedly bring . . .

"The minute the defendant fades from our newspapers and TV screens is the 
minute we begin the process of rebuilding our lives and our family."

They did not speak about forgiveness or enter into any argument about the 
immorality of the death penalty.

But their view is shared by the majority of Massachusetts' citizenry. Poll 
after poll has shown that the state's residents overwhelmingly favoured life in 
prison for Tsarnaev, who was 19 when the crimes were convicted. The most recent 
pulse-taking, a month ago, found just 15 % of Boston residents wanted Tsarnaev 
executed, and only 19 % statewide, in sharp contrast to the 60 % of Americans 
who favoured execution according to a CBS News poll.

That speaks, I think, to the progressive nature of a city and state which wears 
its bears historical aversion to the death penalty proudly, still shamed by the 
17th-century Salem Witch Trials that put at least people, mostly women, to 
death for sorcery, and the 1927 execution of Italian-born anarchists Sacco and 
Vanzetti.

Some of the Boston Marathon bombings expressed satisfaction with the 
death-penalty verdict, which was unanimous and came after a mere 14 hours of 
deliberation.

"Happy is not the word I would use," Karen Brassard, who suffered grievous leg 
injuries, told the New York Times afterwards. "There's nothing happy about 
having to take somebody's life. I'm satisfied, I'm grateful that they came to 
that conclusion, because for me I think it was the just conclusion."

While many were shocked by the sentence, the outcome really was all but 
preordained. Jurors, in order to be selected for the trial panel, had to be 
"death qualified" - a hideous terms meaning they needed to be open to a death 
penalty. Those opposed to executions on principle could not serve. In that 
context, the jury did not reflect the mores of the general population in the 
region where the trial was held.

And the trial was held in Boston because then-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder 
- judicial right-hand man to President Barack Obama - refused a defence 
petition for a change of venue. From the very beginning, it was Holder's 
decision to seek the death penalty, a palpably political strategy.

Massachusetts abolished the death penalty for state crimes in 1984. But 
Tsarnaev was prosecuted under federal laws. (Of 80 federal defendants sentenced 
to death in the U.S. since 1988, only 3 - including Timothy McVeigh, the 
Oklahoma City bomber - have actually been executed.)

As has been noted even by harsh critics of the sentence, it wasn't the jury's 
job to make policy. Theirs was a difficult job and they did it, rejecting every 
argument for mercy mounted by the defence, which even pulled out Sister Helen 
Prejean, the Roman Catholic nun whose work with death row prisoners was 
dramatized in the '93 film Dead Man Walking. Prejean testified that she had met 
with Tsarnaev, that he'd expressed remorse and that she believed his sincerity.

I don't care about remorse, real or feigned. I don't care that Tsarnaev was 
under the malignant influence of his older brother. I don't care that he was 19 
and hailed from a dysfunctional, negligent family.

He was a colossally evil young man. I understand the visceral rage that 
resonates still from his contemptible acts.

But a death penalty isn't, in the end, about him.

It's about societies that kill killers, which do unto others - even the most 
irrefutably guilty, as was Tsarnaev - the very monstrosity they have committed. 
Deliberately, planned, with forethought: All the requirements of 1st-degree 
murder, onto which is larded righteousness.

No pain is alleviated. Nothing is undone. The dead can't be breathed back to 
life nor limbs restored to the maimed.

It only consecrates cruelty. And there's zero virtue in that.

(source: Opinion, Rosie DiManno; Toronto Star)

*******************

America should know better than to use the death penalty



I've been thinking a lot about steak-frites. Soft, bloody, barely-seared meat 
with fat running from its ribeye, salted potato, tarragon-heavy Bearnaise, and 
some decent petits pois Grandmere. Not only because I'm going to be in France 
for the rest of the week, but also thanks to recent reminders of the vitality 
of capital punishment.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Mohammed Morsi have both just been sentenced to death. 
One, a teenaged terrorist, part of a fraternal gang of 2, who placed his 
cooking-pot bomb behind an 8-year-old. The other, a deposed president, briefly 
seen as the success story of the Arab Spring. The latter's sentence was 
confirmed by a religious leader, in a country whose flirtation with 
(terrorism-based) democracy was quashed by the return of military rule, and 
where human rights are in free-fall. The former's was determined by the federal 
court of a country claiming to lead the developed world.

Death is incomprehensible. It's the absence of life, and the end of 
possibility. It's nothingness, not another valedictory milestone. And, no 
matter how clever we've become, how much we can learn from Wikipedia, we still 
don't know anything about it. Where do we go when we die? Umm, we don't go 
anywhere, do we? We're not 'we' anymore.

Surely, it's this end to existence - this substantial change - with which we 
struggle. The, 'Can I get a self-charging iPhone for my coffin, in case I 
wake?' And the swabbing of the inmate???s arm with antiseptic before injecting 
pentobarbital or sodium thiopental.

In the midst of life, the uncertain certainty of death is an easily exploitable 
fear. How acceptable it is to use this returns us to classic antagonism between 
the state and the individual: the extent to which we abdicate liberty in order 
to gain corporate security. The death penalty is the ultimate form of state 
control - and the ultimate form of state protection. (Some might argue that 
torture has more potency, but there's not time to discuss that here.)

Debate abounds as to whether, and in which combinations, punishment should aim 
for retribution, restitution, or deterrence. And - particularly when dealing 
with a penalty as irreversible as death - surrounds its efficacy, not just in 
terms of the message sent to other potential criminals. We've all read about 
the innocent people who have mistakenly been killed, and the occasional 
sickening failures of the methods used. (If you haven't, you should - sorry, in 
advance.)

But - like the specific atrocities of those facing this form of punishment, and 
whether the ability to commit these atrocities might better place them in need 
of medical help - failures aren't the point. If people keep breaking the speed 
limit, we should educate them more and enforce it better, not change it! Laws 
should be put and kept in place because we are convinced that they are right. 
We must hope for the continual refinement of our country's justice system, 
wanting to make it as fair and good as possible.

Yes, apocryphal support for capital punishment is often used to decry 
referenda. Guy in pub: 'Ha, but if we allowed everyone a say on stuff, we'd 
bring back hanging, yeh?' But recent polls suggest that Britons are 
decreasingly in favour. And shock, rather than satisfaction, has resounded at 
Priti Patel's seeming refusal to deny her previous pro-death penalty position. 
On topic, I'm convinced that Michael Gove's 1-time advocation simply 
exemplified the journalistic use of a sensationalist position to strengthen a 
quite different argument.

It is difficult - even for those who currently support it - not to consider the 
eventual abolition of capital punishment a sign of a country's progress. Most 
human rights organisations uphold this as a leading goal for society. In 1998, 
the final civil and military exemptions (treason, piracy, mutiny, etc) from 
Britain's 1965 Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act were removed. The 6th 
Protocol of the European Convention of Human Rights enforces this stance for 
member states of the Council of Europe.

To me, the correctness of this comes down to the difference between necessity 
and luxury. Taking another's life can - sometimes - be a necessary act for an 
individual or state: during moments of self-defence, or war. This doesn't make 
it good, but it does make it justifiable, at the time. It should then also be 
examined and judged in retrospect. The state's role is to protect its citizens; 
when it's the only option, it is acceptable for the state to do this by killing 
others, which is why war can be right.

(The difficulty with the Tsarnaev case is the complication of modern terrorism. 
Might this make our Just War Theory dated? Should he have been tried as a war 
criminal? A prisoner of war? An enemy combatant, in a time of war? On limited 
reflection, probably no.)

Regardless, from the position of relative luxury - with space to think in safe 
surroundings, and your potential victim already under arrest - how can killing 
someone be necessary? Death shouldn't be playable; it's not just another 
option. To end another human being's life is, as someone once said, to end the 
world.

The casual, Akond of Swat-esque approach of 'Would you rather be chopped in 
pieces, or hung, or shot?' or, 'What would you like for your last meal?' is 
wrong. It's calculated. It's an abuse of power. It's why you thought my opening 
paragraph was in bad taste. America should know better.

(source: Column; Rebecca Coulson is a freelance classical musician and writer, 
and was Parliamentary Candidate for the City of Durham at the 2015 General 
Election----conservativehome.com)

****************

Why no outcry over death penalty in the US?



When the Indonesian government executed 2 Australian drug runners it was big 
news, but when an United States court announced the death penalty for the 
Boston bomber, the media and the politicians had moved on. Has the Australian 
government, the Catholic Church or others lodged a complaint with US 
authorities?

I do not doubt the principled position taken strongly by politicians and the 
media over the execution of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. To the contrary, 
I ask the question because the issue of the death penalty cannot be forgotten 
while the latest political kerfuffle takes centre stage in Canberra and the 
death penalty issue subsides for the time being.

Needless to say, the next case after Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran may not 
be far away.

A federal jury in the US has sentenced Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar 
Tsarnaev? to death. For some that may raise issues from an Australian 
perspective. Do we really think it makes any difference if an execution 
involves an Australian citizen or not? And, given the possibility of extremists 
operating in our region, does it matter if the perpetrator fails to seek 
forgiveness?

Maybe it's time for some introspection, a general discussion within the 
Australian community and some bipartisan discussions at the political level on 
how the government will handle similar issues in the future.

Understandably, discussions on the death penalty can be highly emotional. 
Anybody listening to the media recently would think that all Australians are 
opposed the death penalty. However, a Morgan poll taken in late January, showed 
that 52 % were in favour of the death penalty for those convicted overseas for 
drug offences. Of Australians, a larger majority (62 %) said the Australian 
government should not do more to stop the execution of Myuran Sukumaran and 
Andrew Chan, while 38 % said the Australian government should do more to stop 
the execution.

I understand that on 2 separate occasions in the weeks leading up to the 
execution, MPs raised their concern in the party room that the government had 
taken too strong a line with the Indonesians. Their concern was not surprising. 
Public support for the death penalty was about 80 % in the 1970s, so even if 
public opinion is likely to slowly move away from the death penalty, it will be 
divided for a long time yet. In those circumstances, rather than trying to keep 
supporters of the death penalty out of the public discussion, it would be wise 
to encourage more forums to debate the issues. And this should be a task not so 
much for the government but the churches and other community organisations.

However, the government should consider how it will handle the issue in future.

The approach taken on behalf of Chan and Sukumaran was unquestionably a new 
approach for the Australian government. I don't see that the government can 
take a less active role in the future for drug smugglers. It is certainly 
possible that extremist terrorists operating in Indonesia with Australian 
citizenship could in the future also face the death penalty.

The Indonesian president is not about to abandon his policy promise to remain 
strongly in support of the death penalty for drug runners. Therefore, another 
execution may be even more difficult than the recent situation. I do think that 
the Indonesians failed badly in handling the situation, and these matters 
should be discussed with them at the diplomatic level. At least we have a 
starting position; both countries want to maintain our relationship. I would 
also say that we must make abundantly clear that we respect Indonesian 
sovereignty, including the right to make decisions with which we disagree.

The US also don't like be told how to run their own country.

Views are strong, as demonstrated by the US Attorney-General Loretta Lynch who 
said of the Boston bomber: "The ultimate penalty is a fitting punishment for 
this horrific crime and we hope that the completion of this prosecution will 
bring some measure of closure to the victims and their families". Many in the 
US will agree with her.

The Boston bomber used pressure-cookers stuffed with gunpowder taken from 
fireworks. Glued all over them were ball-bearings and nails, shrapnel designed 
to cause as much carnage as possible. The killing and the maiming was shocking. 
And when asked, the bomber said he couldn't stand to see the US government "go 
unpunished". He showed no remorse and wrote: "We Muslims are one body, you hurt 
one you hurt us all".

I hope we never face this situation in Australia, but if we do the application 
of reason and humanity is what we will need more than ever.

(source: Column; Peter Reith was a Howard government minister and is a Fairfax 
columnist----The Age)

********************

America's vicious cycle of murder: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev & the totalitarian logic 
of our death-penalty obsession ---- The dark truth about our country's 
adherence to the vigilante justice of state-sanctioned executions



Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 21-year-old American convicted for setting of bombs in 
Boston two years ago, is to be murdered by his government. One can almost 
imagine the scene: On a sunny day in the near future, Tsarnaev being hauled out 
on to a platform in central Boston, his crimes repeated aloud by a masked 
executioner so the gathered crowd can hear it, before multiple poisons are 
injected into his veins; after writhing and shuddering, a white-coated doctor 
checks his pulse, before declaring the terrorist dead. The crowd dissipates, 
onlookers returning to their daily lives, while the media returns to the latest 
campaign-trail blunder.

Of course, in reality, only the murder is to happen. It will happen in secret, 
far from the public view.

Since 1976, 1,408 Americans have been put to death by the state. Of these, 
1,233 people have been given lethal injections, 158 electrocuted, 11 put in gas 
chambers, 3 people hanged, and 3 killed by firing squad. Only since 2002 has 
the execution of mentally impaired inmates been considered cruel and unusual 
punishment. (44 mentally impaired inmates were executed between 1984 and 2002, 
including Ricky Ray Rector, put to death by then-Governor Bill Clinton in 
Arkansas in 1992.) And only in 2005 did the Supreme Court rule that executing 
minors was unconstitutional. In the words of Justice Henry Blackmun, the ship 
of state moves slowly when it comes to tinkering with "the machinery of death."

Advocates of state murder and human sacrifice - much more accurate terms than 
the euphemistic "capital punishment" - point to science's pacification of the 
entire ordeal. With advanced chemicals capable of numbing and disabling the 
body in seconds, the prisoner may die "with dignity" (as the papers so often 
say). Last year, former Texas Governor Rick Perry, one of the most prolific 
executioners in American history, justified the killings administered in his 
state as "appropriate and humane."

However, while there may be such a thing as humane death, lethal injection is 
the very opposite of it. Last year, a man named Clayton Lockett writhed for 
minutes after the poisons has been injected into his groin. He raised his head 
and groaned, "Oh man." When Michael Lee Wilson was executed last year, he was 
reported to have cried out: "I feel my whole body burning." Charles Warren's 
final words were: "My body is on fire." In some cases, more than 30 minutes 
passed between the injection of poisons and the pronouncement of death, a 
harrowing length of time filled with convulsions and tremors.

4 years ago, the sole U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental - the 
executioners' preferred drug - stopped producing it, and the European Union 
banned the export of chemicals that could end up in execution chambers. Several 
states then began creating secret cocktails of drugs and did not disclose the 
names of the pharmacies supplying them. Missouri went so far as paying cash for 
the drugs lest their makers be held accountable. The FDA, in a gutless 
capitulation, facilitated the importation of these untested cocktails for the 
killing industry, which the D.C. District Court overturned, berating the FDA 
for its "callous indifference to the health consequences of those imminently 
facing the executioner's needle."

There are plenty of other reasons, apart from its inherent immorality, why 
state murder has no place in modern societies. It costs hundreds of millions of 
dollars more than life imprisonment. It does not deter crime. It targets the 
poor and singles out African-Americans. These are all sufficient reasons for 
dispensing with the death penalty, but an even more fundamental reason for 
banning it is that the death penalty is a totalitarian institution that gives 
the state the power to decide who will live and who will die by the officers 
and doctors of the state. This is why, when France did away with the guillotine 
in 1981- the only constitutionally valid method of execution since the French 
Revolution - its Justice Minister Robert Badinter said that state murder 
"expresses a totalitarian relationship between citizens and the state."

If there is anything that should be considered the very antithesis of American 
values, it is this dystopic nightmare of organized government killing, done in 
cramped rooms, using mysterious drugs supplied by unregulated companies. Orwell 
and Kafka would recognize this killing machine in an instant.

But did Dzhokhar Tsarnaev not intentionally try to kill as many people as 
possible in Boston 2 years ago? Did he not target his fellow citizens and blow 
some of them to pieces without even a hint of remorse? The answer is yes. 
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is an adult, he made a horrible decision, and he should be 
punished by society for his crimes. But to reduce the law to a simplistic 
eye-for-an-eye logic - Tsarnaev killed and so he must be killed - is to reduce 
civilization and society to a barbarous state, one that the rule of law is 
meant to overcome. Murder is wrong whether done by the individual or the 
collective (with caveats around self-defense and just wars). And since the 
question is coming, I will pre-empt it: If my (Muslim) mother had been killed 
in Boston on that tragic day 2 years ago, I would lose my sanity. But I would 
hope an impartial legal system would not mete out justice the way a vengeful 
and vindictive individual would. This is the purpose of criminal law: To 
punish, and to rehabilitate, not to torture and murder - and torture cannot be 
extricated from lethal injection.

The death penalty transforms the democratic republic into a vigilante state, 
with supposedly enlightened governments clinging to a relic from our 
lesser-evolved days. Indeed, the death penalty, as Albert Camus wrote, is 
actually "the most premeditated of murders." Imagine for a moment that the 
state putting its citizens to death were an individual, detailing the exact 
date and time of his impending killing, the method that would be employed, the 
room in which the deed was to be done, the options of the final meal that would 
be allowed. Horror films are made about such people.

The fate that awaits Tsarnaev is the same fate that awaits Western hostages in 
the captivity of terrorists. The difference is that the American justice system 
is suppose to aspire to higher ends, and should be judged by higher standards 
than that of warlords. The United States understandably wishes to keep this 
state murder hidden behind walls. If it was revealed to the public just what 
Tsarnaev was about to face, if Americans could read with their morning coffee 
the details and images of Tsarnaev's coming murder, they may rethink support 
for this peculiar institution.

(source: Omer Aziz is a writer and student at Yale Law School; salon.com)

******************

Tsarnaev, the Death Penalty, and the Eyes of the World



4 days before a jury sentenced Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death for his role in the 
2013 Boston marathon bombing, the United States was roundly criticized by 
dozens of countries for using the death penalty.

At last Monday's Universal Periodic Review, a process through which each United 
Nations member country has its human rights record periodically reviewed by 
other member countries, 36 countries called for the US to reconsider its use of 
capital punishment. The US, a country that carried out among the greatest 
number of executions in 2014, is one of a dwindling number of countries that 
use the death penalty.

The death penalty is at odds with the primacy of human dignity and the right to 
life. It is inherently cruel and irreversible. In the US, its imposition is 
inseparable from issues of race and poverty. Also, the US's criminal justice 
system is fallible - since 1973, 153 death-row inmates have been exonerated.

Beginning in 2007, the UN General Assembly has endorsed a world-wide moratorium 
on the use of the death penalty. 81 countries have ratified a treaty abolishing 
the practice. Friday's verdict not only went against this international trend, 
but also against the values repeatedly expressed by Bostonians in polls 
following the bombings. The most recent Boston Globe poll on the issue found 
that 66 % of Boston residents, and 63 % of state of Massachusetts residents, 
favored a life sentence for Tsarnaev. Massachusetts abolished the death penalty 
in 1984. The jury in this case had the option to sentence Tsarnaev to death 
because the US federal government, rather than state authorities, prosecuted 
him, and the federal death penalty has yet to be abolished.

At the Universal Period Review, the US delegation responded to international 
criticism by pointing out that no federal defendant had been executed in over a 
decade. But this response glosses over the fact that the federal government has 
sought death sentences in at least 200 cases since 1988. The verdict in the 
Tsarnaev case further highlights the temerity of this response.

If the US wishes to strengthen its standing as a rights-respecting nation, an 
abolition of the death penalty is long overdue.

(source: Human Rights Watch)

**************************

Aurora shooting jury quizzed after Tsarnaev sentence



Defense attorneys in the Aurora theater shooting trial had the judge poll 
jurors to ensure they weren't affected by the death-penalty sentence in the 
Boston Marathon bombing case.

Jurors told Judge Carlos Samour that they could still be fair to James Holmes, 
who faces the death penalty in connection with the July 20, 2012, shooting 
inside a suburban Denver movie theater that killed 12 and injured 70 others. 
Police and prosecutors say Holmes also rigged his apartment with homemade 
explosives and incendiary compounds, along with gasoline and napalm made from 
Styrofoam cups.

Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was condemned to death by a jury in Boston on 
Thursday. With no court in the Aurora trial on Friday, Monday was the 1st day 
back after that decision.

"Obviously, there are a number of parallels to that case and this case," Holmes 
defense attorney Kristen Nelson said in court.

Prosecutors argue Holmes is a highly intelligent young man who secretly plotted 
the attack for months as his professional and personal life unraveled. Defense 
attorneys say Holmes suffers from schizophrenia and was delusional, and that 
his mental illness prompted him to plan and execute the shooting without 
understanding that what he was doing was wrong. The trial is in its 4th week, 
and is expected to last another 4 months.

(source: USA Today)