From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Nov 1 08:44:44 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2015 08:44:44 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., MISS., OHIO, ILL. Message-ID: Nov. 1 PENNSYLVANIA: DA challenged over suspect's medical records An Allegheny County Common Pleas judge will not bar the prosecution of a man accused of killing 2 sisters in East Liberty in 2014. But Judge Edward J. Borkowski has not yet decided whether he will prohibit the district attorney's office from using records the defense contends were obtained improperly regarding defendant Allen Wade's medical and mental health history. Wade, 44, is charged with 2 counts of criminal homicide in the deaths of Sarah and Susan Wolfe, whose bodies were found in their Chislett Street home on Feb. 7, 2014. Defense attorney Lisa Phillips told Judge Borkowski at a hearing Friday that the prosecution should have obtained search warrants for the records in question - which require a showing of probable cause be made to a judge - instead of just issuing a subpoena to the agencies that hold the records. "I'm suggesting we now have an issue of prosecutorial misconduct and a pattern of behavior," Ms. Phillips said. She told the court the DA's office took a similar tack in another death penalty case - against Dorian Peebles - but the issue was rendered moot when the prosecution took capital punishment off the table against him. "The commonwealth was on notice that issuing these subpoenas could be a problem," Ms. Phillips said. In a motion filed this month, Ms. Phillips said the district attorney's office improperly obtained her client's records last fall, and then sought a court order from the judge only afterward to "legitimize" their request. In September, Judge Borkowski issued an order denying the prosecution's motion. "Why didn't someone tell me you already had these things?" the judge asked. "We never litigated these matters," said assistant district attorney Bill Petulla. In his reply motion to the court, Mr. Petulla said that the gathering of records is part of the prosecution's duty to prove the aggravating factors to support seeking the death penalty against Wade. Further, he noted that all of the records were turned over to the defense as required by the rules of discovery. Defense attorney Lisa Middleman suggested that, because the prosecution has already obtained the records and seen the information in question, that the district attorney's office should no longer be permitted to try the case. "I think that would be an appropriate remedy given this [office] had access to privileged, private information they are not entitled to," she said. Judge Borkowski said he had to decide the underlying question before deciding on a remedy. Also at Friday's hearing, Judge Borkowski granted the defense request for a postponement. Wade's trial had been scheduled to start jury selection next week. The delay, the judge said, is so that the defense can have more time to challenge the prosecution's DNA evidence that it claims links Wade to the crime. Judge Borkowski chided both sides in the case for not moving more efficiently. "The matter has not been given the proper attention by either side," the judge said. (source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) MISSISSIPPI: The Jeff Havard Death Penalty Case Attracts International Support With Letter Campaign The Jeff Havard case in Mississippi is attracting more international attention. Havard has seen support coming from a growing list of countries in recent years, including (but not limited to) Australia, Canada, Italy, New Zealand, and the UK. He can now add France to the list. French anti-death penalty advocate, Louis Richard, has taken great interest in Havard's case and is leading a call to action. Havard has served nearly 13 years on death row in Mississippi for the sexual assault and murder of his girlfriend's 6-month-old daughter, Chloe Britt. Havard has strongly proclaimed his innocence from the time of his arrest, and his supporters will tell you that he was wrongfully convicted for a crime that never happened. Havard has stated from the beginning that the infant slipped from his arms while lifting her from the tub, causing her head to hit the bowl of the nearby toilet. The infant's death was an accident, not the heinous crime the State claims it to be. Richard reviewed the evidence of the case, concluding that Havard is innocent. He has now set out to deliver a message of support through social media, encouraging people to write letters on Havard's behalf. Supporters in the US are thrilled to see Richard's efforts and are hoping his involvement will encourage more people worldwide to speak out in support of Havard's innocence. Havard's supporters believe that anyone who reads the facts of his case will conclude that he should be granted a new trial. They are confident that new expert evidence has clearly established that a sexual assault never occurred and that the injuries to the infant resembled that of a short fall. Multiple experts have now reviewed Havard's case and their findings all support Havard. In fact, there are now five experts that refute the prosecution's case. Dr. Stephen Hayne, the State's only expert to testify at trial, has gone on record declaring that the State got it wrong. There are currently no experts who support the State's theory of the accused crime. The defense learned in January of 2014, 12 years after the conviction, that Hayne had looked at tissue sections under a microscope and found definitively that there was no evidence of sexual assault. In a case where suspicion of sexual assault only arose when ER doctors and nurses noticed what they believed to be physical evidence of sexual abuse. Hayne's microscopic findings were clearly exculpatory, and would have positively shown that the doctors and nurses had simply misinterpreted what they saw. Hayne has now stated that he told the State before trial that he saw no sign of a sexual assault. The state withheld this evidence from the defense and also failed to tell the doctors and nurses who testified. The State of Mississippi chose to ignore their expert's findings, and pushed forward to prosecute Jeff Havard for murder during the course of a sexual assault. As a result, an innocent man now sits on death row for a crime that never took place. Chloe Britt's death was tragic, but it was not a murder. In April of this year, the Mississippi Supreme Court finally granted Havard permission to request an evidentiary hearing based on new evidence. This is good news for Havard and his supporters, and may very well be the reason why the case is now catching the attention of advocates like Louis Richard. Here is the letter campaign being promoted by Louis Richard on Facebook: (Here is a sample letter that you can use as is or modify to your liking): Office of the MS Attorney General ATTN: Hon. Jim Hood P.O. Box 220 Jackson, MS 39205 USA Subject: Grant a new trial for Mr. Jeffrey Havard Attorney General Hood, I am writing to you regarding a statement your office made on your behalf to CNN on February 20, 2012: "Our office has the singular responsibility to not only ensure that the guilty are punished but that the innocent are set free." If that is the case, here is my question to you: what happened with Jeffrey Havard? Mr. Jeffrey Havard, as you know, has been on your Death Row since 2002, however, there are significant problems with his conviction. Mainly; --State and Federal laws regarding cases that involve the type of accusations leveled at Mr. Havard, mandate that all evidence is to be reviewed by experts qualified in child sexual abuse. This was not done. --The State tried Mr. Havard without ever attempting to establish sexual assault with expert testimony on forensics. --The standard of proof for sexual assault, according to the law, was never met. --The prosecution tried this case, never establishing "to a degree of medical certainty" that a sexual assault had occurred. --Dr.Steven Hayne had informed the District Attorney's Office, prior to trial, that there was not enough evidence to conclude a diagnosis of sexual battery. --The autopsy, which was never introduced into evidence, states that the child's body "was unremarkable" and makes no reference to sexual assault whatsoever. --Despite the law requiring the standard of proof, prosecutors put Mr. Havard's life in jeopardy based only on unqualified and faulty observations, since the charge was predicated on injuries that did not exist. --Based on the above, this shows that no scientific methodology (differential diagnosis) was ever performed, since the so-called injuries did not exist. --Dr. Haynes testimony only rose to the level of possibility which did not meet the standard of proof in court, which is a "degree of medical certainty." --Emergency room staff (State's witnesses) claims to have seen rips, tears and bleeding in the anal area. Steven Hayne observed nothing of the sort in his autopsy report, and photographic evidence indicates no such thing. --Still, the ER staff gave this testimony in court and it was never challenged or objected to by the defense. Their "invalid testimony" was/is the State's "case in chief." --This further underscores that none of the witnesses were qualified. "Observations" are not tests or forensic reviews. --Mr. Havard's trial attorneys did no independent investigation of any kind, which the law requires in a capital murder case. Attorney Sermos admitted in open court that he did not understand the autopsy and had no medical knowledge. --The Court wrongfully denied Mr. Havard's request for his own medical expert. Instead, the Court recommended that his attorneys contact the State's expert (Hayne). --Mr. Havard's attorneys did not contact Dr.Dr. Hayne or anyone else with the medical expertise they admittedly lacked. --The State and the Court improperly placed the burden of proof on Mr. Havard to explain the anal dilation (the ONLY binding factor in the case). --A study at Duke University estimated that death penalty cases take 3 to 5 times longer than a typical murder trial (http://fds.duke.edu/db/attachment/301). --Jury selection for this capital murder case took one day (12/17/02), and the prosecution presented their case in one day (12/18/02), leading the trial judge to remark: "the case has been moving along quite satisfactorily." --Mr. Havard's trial took just 48 hours from jury selection to sentencing. There are other factors, too numerous to mention, however, I would like to bring a few other things to your attention; This is a direct quote from the prosecution (Mr.Rosenblatt)to the jury during closing arguments: "This case I cannot possibly understand. Please don't try to understand this case." Additionally, Mr. Havard was told at the police station that Chloe Britt died due to a vicious sexual assault. Mr. Havard couldn't explain it because it never occurred. He did not know that she had died from a closed head injury until he saw it on the arrest warrant, at which time he immediately asked for Detective Manley, telling him that Chloe had accidentally fallen. Mr. Havard used bad judgment by not telling Chloe's mother Rebecca Britt immediately upon her return from the store that Chloe had accidentally fallen, and he was wrong to think he knew how to care for the infant after her fall. The situation was new to Mr. Havard as the child and her mother had only been living with him for 3 weeks. Mr. Havard's bad judgment in a time of crisis does not equate to murder and sexual assault. Being guilty of bad judgment does not make Mr. Havard death penalty eligible. It merely makes him human, capable of making an honest mistake. Mr. Havard waived his right to an attorney and fully cooperated with the investigation. Mr. Havard requested a polygraph but was refused. Mr. Havard refused a plea agreement and based his decision not to testify in his own behalf on his attorney's advice that the taped interrogation spoke for itself, although they had told him that he would be permitted to testify until just prior to trial. Mr. Havard refused the plea he was offered because, being innocent, he believed in the sanctity of the Judicial System in this country. He believed that truth and justice would prevail. This case MUST be reviewed by your office since your job is to "ensure the innocent be set free." The State of Mississippi has done Chloe Britt's family and Jeffrey Havard a grave injustice. For all those reasons, I respectfully ask you to grant Mr. Jeffrey Havard a new trial. I look forward to your response. Sincerely, (Name and Address) (source: groundreport.com) OHIO: mmediate future of Ohio's death penalty remains in doubt Almost a year ago, in the waning days of the last general assembly, state lawmakers moved a package of law changes aimed at ensuring Ohio could continue to administer the death penalty to inmates receiving capital sentences for their heinous crimes. HB 663 called for the names of compounding pharmacies to be shielded from public view, allowing those businesses to mix and provide the lethal injections used in executions without fear of being targeted by death penalty opponents. State prison officials earlier adopted protocols allowing the use of such compounded drugs, but they couldn't find any compounding pharmacies willing to provide the product. Pharmacies had to request anonymity in advance, and their names would be released to the public after a couple of decades. In January, a little more than a month after the legislature passed HB 663, Gov. John Kasich postponed all 2015 executions to give the state time to find sources for the lethal injection drugs. 10 months later, there still are no lethal injection supplies to be found. And in recent days, Kasich postponed a dozen executions, most scheduled for next year. "Circumstances exist justifying the grant of a temporary reprieve," the governor wrote in documents filed with the court. The Department of Rehabilitation and Correction specified further that it "continues to seek all legal means to obtain the drugs necessary to carry out court ordered executions, but over the past few years it has become exceedingly difficult to secure those drugs because of severe supply and distribution restrictions. The new dates are designed to provide DRC additional time necessary to secure the required execution drugs." Death Row inmates now facing 2017 executions include Ronald Phillips, convicted in the rape and murder of a 3-year-old Akron girl more than 20 years ago. He was supposed to be executed 2 years ago, but the governor postponed his initial date while he determined whether it was feasible to donate one of his kidneys to a sick family member. In total, 11 inmates now have executions scheduled in 2017, plus 8 more in 2018 and a half a dozen in 2019. Next year's schedule includes 2 executions in March, 2 in May and 2 in July, marking the 1st time in recent history that multiple inmates could be put to death in Ohio in the same month. That same bill that shielded compounding pharmacy names from public view included the formation of a legislative study committee to consider Ohio's death penalty policies. Senate President Keith Faber (R-Celina) didn't take issue with the governor's decision to postpone executions. But he suggested to reporters that it may be time to consider alternative execution methods. "The death penalty, if we're going to conduct it in Ohio, needs to be done fairly, needs to be done safely, it needs to be done in a way that is transparent," he said. "From that perspective, if we can't get the drugs that our protocol calls for, either we need to change our protocols or we need to think about other solutions. There are a lot of people out there talking about other solutions. I've heard everything from using heroin to using nitrogen to going back to the electric chair. That's a debate that probably we need to have." (source: Tallmadge Express) ILLINOIS: Case of long-ago killer instructive for potential Illinois dealth-penalty debate Girvies Davis didn't look so menacing in court. But, I wondered, how did he appear to Esther Sepmeyer as he and accomplice Richard Holman looted her house outside Maryville and shot the 83-year-old woman in the head while, officials believe, she knelt on her bed in prayer? In a long parade of defendants through courts I covered, Davis was special to me in a scary way. I had been reporting on a string of violent robberies across the Metro East. One July night in 1979, experiencing what turned out to be harmless heart palpitations, I went to be checked at Anderson Hospital. And I was stunned to learn the next day that the duo the cops called the ".22 caliber killers" had been visiting Sepmeyer just across the highway from the hospital at the same time. The spree ended the next month, when an auto parts store employee was killed in a holdup in East St. Louis and his wounded co-worker put a shot into the back of a fleeing Davis. Behind bars, Holman and Davis started confessing other crimes - ostensibly more than they really committed. But officials did link Davis to 10 robberies, with 9 people dead and 7 wounded. As I watched, a Madison County jury found Davis guilty of murder and ruled him eligible for execution. A judge condemned him to death. (Holman, spared by his youth, got life in prison.) Davis eventually was executed, in 1995, at 37, but for a different killing. Davis had been convicted in St. Clair County of the 1978 shooting of Charles Biebel, 89, as he sat in his wheelchair in his mobile home near what was then called Belleville Area College. This would be ancient news now except that Davis is a good touchstone when talk about the death penalty comes along. And it's coming along again in Illinois, where a couple of legislators - including Metro East's own state Sen. William R. Haine, D-Alton - have proposed bringing it back, at least in especially egregious cases. It's a stark contrast to Missouri, which has executed 6 murderers just this year. Illinois hasn't executed anyone since 2000; the General Assembly removed the option altogether in 2011. Davis represents the whole debate wrapped up in one guy: He was a brain-damaged, low-IQ black killer of white victims convicted by all or predominantly white juries. Elderly people were slain in their own homes just to eliminate the witnesses. (It was "easier" than wearing a mask, Davis once told an investigator.) He was convicted of 4 murders; prosecutions were stopped as pointless after 2 death sentences. In prison, Davis turned to religion, became a preacher, and convinced supporters that he either was not a cold-blooded killer or had turned his life around. Some questioned whether his confessions were false, perhaps coerced by police. A strong movement developed to try to save his life, and to mourn when it failed. Many people said that if anyone ever deserved execution, it was Davis. Cops told me they felt certain that if given a chance, he would kill again. But some others saw him as an example of redemption. At least a few even suggested there had been wrongful convictions and that he was completely innocent, notwithstanding his being shot escaping a murder scene. With all of that in mind, I return to a question I've asked before to try to clarify the death penalty in my mind. Tell me why we use it. Give me a reason to test against the facts. A reason to balance against the historically uneven imposition of death sentences and the very real risk of executing someone innocent. (It was a series of close calls that drove Illinois Gov. George Ryan, never exactly a softy, to declare a moratorium on them 15 years ago.) Deterrence? The specter of execution didn't stop Davis. Or killers in Missouri, which has a busy death chamber yet has seen its murder total rise in 2 of the past 3 years. Illinois has seen murders drop in each of the 3 full years since its death penalty was abolished. Cost? Experts say incarceration is significantly cheaper than a decade of appeals that come with a capital case. Revenge? Should killing ever make anyone feel better? I admit that I was happy at the time to see Davis go. And I wrote as much. But I don't really know the reason why I felt that. And looking back, it seems like I should. (source: Pat Gauen, St. Louis Today) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Nov 1 08:45:34 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2015 08:45:34 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO., NEB., UTAH, USA Message-ID: Nov. 1 MISSOURI----impending execution Appeals court denies motion to stay execution of man convicted in triple murder The Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday denied a motion to stay the execution of a man convicted of a 1994 triple murder at a north Columbia convenience store. Ernest L. Johnson, 55, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Tuesday. Driven by his addiction to crack cocaine, Johnson on Feb. 12, 1994, robbed Casey's General Store, 2200 Ballenger Lane, and used a hammer and screwdriver to fatally bludgeon Mary Bratcher, 46, Mable Scruggs, 57, and Fred Jones, 58. Kansas City attorneys W. Brian Gaddy and Jeremy Weis have been unsuccessful in stopping Johnson's scheduled execution. In 2008, Johnson had surgery to remove part of a tumor in his brain and has since suffered seizures. His lawyers argued in a federal case that his brain condition combined with the pentobarbital creates a "substantial risk" that Johnson will have a violent seizure and a painful death that violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. U.S. District Chief Judge Greg Kays on Tuesday denied attempts to halt the execution, writing that Gaddy and Weis had not shown the case would win and that Johnson had not done enough to offer an alternative method of execution. Gaddy and Weis appealed, and a 3-judge appellate court panel sided with Kays. The panel said Johnson did not present strong enough evidence that pentobarbital would cause pain because of his brain condition. The judges also said Johnson's case was unlikely to succeed because he did not identify an alternative method of execution that could be implemented quickly and would reduce the risk of pain. His attorneys did argue lethal gas was an alternative execution method, but the court ruled that arguing lethal gas is "legally available in Missouri is not the same as showing the method is feasible or readily implementable alternative method of execution." A case in Missouri's Supreme Court still is pending. In that court, Gaddy and Weis requested a judge be appointed to consider evidence that Johnson is intellectually disabled. Past attorneys for Johnson unsuccessfully tried to convince juries that his IQ is 67, well below the average of 100, and therefore it would be unconstitutional to execute him. Neither Gaddy nor Weis responded to messages seeking comment Saturday afternoon. Johnson is the latest inmate in the country to challenge lethal injection protocols. Paul Litton, a professor at the University of Missouri School of Law, said there probably are more death penalty states in the United States with lawsuits fighting lethal injection procedures than those that are not. The inmates in nearly every case across the country are challenging the Eighth Amendment standard set by a U.S. Supreme Court decision in the 2008 case of Baze v. Rees. "It's a heavy burden basically to show that the method of execution presents a substantial or objectively intolerable risk of pain when compare to known and available alternatives," Litton said. If the Missouri Supreme Court appoints a judge to consider whether Johnson has an intellectual disability, that would delay his execution indefinitely, Litton said. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 2002 case of Atkins v. Virginia that states cannot execute people who are mentally retarded. Though a Boone County jury sentenced Johnson to death in 1995, that and a subsequent death sentence were overturned. A 2006 Pettis County jury's decision to put Johnson back on death row was upheld. "There were issues that had to be litigated," Litton said. "There are reasons this has taken awhile. What the death penalty does in a sense to families, instead of helping them, to a great extent you can say this is a case in which the litigation has actually probably harmed" the victims' families. (source: Columbia Tribune) ****************** Bucklew attorneys file new complaint with execution method Attorneys for Russell Bucklew have filed a 4th amended complaint in U.S. District Court to determine the method of his execution, and the court has ordered the state to respond by Friday. Bucklew, 47, of Cape Girardeau, received a last-minute stay of execution last year because of a medical condition attorneys argued could make lethal injection cruel or bloody. Bucklew has been on death row since 1997 after being convicted of murder, kidnapping and rape. Bucklew suffers from extensive vascular tumors in his face and throat that have worsened the longer Bucklew has been in prison. He is incarcerated at Potosi Correctional Center in Potosi, Missouri. "Mr. Bucklew has a very large tumor growing in his face, occupying his nose, throat and airway passages and causing him to experience constant facial and nasal cavity pain and pressure, as well as constant difficultly breathing," Emory University anesthesiology professor Joel Zivot wrote in the case. "Mr. Bucklew's airway is also friable, meaning it is weak and could readily tear or rupture. If you touch it, it bleeds." Nanci Gonder, press secretary for the Missouri attorney general's office, said the state plans to file a motion to dismiss the case Monday. "What happens next depends on how the state responds, and with what type of filing," one of Bucklew's attorneys, Lindsay Runnels, wrote in an email to the Southeast Missourian. The complaint gives the state an alternate means of execution -- lethal gas as a "feasible and available alternative method that will significantly reduce the risk of severe pain." According to media reports, the state of Missouri last used the gas chamber for executions in 1965. This satisfies a requirement offered by the U.S. Supreme Court in its decision in Gossip vs. Gloss, which decided June 29 that Oklahoma could continue to use the lethal-injection drug midazolam. Lethal gas remains an option in Missouri but is not used, Gonder told ABC News in 2012. Missouri has executed 6 prisoners in 2015, all by lethal injection. But only 1, Roderick Nunley, on Sept. 1, was executed by lethal injection since the Gossip vs. Gloss decision, according the Death Penalty Information Center. Bucklew was sentenced to death by a jury in July 1997. He was convicted of murder, kidnapping and rape in April 1997. He killed Michael Sanders in Cape Girardeau in front of Sanders' 6-year-old son and kidnapped and raped his former girlfriend, who had been living with Sanders. The complaint in Bucklew's case argues that any attempt to execute him by lethal injection will "lead to a prolonged and tortuous execution, with Mr. Bucklew hemorrhaging, struggling to breathe and suffocating." "These vascular abnormalities also create a great risk that the lethal drug will not circulate as intended in Mr. Bucklew's body, leading to a prolonged and very painful death," the complaint stated. The complaint states execution by lethal injection would violate the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. "A punishment is cruel and unusual if it creates a substantial risk of severe and unnecessary pain," Runnels wrote. Bucklew was one of 20 plaintiffs in a case filed in Missouri district court in 2012, but his case was separated because of his unusual medical condition. Since that case was originally filed, the Missouri Department of Corrections announced it was changing its lethal-injection drug from propofol to pentobarbital in October 2013. "The substance(s) that Missouri DOC uses to execute a prisoner by lethal injection makes no difference in Mr. Bucklew's case," Runnels wrote. In 2011, the Missouri Supreme Court denied a writ of mandamus from Bucklew, asking for expert services for his medical care. He also was denied such a request in 2009. (source: Southeast Missourian) NEBRASKA: FDA spells it out -- death drug illegal Nebraska's death penalty repeal is legally on hold for a year. But the death penalty itself is technically on hold because the state does not have the multi-syllable drugs -- sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide -- needed to comply with state protocol in putting inmates to death. Sodium thiopental is a rapid-onset short-acting barbiturate used to put the inmate to sleep. Pancuronium bromide is a muscle relaxant that can stop breathing. The drugs were ordered in April, but reportedly have not been delivered. Still, Gov. Pete Ricketts continues to give death penalty supporters an any-day-now assurance that the state not only has the resolve but also will have the means to execute the 10 men on death row. It has become his mantra. "When it comes to carrying out those sentences we're going to continue to look for ways to be able to do that and working with federal officials on that." "We're looking to secure these drugs. We're working with the DEA." "The state continues to work with the DEA to import the drugs." Nebraska repealed the death penalty in May, but a successful referendum has suspended the repeal and forced a vote of the people in November 2016 to decide the fate of capital punishment here. In the meantime, a University of Nebraska law professor is calling Ricketts' statements on securing the drugs a "red herring," meant to be misleading or distracting. "And even if the drugs somehow did enter the country illegally, their arrival in Nebraska would spark extensive and expensive litigation," said Eric Berger, who has a law degree from Columbia University, lists the death penalty as one of his areas of expertise and has written extensively about lethal injection. So what does the often referred to DEA, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, have to say about working with the state on importing the 2 drugs the Department of Correctional Services has paid $54,400 to a broker from India to purchase? In July, Nebraska, Texas and Arizona were told that any foreign manufactured sodium thiopental was disallowed across the board under a 2012 federal court injunction through the federal Food and Drug Administration, DEA spokesman Lawrence "Rusty" Payne said Friday. According to the FDA, sodium thiopental does not have an approved application in this country. If a shipment came through, it would automatically be illegal, Payne said. "So even if you have every permit, import license, registration, everything else, the drug has to be approved in the U.S., and right now sodium thiopental isn't," he said. The Corrections Department in late August had its shipment of the drug -- 3 packages -- turned back from a New Delhi FedEx facility to the sender because of improper paperwork, according to FedEx documents. In distinguishing the duties of the 2 federal agencies, Payne said it's the FDA's job to worry about the foreign source, while the DEA manages whether the recipient in the United States is registered to handle and import a controlled substance. Payne said the DEA has heard from the states over the past several months, but there's not a lot the agency can do. "Sodium thiopental is not importable. This is not a DEA issue. It's more of an FDA issue right now," he said. And so, states like Nebraska, Ohio, Texas, Arizona and Oklahoma which rely on that drug for executions are in a bind. In June, the FDA's director of import operation sent a letter to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction reminding him that if he intends to obtain any form of sodium thiopental from an overseas source, it would be illegal. On Oct. 9, Stephen Gray, chief counsel of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, challenged the FDA in a letter, contending Ohio would be able to legally import sodium thiopental if it comes from an FDA-registered source, is on the source's list of drugs in commercial distribution in the United States, is not misbranded or adulterated, and is in a shipment examined by the FDA. The state has 24 executions scheduled beginning in January and extending through 2019. But the state must ensure there are sufficient execution drugs 30 days prior to the execution date, according to regulations. Ohio has not executed an inmate since Jan. 16, 2014, when Dennis McGuire struggled and gasped for several minutes before succumbing to a combination of drugs being used for the 1st time anywhere in the U.S., the Columbus Dispatch reported. The issue is heating up in several states. Federal authorities confiscated imported sodium thiopental in Arizona and Texas a week ago. Officials in Arizona said they believed the drugs impounded there are legal, The Associated Press reported. And Texas officials said they went through proper federal channels, obtaining an import license from the Drug Enforcement Administration and notifying FDA and Customs. "The department is contesting FDA's legal authority to continue to withhold the state's execution chemicals," Arizona Corrections Department spokesman Andrew Wilder said. Meanwhile, 22 states, the federal government or courts have either put formal holds on executions, indefinitely stayed scheduled executions, officially declared moratoriums, granted reprieves while the issue is studied, or abolished the death penalty -- many of them because of problems with the lethal injection drugs. So is it realistic that Nebraska can obtain the drugs needed? Ricketts said last week that historically Nebraska and other states have been able to do that. "We still need to be able to work through the process. And we're going to continue to look at all our options ... to be able to carry out these sentences," he said. (source: Lincoln Journal Star) UTAH: Murder defendant appeals court's Miranda ruling A St. George murder defendant is asking the state's highest courts to consider overruling a local judge's decision that found the man's Miranda rights were properly protected by police during questioning about 2 women's deaths. Brandon Perry Smith, 34, filed the appeal through his attorney, Gary Pendleton, a week ago and was notified Monday by the Utah Supreme Court that the Court of Appeals will review the matter. Earlier this month, 5th District Judge G. Michael Westfall denied Smith's motion to suppress evidence gathered from the December 2010 police interview after officers found the bodies of 20-year-old Jerrica Christensen and 27-year-old Brandi Sue Dawn Jerden in a downtown St. George townhome. Smith is accused of killing Christensen, while a co-defendant - Paul Clifford Ashton - has already been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Jerden and another man unrelated to the women's case, as well as the non-fatal shooting of friend James Fiske at the time of the women's slaying. Westfall's decision found St. George Police officers met the legal requirements for informing Smith of his right to an attorney and that Smith appeared able to understand his right to not say anything that might be contrary to his own interests. "He was presented with a full Miranda warning, he understands and speaks the English language, and he acknowledged both verbally ... and through conduct ... that he understood his rights," Westfall's ruling states. "The Court also finds that Defendant then abandoned those rights by speaking to Detective (Chris) Trani and answering his questions." Pendleton's "Petition for Permission to Appeal Interlocutory Order" asks the higher court to find, contrary to the local court's ruling, that Smith may not have understood he was already in trouble and entitled to the help of an attorney during police questioning, rather than facing the possibility that he might need an attorney's help at some future point in court. Pendleton also challenges the court's finding that the interviewing detective didn't have to clarify if Smith's comment about being unable to afford an attorney was an oblique request to wait for the court to appoint a publicly-funded attorney, and if the detective's failure to inform Smith of an attorney's offer to represent the defendant somehow affected Smith's understanding of his rights. Pendleton wrote that it is important to review the appeal now rather than waiting until after trial, because he says the prosecution aims to have jurors draw inferences from Smith's comments that would form the "sum and substance of the evidence" prosecutors are using to justify the death penalty if Smith is found guilty. While an appellate court's ruling to suppress the interview evidence would not stop the criminal prosecution, "such a ruling would ... likely result in an abandonment of the State's efforts to impose the death penalty," Pendleton wrote. "There is no direct evidence establishing any of the alleged aggravating circumstances." The 1st of 4 aggravating circumstances acknowledged by now-retired Judge James Shumate in allowing the death penalty as a possible outcome was the prosecution's evidence that Christensen's death took place as part of incident in which other people were murdered or the victims of attempted murder. The prosecution acknowledged during arguments in 2013 that the other 3 "aggravators" were the result of what it regarded as reasonable inferences Christensen was killed in an attempt to prevent her from testifying about another murder, that her murder was part of an attempted kidnapping plot, and that the murder was the result of unusual cruelty demonstrated by the killer's depraved behavior. Then-Deputy County Attorney Brian Filter, who has since moved to Nevada, was particularly pointed in arguing that Smith acted brutally and dispassionately when he allegedly beat Christensen with a light-weight socket wrench as she was trapped in a rear bathroom before pounding her head against objects, choking her and ultimately cutting her throat with a pocket knife, all while carrying a semiautomatic pistol that could have made her death more immediate. "That's haunted me since the beginning of the case," Filter said at the time. "If he was going to kill her, for heaven's sake, (why not) just shoot her?" A 2-week trial in the nearly-5-year-old case had been scheduled to take place a month ago, but in May the trial was postponed indefinitely to handle remaining defense motions with the expectation that it will be longer than 2 weeks when it is eventually rescheduled. The parents of Smith and Christensen have consistently been present at the court hearings, awaiting disposition of the case. Ellen Hensley, Christensen's mother, held a candlelight vigil attended by friends, prosecutors and law enforcement in December amid a call for swifter justice on behalf of crime victims. "It is very painful to sit in court and listen to the rights of Brandon Smith being discussed and defended, knowing that he gave no thought to Jerrica's right to life that fateful night," Hensley said at the time. "I must say that I am losing my faith in the judicial system when a cold blooded murderer has more constitutional rights than the grieving mother of a murdered daughter." (source: The Spectrum) USA: Justices hear all-white jury case Prosecutor Stephen Lanier's meaning was unmistakable when he urged jurors in north Georgia to sentence the defendant to death in part to deter other people "out there in the projects." Almost everyone in the public housing apartments near the scene of the killing of a 79-year-old woman in Rome, Ga., was black, as was defendant Timothy Tyrone Foster. And after Lanier got through picking a jury of Foster's peers, all the jurors were white. So was the victim. Foster has been on death row for nearly 30 years, but his case still is making its way through the courts. The actions of Lanier and his staff will be in front of the Supreme Court on Monday, when the justices will consider whether the exclusion of all the black prospective jurors is a form of racial discrimination in violation of Foster's constitutional rights under a test the high court laid out in 1986. Georgia courts have consistently rejected Foster's claims of discrimination, even after his lawyers obtained the prosecution's notes that revealed prosecutors' focus on the black people in the jury pool. In 1 example, a handwritten note headed "Definite No's" listed 6 people, of whom 5 were the remaining black prospective jurors. The case arrives at the court a few months after Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the court should consider declaring the death penalty unconstitutional. Foster's case highlights several issues in the wider debate over capital punishment, including questions about his mental capabilities and the length of time he has lived under a death sentence. The only issue before the justices Monday deals with the way this particular jury was put together. Lanier, who did not respond to requests for an interview, has consistently denied any intent to discriminate, and the state argues in defending his actions that prosecutors actually wanted a black juror to avoid defense accusations that the jury was a "white lynch mob." But Stephen Bright, a veteran death penalty lawyer representing Foster at the Supreme Court, said evidence of a racial motive is extensive and undeniable. As senseless killings go, Queen Madge White's death was as brutal and pointless as they get. White had the misfortune to use her bathroom in the middle of the night. Only when she returned to her bedroom and turned on the lamp beside her bed did she notice Foster in her living room, according to Foster's confession to police. Foster said he was just out to rob White's home, but things got out of hand when she grabbed a knife and chased him around a living room chair. He picked up a fireplace log and hit White hard enough to break her jaw. Then he sexually molested her with a salad-dressing bottle and strangled her to death. Foster's trial lawyers did not so much contest his guilt as try to explain it as a product of a troubled childhood, drug abuse and mental illness. They also raised their objections about the exclusion of African-Americans from the jury. On that point, the judge accepted Lanier's explanations that factors other than race drove his decisions. The jury convicted Foster and sentenced him to death. The jury issue was revived 19 years later, in 2006, when the state turned over the prosecution's notes in response to a request under Georgia's Open Records Act. The name of each potential black juror was highlighted on 4 different copies of the jury list and the word "black" was circled next to the race question on questionnaires for the black prospective jurors. 3 of the prospective black jurors were identified in notes as "B#1," "B#2" and "B#3." An investigator working for the prosecutors also ranked the black prospective jurors against each other in case "it comes down to having to pick 1 of the black jurors." Still, Georgia courts were not persuaded. Eddie Hood was "B#1" in the prosecutors' notes. Now 75, Hood said he hasn't spent much time thinking about that case, although he said he told his wife he had an inkling race played a role in his dismissal. He said Lanier had no reason to fear he'd go soft on Foster. "I had no problem with the death penalty," Hood said at his home in Rome. But he said he was bothered by Lanier's comment about the projects when a reporter related it to him. "If I had heard that, it would have created some thoughts I wouldn't have been comfortable with," he said. The Supreme Court tried to stamp out discrimination in the composition of juries in Batson v. Kentucky in 1986. In that case, the court ruled that jurors could not be excused from service because of their race and set up a system by which trial judges could evaluate claims of discrimination and the race-neutral explanations by prosecutors. Foster's conviction came just a year after the court handed down that decision. Yet despite the decision, "race discrimination persists in jury selection," said a group of former prosecutors that includes author Scott Turow and former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, who served in the George W. Bush administration. "If this court does not find purposeful discrimination on the facts of this case, then it will render Batson meaningless," the ex-prosecutors wrote in support of Foster. In the course of selecting a jury, lawyers question potential jurors and first try to weed out people for specific reasons including the inability to impose a death sentence in a capital case or personal relationships with people involved in the case. Both sides also can excuse a juror merely because of a suspicion that a particular person would vote against their client. Those are called peremptory strikes, and they have been the focus of the complaints about discrimination. Justice Thurgood Marshall warned in the Batson case that the court's decision, which he supported, would not cure the problem. "The decision today will not end the racial discrimination that peremptories inject into the jury selection process. That goal can be accomplished only by eliminating peremptory challenges entirely," Marshall wrote. Among the current justices, only Breyer has echoed Marshall's concerns that discrimination is too hard to prove and allegations of bias are too easy to evade. (source: Associated Press) ***************** John Roberts' Supreme Court May Take Case to End the Death Penalty Court watchers say that the John Roberts-led U.S. Supreme Court may at last take a case that directly pertains to whether or not the death penalty is a constitutional punishment. Those who are working against the death penalty note that the 4 liberal justices are likely opponents of the sentence. Even conservative Justice Antonin Scalia recently noted that the court could get to such a case sooner rather than later. Though he said he thinks the Constitution allows for it, during a September speech at Rhodes College in Tennessee, Scalia said he "wouldn't be surprised" if the court takes a case that directly pertains to the constitutionality of the sentence. As The Hill reported, advocates for invalidating the death penalty are enthused over the possibility that the court could take the case. "There is a feeling that this is not a long shot with the court anymore," Cassandra Stubbs, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Capital Punishment Project, told the Washington-based paper. "I think there is no question we have 4 votes." In fact, some activists against the most final of penalties point to a recent SCOTUS case, Glossip v. Gross, the dissent of which seems to invite lawyers to bring a broad challenge to the legitimacy of the penalty. In the case, liberal justice Breyer issued a decision that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined that lays out several problems inherent in the death penalty. "Today's administration of the death penalty involves 3 fundamental constitutional defects: serious unreliability, arbitrariness in application, and unconscionably long delays that undermine the death penalty's penological purpose," Breyer wrote in June. "Perhaps as a result, most places within the United States have abandoned its use." Still, even in Glossip v. Gross, the final ruling was that Oklahoma's use of the drug midazolam in executions did not count as cruel and unusual punishment. Some felt it was a blow to those who want the abolition of the sentence. Abolitionists feel that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment and that it should be ruled unconstitutional. However, the Constitution does lay out specific crimes for which the penalty may be applied, so clearly the death penalty is not strictly unconstitutional. Supporters of the penalty, though, point out that a strong majority of Americans still support the death penalty in theory. As recently as October 7, 61 % said they still favored the death penalty. (source: breitbart.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Nov 1 08:46:19 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2015 08:46:19 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 1 INDIA: Death penalty for techie murderer in Mumbai ---- The porter raped Esther Anuhya before smashing her head with a stone and strangling her. A Special women's court on Friday sentenced a 29-year-old porter to death for raping and murdering a young woman techie from Andhra Pradesh, who had returned to Mumbai by train from Vijaywada in January last year. "The case falls under the category of the rarest of rare, hence the accused is awarded death sentence," declared Vurshali Joshi, the judge of the special court. "He must be hanged by his neck till he is dead." Chandrabhan Sanap, the porter, was convicted earlier in the week for murder, rape and other charges. The police managed to nab the accused and bring him to trial in a record time of two months and the verdict too was delivered in a short time. The prosecution demanded the death penalty for Sanap, pointing out that anything less would send a wrong signal. Esther Anuhya, the 23-year-old victim, a software engineer, had returned to Mumbai after her Christmas vacation to rejoin work at TCS. The train reached the Kurla terminus at 5am and Esther was waiting for a taxi to drop her to her place in south Mumbai. Sanap approached her and told her he was a cabbie and offered to drop her home for Rs300. However, when they walked out of the station, he took her to his motorcycle and told her that his taxi was not working. He convinced her to sit on his bike. A few minutes later, he diverted the bike to a lonely stretch near Kanjur Marg on the pretext of going to a petrol station. He then dragged her to nearby bushes and tried to rape her. When she resisted, he smashed her head with a stone and strangled her. Later, Sanap took petrol from his bike and tried to burn her. He then took her baggage and fled. When Esther's father could not reach her, he lodged a missing person's complaint and then came to Mumbai. About 10 days later, the police found her charred and decomposed body by the side of the Eastern Express highway. The police scanned the CCTV cameras at the station and spotted footage of Sanap talking to Esther. Sanap was nabbed in Nashik in less than 2 months. (source: Khaleej Times) *************** Dec 16 juvenile to be released: Does he deserve a fair chance in life? The lone juvenile convict in the December 16 gangrape case is all set to be released soon after being "reformed" even as his 4 adult accomplices await the Supreme Court's decision on their appeal against death penalty given to them. The heinous nature of the gangrape had shocked the nation, and marches and rallies were carried out across India demanding swift justice. The juvenile was sent to the shelter home after being convicted in the rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012 - a case that triggered nation-wide protests and led to tougher laws for crime against woman. 5 other adults convicted for the crime were sentenced to death. Of them, one was found dead in his Tihar Jail cell in a suspected suicide. This is not an isolated case where a juvenile guilty of a heinous crime such as rape and murder has benefited from benevolent provisions of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 that does not permit treating minor offenders on a par with adults for trial and punishment. (source: Hindustan Times) PAKISTAN: A much welcome SC verdict A 3-member Supreme Court bench has issued its detailed judgement in the Salmaan Taseer murder case. Spread over 39 pages, the court's opinion is not very different from what saner sections of society have been saying for a long time. Addressing the issue, whether it constitutes blasphemy to demand change in the existing man-made blasphemy law, as Taseer had been advocating, the judgement says "any call for reforming the blaspheme law (section 295-C Pakistan Penal Code) ought not to be mistaken as a call for doing away with that law, and it ought to be understood as a call for introducing adequate safeguards against malicious application or use of that law by motivated persons." Of course, no one said - or could say in their right mind - the law should be done away with, only that its misuse should be stopped. In fact, as the court noted, if Islam comes down heavily upon commission of blasphemy then Islam is also very tough against those who level false allegations about a crime. The real issue that needs to be tackled is to ensure no innocent person is booked for blasphemy on the basis of a fake allegation (notably, so far the higher courts have not upheld a single sentence for blasphemy). It is not unusual for unscrupulous individuals to level baseless blasphemy accusations out of personal enmity or to make a property grab. The accusation virtually amounts to a death sentence. Pointing the finger at somebody on this account is enough to get them killed by a furious mob. Those arrested by the police to face the law seldom fare any better. Lawyers afraid for their own lives are too afraid to defend them, judges too harassed to deliver justice. In one case, a Lahore High Court judge was shot dead in his chambers for giving relief to a blasphemy accused. After pronouncing death penalty for Salmaan Taseer's assassin, Mumtaz Qadri, the judge of the anti-terrorism court hearing the case had to leave hastily not only the courthouse but the country as well to save his life. An air of fear and intimidation prevails. As the court noted, in the absence of adequate safeguards against misapplication or misuse of such law by motivated persons the persons falsely accused of that offence suffer beyond proportion or repair. Unfortunately, the religious parties are insistent on retaining the blasphemy laws in their existing form even though it is a man-made law introduced by General Ziaul Haq's regime. Each time reform is attempted they threaten to launch street agitation. After Taseer's assassination, PPP's Sherry Rehman introduced an amendment bill in the National Assembly aimed at preventing abuse of the laws, only to discover that her life too was under threat from the religious right for advocating reform. The apex court constitutes a great morale booster. Citing amendments to the Hadood laws, the bench aptly observed in its detailed judgement that in all matters, including religious, there is an ongoing effort to keep the laws of the land updated through amendments to meet the emerging challenges, and also to provide safeguards against mischievous implications, misapplications or misuse of the existing laws. The government should draw courage from this to do the needful. (source: Editorial, Business Recorder) VIETNAM: NA looks at penalty for crimes Many National Assembly deputies yesterday suggested removing the death penalty for certain crimes, including robbery, illegal drugs stocking, causing war and crimes against humanity. The matter was discussed at a session of the NA in Ha Noi. The death penalty was also proposed to be removed for surrender, war crimes and destruction of major works or means regarding national security. Many deputies said the removal of death penalty was in the main spirit of modern law due to humanitarian reasons, noting that serious crimes still carried life imprisonment. Deputy To Van Tam from Kon Tum Province suggested that the punishment should not be removed for two crimes: crimes against humanity and war crimes. Tam said these crimes included acts such as genocide, destruction of lives and killing ordinary people. These acts must be granted the highest punishment. Deputy Nguyen Ba Thuyen from Lam Dong Province said the death sentence should not be removed for robbery and illegal drugs trafficking. "If we remove the punishment with drugs trafficking, all those who got caught will claim that they were only transporting the drugs and therefore can get away with it," he said. Deputy Siu Huong from Gia Lai Province said capital punishment should still be given to those charged with public property misappropriation and bribery. She said these were 2 most serious crimes among corruption-related crimes, and the continuance of capital punishment with this crime would act as an effective deterrent. Deputies also discussed the banning of capital punishment to convicts who are: pregnant women or fostering children of less than 3 years old; those of more than 75 years old and those convicted for manufacturing counterfeit products which are medicines. Deputy Dang Thi Kim Chi from Phu Yen Province said those who are 75 years old or above might not live much longer, thus when given life sentence they are no longer a menace to society. Legal entity Deputies also talked about adding criminal liability of legal entities to the amended law, saying that it was important to strictly address individuals who violate the law. Deputy Than Duc Nam from Da Nang City said the criminalization of legal entities would be an effective tool to manage and address violations of legal entities during their operation. Deputy To Van Tam from Kon Tum also lauded the amendment, but wondered when a legal entity violates laws and is suspended from operation, what would happen to labourers who work for the legal entity. Tam said labourers should not have to bear the responsibilities for a legal entity's law violations. (source: Viet Nam News) KUWAIT: 2 youths escape death in Kuwaiti murder case----Victim's family accepts blood money, pardons killers A member of the Kuwaiti royal family and his fellow student have escaped the death penalty in a high-profile murder case after the victim's family pardoned them, a ruling by Sharjah Appeals Court said on Sunday. A judge sentenced them to 3 years in jail followed by deportation. The 2 Kuwaiti students have already spent around 3 years in jail. Sunday's verdict is final as the victim's family's have signed papers pardoning the suspects, a prosecutor told Gulf News. The parents of the Kuwaiti victim as well as the Kuwaiti royal family members attended the court session on Sunday. In November 2014, Sharjah Sharia Court had sentenced to death 2 Kuwaiti students who tortured a fellow student to death in February 2013. A 3rd suspect connected to the case was fined Dh1,000 in absentia in relation to charges of covering up the crime and failing to report it to authorities. Mubarak Mesha'al Mubarak, 19, died at University City Hospital in Sharjah on February 24, 2013, following several days of physical abuse.?The victim's family earlier had asked the judge to give the death sentence to the 2 Kuwaiti suspects. Salem Obaid Bin Sahoo, legal counsel representing the victim's family, told Gulf News that his clients had told him just after the incident that they wanted those responsible for their son's death to be given the death sentence but the family accepted the blood money of 1 million Kuwaiti dinars (Dh12.12 million) after a series of negotiations. In January, a higher court in Sharjah started a hearing on the appeal against the death penalty. Rashid Al Omrani, Attorney-General of Sharjah Prosecution, told Gulf News earlier, "According to our investigations, we are submitting 3 charges against the suspects to the criminal court: deprivation of the victim's freedom, torture and premeditated murder." The 2 suspects sentenced to death, Y.H.S., a member of the Kuwaiti ruling family, and H.A., 18, were being held at Sharjah's Central Prison. Lawyers for the accused had asked the judge to summon witnesses in the case, including the man who filmed a video of the torture, and staff at the emergency section of University City Hospital in Sharjah, in addition to university cafeteria staff where the victim collapsed, Bin Sahoo told Gulf News. "2 suspects confessed to their crime before the court and said that they tortured the victim for 3 days for allegedly harassing 1 of their female relatives," official sources conducting the investigation told Gulf News. It is understood that Mubarak was accused of harassing the sister of 1 of the 3 suspects and borrowed Dh100,000 from 1 of them. Authorities indicated this explained why Mubarak maintained his silence despite 4 days of torture and did not report the matter to police. (source: Gulf News) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Nov 1 15:49:47 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2015 15:49:47 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA Message-ID: Nov. 1 USA: Racism Is Rampant In Jury Selection. The Supreme Court Can't Fix It.----The Constitution prohibits excluding jurors on the basis of race, but there isn't much the justices can do to remedy that. Timothy Foster has spent almost 30 years on Georgia's death row. On Monday, his lawyer will appear before the Supreme Court to fight for his life. That's because Foster v. Chatman, a high-profile case about racism in jury selection, is really not a case about racism in jury selection. It's a case about racism in the application of the death penalty. Consider what Stephen Lanier, the prosecutor who tried Foster in 1987, told the all-white jury who heard the case. During the penalty phase of the trial, he said a death sentence was appropriate for Foster to send a message "to other people out there in the projects." Foster lived in government housing, and about 90 percent of his neighbors were black. Or ponder a psychiatrist's testimony on Foster's behalf, who found he "was in the borderline range for intellectual disability" -- with an IQ range between 58 and 80 his entire life. The jury rejected it and voted for death anyway. Or the very length of time Foster has spent on death row, or the reality he is only one of the 56 % of those awaiting execution who are people of color, according to a recent NAACP Legal Defense Fund report. There's a lot of things inherently suspect with the Foster case -- and the capital system in general -- and yet the Supreme Court on Monday will only be confronting the very limited issue of whether prosecutors improperly excluded on the basis of race all blacks who were perfectly capable of sitting in Foster's trial. This is a real problem that's still very much alive today. Foster v. Chatman has been styled that way because that's how advocates chip away at the death penalty these days -- by showing how it's unconstitutionally stacked against some defendants and not others. So far, the justices have heard or will hear a number of cases that attack the procedures states use in doling out death sentences, but none challenging the capital system itself. That case hasn't yet arrived, even though there's an open invitation to bring one to the table. The Foster case presumably drew the court's attention because blatant examples of racial discrimination -- especially if a person's life is on the line -- tend to draw more scrutiny than subtler forms of bias in the administration of justice. This one is the blatant kind. In 2006, Foster's lawyers got lucky when -- through an open-records request -- they got hold of the notes prosecutors made during jury selection in the case. To their surprise, they discovered that all the names of the potential jurors who were black were highlighted and marked with the letter B. At the top of each juror list, a key indicated that green highlight meant the potential juror was black. Separate juror questionnaires had the word "black" circled. No black jurors sat in Foster's trial. His lawyer before the Supreme Court, Stephen Bright, said in a brief filed with the court that this "evidence clearly establishes purposeful discrimination by the prosecution" -- particularly troubling if indeed the goal was to get the all-white jury to issue a death sentence and thus teach people "in the projects" a lesson. If the justices side with Foster and rule that his trial violated the Constitution's promise of equal protection, then he'll likely get a new one and potentially skirt death that way. But can the Supreme Court do more and fix the law in order to keep this from happening ever again? In court papers filed ahead of Monday's hearing, a group of former prosecutors urged the court to rule for Foster because "race discrimination persists in jury selection," and insisted that the court's prior ruling in Batson v. Kentucky remains "an important safeguard against" abuses in the jury system. That case, decided one year before Foster was convicted, established that the Constitution prohibits lawyers from using so-called "peremptory strikes" to shut out potential jurors on account of their race -- the rationale being that no citizen can be denied an opportunity to serve on a jury. The thing with peremptory strikes is that lawyers can use them to challenge potential jurors for almost any conceivable reason -- except a discriminatory reason, like race or gender. Since every lawyer wants to win a case, the only thing they have to do if the other side accuses them of discriminating against a juror is provide a "race-neutral" justification. And coming up with those justifications, it turns out, isn't really hard. Over the years, both prosecutors and defense lawyers have gotten really good at excluding jurors by coming up with non-racial reasons on the fly: That juror looked funny. That lady in the back didn't seem really invested in the case. The gentleman with the glasses is too old. In the Foster case, the prosecutor offered a litany of reasons to explain away his singling out of black members of the jury pool: The person's age. Their occupation. Church affiliation. Someone's appearance as "hostile." Whether they agreed with the death penalty. All of those, if believed by a judge, are perfectly permissible -- even if in the prosecutor's heart of hearts they're no more than bullshit. But the other side is also prone to bullshit. Just like prosecutors have an interest in securing convictions by drawing a jury panel that's sympathetic to their case, defense lawyers too want jurors who will view their client favorably. And they may very well seek to exclude a white woman for the sheer reason that she's white, or fight to keep a black person on the panel because the accused is also black. Isn't that unconstitutional, too. Though it's possible the Supreme Court will grasp the egregiousness of the Foster case and rule in his favor, it is far from clear if the justices will use his circumstances to fashion a practicable rule that would soften the edges of the problem nationwide. Much like the death penalty, the use of race in jury selection seems like something the court can only chip away at -- not fully eradicate. (source: Cristian Farias, Legal Affairs Reporter, Huffington Post) ******************** Presidential candidate Bush 'conflicted' about death penalty Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush said he is conflicted about the death penalty and wants to see reforms in how it is implemented. Bush, in an interview taped for broadcast on Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," said executions can provide closure for families of murder victims but that other issues are involved. "It's hard for me, as a human being, to sign the death warrant, to be honest with you," he said. "I'm informed by my faith in many things, and this is one of them. So I have to admit that I'm conflicted about this." "But we should reform it. If it's to be used as a deterrent, it has to be reformed. It can't take 25 years (of legal appeals before an execution). That does no one any good. Neither the victims nor the state is solving this problem with that kind of tangled judicial process." Florida executed 20 murderers while Bush was the state's governor from 1999 to January 2007, according to the database of the Death Penalty Information Center. Republican candidates generally have supported the death penalty while Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has said it should be re-examined and her main challenger, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, has called for its abolition. Bush's campaign has been troubled by lackluster debate performances, sagging poll numbers and recent cutbacks in staff and salaries of his campaign organization. He also has faced criticism from Republican rival candidate Donald Trump for being "low energy" and critics have questioned if he has the personality and resolve to carry a campaign through to the November 2016 election. Bush said on "Meet the Press" he did not know why pundits questioned his drive to be president but said he needed to improve his performance. "Look, I know that I've got to get better at doing the debate," he said. "I'm a grinder. I mean, when I see that I'm not doing something well then I reset and I get better. And I'm going to be better." (source: Reuters) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Nov 1 15:50:34 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2015 15:50:34 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 1 BANGLADESH: SC to hear review pleas of Mojaheed, SQ Chy tomorrow The Supreme Court is set to hold hearings tomorrow on the review petitions by 2 condemned war criminals--Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury -- against its verdicts that upheld their death penalty. The review petitions have been enlisted as item No 16 and 17 respectively in tomorrow's hearing list of a 4-member bench of the Appellate Division of the SC headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha. The Appellate Division also set tomorrow to hear another petition from Salauddin, urging it to record statements of eight persons, including 5 Pakistanis. This petition, filed by Salauddin on October 19, was included in his review petition. Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mojaheed and BNP leader Salauddin on October 14 submitted the review petitions to the SC through their lawyers seeking acquittal on all the charges brought against them. In the review petitions, the condemned war criminals sought reconsideration of the SC judgments on the ground that they were sentenced for "offences committed by others". The SC upheld the capital punishment of the 2 convicts in June and July after hearing their appeals against the verdicts of the war crimes tribunal. The International Crimes Tribunal issued execution warrants for the 2 on October 1, a day after the SC released the full verdict. (source: The Daily Star) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Nov 2 09:53:53 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2015 09:53:53 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----DEL., VA., S.C., LA., OHIO, MO. Message-ID: Nov. 2 DELAWARE: Dover Democrat to bring death penalty repeal bill back in January 1 state legislator plans to suspend the rules, and bring the death penalty repeal to the Delaware House floor. Once the General Assembly returns to Legislative Hall in January, Representative Sean Lynn (D-Dover) plans to suspend rules and bring Senate Bill 40, which would repeal the death penalty, to the House floor for a hearing and vote. The bill was voted down 6-5 by the House Judiciary Committee in May, and Lynn, a Democrat from Dover, said it's not the Democratic way for this bill to languish in committee. "It's exceedingly frustrating that it's stuck in committee--it's frustrating that it is denied a full and final hearing on the merits," said Lynn. "That really, the bill is not being dealt with substantively, but is being kind of hampered procedurally," Lynn told Delaware 105.9. Lynn added that he thinks the bill, in its present form, would pass the full House, but he is worried amendments could be added to Senate Bill 40 that would cause his colleagues to vote it down. "That may be used as a technique to essentially kill the bill or create such a procedural quagmire that for all intens and purposes, the bill is killed, so yeah, I'm absolutely fearful of that. Lynn didn't say whether he plans to suspend the rules on the 1st day of the session, but he did say will do so in January. (source: WDEL news) VIRGINIA: Death Penalty Support, Use Erodes in Virginia and US The death penalty is in a long, slow decline in Virginia and nationally, according to opinion polls and how often it's being used. Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, says surveys show support for the death sentence is at a 40-year low, and last year saw the lowest number of executions in 2 decades. Dunham says people are seeing practical problems with putting people to death, including the costs and botched executions. There also has been what he calls an innocence revolution - a wave of death row inmates later proven not guilty. "DNA has shown people have gone to death row who clearly didn't commit the offense," Dunham points out. "Innocent people are being convicted. There are false confessions. There are fabricated confessions. That's causing people concern." Death penalty supporters argue harsh justice is a deterrent to crime. Although Virginia executed Alfredo Prieto a month ago, the number of executions in the state has fallen sharply. Dunham says Virginia used to have one of the highest execution rates, until a court decision that changed jury instructions reduced the number of death sentences by 3/4. Dunham explains there used to be the misconception that if a capital convict was not executed, he or she could eventually be released on parole. But he says court rules were changed so that juries would be informed that a life sentence would really mean life behind bars. "Immediately when the juries were told that their sentencing option was life without possibility of parole and death, as opposed to just life or death, the rate of death sentencing dropped dramatically," he explains. One Virginia death row inmate was exonerated and then pardoned in 2000. The state has also had complex problems getting the drugs used for lethal injections. Dunham says FBI figures, confirmed by several studies, show the death penalty doesn't deter crime in any measurable way. "There actually is no demonstrable effect at all," he stresses. "In fact, murder rates are higher in states that have the death penalty than in states that don't have the death penalty." (source: Dan Heyman, Public News Service) SOUTH CAROLINA: Death penalty problems are inexcusable Death penalty opponents have an indisputable argument that the ultimate punishment inflicted by the state is terrible when evidence ultimately shows the person executed did not commit the crime. It has happened, and cases in which the technology of today proves cases of old resulted in conviction of the wrong individual makes the argument against putting someone to death even stronger. Amends in some way can be made by releasing the innocent from imprisonment, but there is no bringing the executed back to life. Beyond such a mistake, the Supreme Court has decided that capital punishment is not cruel and unusual, and states have the right in certain cases to exact societal retribution on those who take the lives of others. Execution in such cases is justice. But the death penalty as we know it today is not working. Cast aside any concept that capital punishment is some kind of major deterrent to violent crime. The cases drag on and on in the court system until very many violent offenders of today were children or as yet unborn when the crimes for which an execution is being conducted were committed. Cases related to Orangeburg County and The T&D Region are an example. On South Carolina's death row at present are: --Bayan Aleksey - Shot and killed Highway Patrol 1st Sgt. Frankie Lingard on New Year's Eve, 1997. Lingard stopped a white Mustang on Interstate 95 near Santee. Aleksey shot the trooper as he called in the vehicle's license plate. --Samuel L. Stokes - Convicted of killing and sexually assaulting 21-year-old Connie Snipes, whose body was found near Branchville in May 1998. She had been shot twice in the head. --Mikal Deen Mahdi - After pleading guilty to the 2004 shooting of Orangeburg Department of Public Safety Capt. James Myers, Mahdi received the death sentence. He was also sentenced to life in prison in the shooting death of a North Carolina store clerk. --Kenneth Simmons - Sentenced to die for raping and killing an 87-year-old woman in Dorchester County in September 1996. --John Edward Weik - Convicted in 1999 in the shotgun slaying of 27-year-old Susan Hutto Krasae at her home in Knightsville. Weik confessed to shooting Krasae 4 times. --Marion Bowman Jr. - Shot and killed 21-year-old Kandee Louise Martin before placing her body in the trunk of her car and setting the car on fire in February 2001. We long have argued the primary problem with capital punishment is the cases are not treated with the priority they are due. A capital case should push ahead of others on the docket, particularly with regard to appeals. As inexcusable as it is that it takes well beyond a decade to move a capital case from crime to punishment, the present-day controversy surrounding executions is worse. It is unfathomable that executions of individuals cannot be carried out in a swift and painless fashion without problems that largely stem from lethal injection. Lethal injection has been challenged in the courts many times, mostly without success. The biggest obstacle now for death-penalty states has been obtaining lethal chemicals after major drug makers stopped selling drugs for use in executions. That forced states to seek alternative drugs. The result has been all manner of problems with capital punishment - including more delays and more legal challenges. The U.S. Supreme Court presently has a handful of capital cases before it, and indications are that problems surrounding the death penalty could actually push the conservative court to reinstitute a national prohibition. In reality, there is practically a ban on capital punishment now. South Carolina, for example, has not executed anyone since 2011. And other states have instituted formal delays until issues surrounding lethal injection and other aspects of capital cases can be resolved. They may never be. But while the death penalty remains the law here and in other states, punishment should be carried out and without years and years of delays. If lethal injection has question marks, eliminate it as an execution method. It is inexcusable that a painless and efficient way of swiftly executing a killer cannot be foolproof. Death penalty opponents and proponents alike should agree on that. (source: The Times and Democrat) LOUISIANA: Jury unanimously takes convicted killer off death row The 2nd jury to convict a Shreveport man of strangling and dismembering an 86-year-old World War II veteran has voted unanimously to take Eric Mickelson off death row and keep him in prison for life. The verdict came after just under an hour of deliberation Friday about the sentence to impose on the 46-year-old man, news media reported. Jurors convicted Mickelson on Wednesday in the death of Charles Martin, a retired painting contractor who was killed during a home invasion in 2007. Mickelson was convicted and sentenced to death in 2011, but the Louisiana Supreme Court threw out that conviction because of an error during jury selection. The trial judge should have excused a potential juror who said he would not consider arguments that a killer's drug use could be a mitigating circumstance that might merit a life sentence instead of the death penalty, the justices found. Prosecutors, led by Caddo District Attorney Dale Cox, began the penalty phase Thusrday by telling jurors about a 1996 killing to which Mickelson confessed during questioning about Martin's death. Like Martin, Kristi O'Pry was strangled, dismembered and her remains scattered throughout the parish. "If what he did, didn't deserve the death penalty, nothing does," her sister, Amy O'Pry, told The Times (http://bit.ly/1MrqhMi ) afterward. Defense attorneys called expert witnesses including a forensic psychiatrist and a neuropsychologist on Friday. Both testified that Mickelson suffered from a condition that includes symptoms of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. "Much of what he says doesn't make sense," said Dr. Bhushan Agharkar, a forensic psychologist from Syracuse, New York. He said Mickelson also was delusional, citing his claim to have made $3.6 million by stealing quarters from vending machines. (source: Associated Press) OHIO: Visiting judge sets hearing in Akron to decide whether Warren killer gets to ask for new trial A visiting judge has scheduled a hearing at 10 a.m. Dec. 21 in the Summit County Courthouse to allow murderer Danny Lee Hill and his attorneys to argue why the judge should give them permission to ask for a new trial. Hill will be present for the hearing only through video-conferencing. Hill, 48, has been on death row since 1986, when he was convicted of the 1985 rape, torture and murder of Raymond Fife, 12, of Warren. Hill and co-defendant Timothy Combs attacked the boy while he was on his way to a Boy Scouts meeting. Hill was sentenced to death. He attempted to be excluded from the death penalty by arguing he was mentally disabled, but a visiting judge ruled against it. Combs, who was a juvenile at the time of the crime, is serving a life prison sentence. Attorneys Sarah Kostick of Tucson, Ariz., and Vicki Ruth Adams Werneke of the U.S. Public Defender's Office in Cleveland, filed a 400-page request in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court in 2014 seeking permission to ask for a new trial. The grounds for the request were that bite-mark evidence used at Hill's trial has been deemed in recent years unreliable by the National Academies of Sciences. The Ohio Attorney General's Office and Trumbull County Prosecutor's Office have argued that bite-mark evidence was not crucial to the state's case against Hill. Judge Andrew Logan of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court voluntarily allowed the Ohio Supreme Court to appoint a visiting judge to handle the matter. The Supreme Court appointed Judge Patricia A. Cosgrove, a Summit County judge, to the case. Judge Cosgrove issued Friday's order, which was sent to Hill's attorneys and the Trumbull County Prosecutor's Office. Judge Cosgrove has not ruled on Hill's request that the prosecutor's office be disqualified from being involved in the matter. (source: vindy.com) MISSOURI----impending execution Ernest Lee Johnson to be executed Tuesday for 1994 triple murder Barring clemency or any granted stays, Ernest Lee Johnson will become the 7th death row inmate executed in Missouri this year, and the 19th since the state resumed lethal injections 2 years ago. Johnson was convicted and sentenced to death in the 1994 murders of Mary Bratcher, Fred Jones and Mabel Scruggs. The 3 victims were all killed at a Casey's General store in Columbia, where they were employed at the time. According to prosecutors, Johnson had planned to rob the convenience store. Police found the victims' bodies inside the store, along with a bloody hammer. All 3 died from blunt force trauma, and one of the victims also had stab wounds. A bloody screwdriver was found in a nearby field. After obtaining a search warrant for Johnson's girlfriend's house, Columbia police found a pair of tennis shoes with a logo that matched bloody footprints at the scene, along with cash, coin wrappers and a receipt from the convenience store. Other articles of clothing found by police also contained splattered blood that was later matched to 2 of the murder victims. Johnson was convicted in 1995 of killing Bratcher, Jones and Scruggs, and was sentenced to death. However, the Missouri Supreme Court vacated his death sentence and ordered a new sentencing hearing, based on questions as to whether Johnson had insufficient representation at trial. But after the hearing, Johnson was sentenced to death again. That sentence was also later tossed out by the state Supreme Court, this time because of questions surrounding Johnson's mental capacity. Another sentencing hearing, though, resulted in the death sentence being reinstated again. The Missouri Supreme Court last month issued an execution order, which triggered the latest appeal, this one based on Johnson's physical health. He was diagnosed in 2008 with a slow-growing brain tumor and underwent surgery that same year. Doctors were not able to remove all of it, and the surgery itself scarred and destroyed part of his brain. Johnson's attorneys argued that pentobarbital, the execution drug used by Missouri, could cause him to suffer violent and uncontrollable seizures and would thus constitute cruel and unusual punishment. They argued that their client would prefer to be executed by gas chamber, saying that it "would significantly reduce the substantial and unjustifiable risk of severe pain." U.S. District Judge Greg Kays ruled against Johnson on Oct. 28, saying in part: "Johnson claims that 'temporary relief may cause a short, finite delay in the execution,' but ... he provides no basis for his assertion that (the Department of Corrections) can rapidly and cost-effectively adopt his preferred method of execution. And because Johnson appears to have sat on his rights for some time, any impending harm remediable by injunction is at least somewhat of his own creation. He has had all facts necessary to prosecute his claim for almost 2 years. He has known about his brain defects since 2008, and, according to him, the State has planned to use pentobarbital in executions since November 2013. Notwithstanding, he delayed filing his case until 12 days before his execution is set to occur.: Kays did acknowledge in his ruling that Johnson could experience physical pain and seizures from the use of pentobarbital in his lethal injection execution. Corrections officials responded by saying that Missouri has carried out 18 executions since November 2013 that were "rapid and painless." Johnson's attorneys have also argued that he was subjected to physical, mental, and sexual abuse as a child, to the point that he was unable to care for himself when he became an adult. (source: St.Louis Public Radio) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Nov 2 09:54:39 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2015 09:54:39 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OKLA., NEV., USA Message-ID: Nov. 2 OKLAHOMA: New laws on criminals take effect in Oklahoma A new law resulted from last year's botched execution of death row inmate Clayton Lockett and the problem Oklahoma has had acquiring the drugs needed to carry out lethal injections. Written by state Rep. Mike Christian, a former Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper and staunch advocate of the death penalty, it paves the way for Oklahoma to use nitrogen gas to execute inmates if lethal injection is ruled unconstitutional or if the necessary drugs become unavailable. There are no reports of nitrogen gas ever being used to execute humans, and critics have voiced concern that the method is untested. (source: Associated Press) NEVADA: Ammar Harris trial death penalty phase begins Monday A jury returns to a Nevada courtroom Monday to begin deciding whether a self-styled pimp gets the death penalty for killing 3 people by shooting into a moving car and triggering a fiery crash on the Las Vegas Strip. Ammar Harris was found guilty Oct. 26 of killing an aspiring rapper in a Maserati sports car and a cab driver and a tourist from Washington state in a taxi that exploded in a fireball early Feb. 21, 2013.M The 29-year-old Harris grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and lived in Miami, Atlanta and Las Vegas. He's got prior felony convictions for a weapon in South Carolina in 2004; rape and robbery in Las Vegas in 2013; and this year for bribing a Nevada prison guard to smuggle cellphones to him. (source: Las Vegas Review-Journal) USA: The 'worst of the worst' myth behind Clinton's pro-death penalty stance----How can we reserve the death penalty for the "worst of the worst" when we can't rely on the judicial system to not sentence the innocent to death? The death penalty made a rare appearance on the presidential campaign trail last week with Hillary Rodham Clinton saying she backs it "because I do think there are certain egregious cases that still deserve the consideration of the death penalty, but I'd like to see those be very limited and rare, as opposed to what we've seen in most states." There's the rub. How do we know with full certainty that someone is guilty of a "worst of the worst" crime? There are many arguments against the death penalty, from the inherent immorality of allowing a state to kill its own citizens, to the arbitrary and inconsistent application depending on the race of the convicted killer, and the race of the victim (black killers of white victims get the death penalty in a disproportionate number of cases). Geography matters, too. According to a 2013 report by the Death Penalty Information Center, "2% of the counties in the U.S. have been responsible for the majority of cases leading to executions since 1976 .... [A]ll of the state executions since the death penalty was reinstated stem from cases in just 15% of the counties in the U.S. All of the 3,125 inmates on death row as of January 1, 2013 came from just 20% of the counties." But another fundamental problem underscores the weakness of the "worst of the worst" reasoning that Clinton seems to embrace (her rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, both oppose capital punishment): We can't be sure that those convicted of the most heinous crimes are actually guilty. Analyzing data compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center shows that since 1973 at least 156 people have been released from death row after being exonerated of the crime for which they were convicted, defined as acquitted, had all charges dismissed, or been granted a pardon based on evidence of innocence. So these aren't the oft-cited "technicalities," but either findings of innocence or the complete collapse of a prosecutor's case. "We can't be sure that those convicted of the most heinous crimes are actually guilty." The racial breakdown of the exonerated is heavily weighted to African Americans, who accounted for 81, or 52%, of the exoneration cases, while whites accounted for 61, or 40%, of the exonerations. Latinos (12 cases) and "other" (1 case) accounted for the rest. But the disparity extends further. The 156 exonerated people spent an average of 11.4 years on death row. But wrongfully convicted whites spent an average of 9 years on death row, compared with the average 13.5 years blacks spent before being set free. So what is the "worst of the worst?" That's a judgment call, which is why even saving the death penalty for such cases is still an arbitrary act. For instance, "Green River Killer" Gary Ridgway admitted killing 48 people in Washington state and, in return for a life sentence, pledged to own up to other killings as evidence emerged. The prosecutors put verifying crimes (and guilt) above seeking the death penalty, which is an arbitrary decision. But Henry McCollum and Leon Brown, brothers in North Carolina, had nothing to bargain with and, on the basis of their confessions to the 1983 rape and murder of 11-year-old Sabrina Buie, they received death sentences. In a later ruling in a different case about the constitutionality of lethal injections in executions, pro-death penalty Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia cited the "the case of the 11-year-old girl raped by 4 men and then killed by stuffing her panties down her throat. How enviable a quiet death by lethal injection compared with that!" It was, indeed, a heinous crime. But McCollum and Brown didn't commit it, as DNA evidence revealed. The confessions, it turns out, were coerced (both men have intellectual disabilities), and investigators failed to follow up on clues that implicated another man who lived nearby, and who was later convicted of a similar rape-murder that occurred just a month after Sabrina's. When you can't be sure that the justice system is convicting the guilty, how can you rely on it to determine who lives and dies? Pro-death penalty activists argue that the problem with the absurdly expensive system is that it is too slow and cumbersome. But speeding things up just ensures that a higher percentage of the innocent will be executed. Of the 156 death row inmates exonerated since 1973, a full 22 served at least 20 years there before being cleared. The median years on death row was 10, which means half of those exonerated spent a decade awaiting execution before being freed. So how fast should we move to execute? The "worst of the worst" sounds more and more like a description of the death penalty system than of the crimes for which it is supposed to be reserved. (source: Opinion, Scott Martelle; Los Angeles Times) ************ Can Courtroom Prejudice Be Proved? ---- The Supreme Court considers what it takes to show that prosecutors, when they pick juries, are discriminating against minorities. For decades, scholars who have analyzed death-penalty cases have consistently found racial disparities, with death sentences disproportionately handed down to black men, more often in cases with white victims. But defense lawyers who want to challenge these sentences continue to face a predicament: How do you prove that racial discrimination infected a specific case? This broad question has often turned on the reasons that prosecutors offer for excluding black men and women from juries. Decades after the Jim Crow era of all-white juries, defense lawyers continue to argue that prosecutors - particularly in the South, where the death penalty is most popular - use more subtle methods to exclude blacks. Clarity could come with a U.S. Supreme Court case, Foster v. Chatman, which will be argued on Monday and decided next year. Both prosecutors and defense lawyers hope the outcome will guide prosecutors to avoid accusations of bias while showing the defense what kind of evidence is necessary to prove that prosecutors really are discriminating. In 1987, Timothy Tyrone Foster, 19, was sentenced to death for the murder of Queen Madge White, a 79-year-old white widow in Rome, Georgia, a small town near the Alabama border. White had just returned home from choir practice. Foster - who is currently on death row - was found guilty of breaking into her home, raping and strangling her, and stealing some of her possessions, including an air conditioner, several lamps, and drinking glasses. Foster is black, and his jury was all-white, which is legal. But years later, as Foster's lawyers examined notes made by prosecutors during jury selection, they made a discovery: names of black members of the jury pool had been highlighted in green and labeled "B#1," "B#2," and "B#3." Clayton Lundy, an investigator for the prosecution, had said these men and women should be ranked, just in case "it comes down to having to pick one of the black jurors." (Incidentally, Lundy himself is black). Foster's lawyers are seeking a new trial. Prosecutors and defenders have wide latitude as they take turns "striking" potential jurors from the pool - these are called peremptory strikes - but they cannot base their decisions on race, ethnicity or gender. Officially, Foster's prosecutors did provide reasons unrelated to race for considering these jurors less than ideal for their side; 1 had a son incarcerated for theft, another had stated she would not vote for death "regardless of the evidence." The Georgia Supreme Court later agreed that prosecutors fully investigated all of the prospective jurors and that these reasons were sufficiently "race-neutral." A year before Foster's trial, the Supreme Court had decided that excluding potential jurors because of their race would violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The case was called Batson v. Kentucky, and calling out the other side for trying to base a decision on race is now called a "Batson challenge." Since then, "prosecutors have become pretty adept at paying attention to the reasons they can give that are not race-related," says Tim Cole, the former district attorney of Montague County, Texas, (and now an opponent of the death penalty). If there is no paper trail - like the highlighting and circling in this case - it is practically impossible to prove the "subjective intent inside someone's mind." Many defense attorneys and legal scholars argue that Batson v. Kentucky has proved to be a weak regulator of behavior. Yale law professor Stephen Bright, who will argue Foster's side before the High Court, told The Marshall Project that "people of color are routinely being excluded from juries so that even in jurisdictions with substantial minority populations, cases are being tried to all-white juries." In 2010, the Equal Justice Initiative1 found that in some Alabama counties, more than 75 % of black jury pool members in death penalty cases had been struck by prosecutors. Bryan Stevenson, director of the Equal Justice Initiative, is on the advisory board of The Marshall Project. How does this happen? Bright points to training sessions for prosecutors like one that took place in Texas in 2004. The training document - "Batson Basics" - featured what Bright called "ready-to-use race neutral reasons" for excluding black jurors. These included, "Agreed with O.J. Simpson verdict," "Long hair and a goatee," "Chewing gum," "Worked for a labor union" and "Smiled at or flirted with defendant." Shannon Edmonds, the director of governmental relations for the Texas District and County Attorneys' Association, which sponsored the training, says these reasons are not "ready-to-use," but rather examples of justifications that have been approved by judges in past cases. "I'm not sure how you teach about the law on a particular subject without discussing the cases interpreting that subject," Edmonds told me. "Failing to do so would be some pretty worthless legal training, in my opinion." (The document, which Edmonds sent to us, provides a rich look at how prosecutors prepare for trials). But what if prosecutors do not even know they are really striking someone based on race? Federal Judge Mark Bennett has argued that prosecutors might strike black jurors because of "implicit" bias. Whatever the prosecutor is really thinking, he writes, the "defendant's practical burden [is] to make a liar out of the prosecutor" and "most trial court judges will only find such deceit in extreme situations." In a statement to the justices, a group of prosecutors sympathetic to the defense in Foster's case wrote, "If this Court does not find purposeful discrimination on the facts of this case, then it will render Batson meaningless." But Supreme Court cases decided after Batson already have significantly watered down its meaning. In a 1991 case styled Hernandez v. New York the justices allowed prosecutors to remove Latinos from a jury because they spoke Spanish. In another case, Purkett v. Elem, the Court's majority declared in 1995 that a prosecutor's reason for removing a potential juror of color need not be "a reason that makes sense" so long as that reason "does not deny equal protection." Christina Swarns, the litigation director at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, says cases with overt forms of bias in jury selection are a "canary in the coalmine" for broader problems of racial discrimination. In recent years, the Supreme Court has declined to look at the cases of Duane Buck (whose Texas jury was told by an expert witness that he was more likely to commit future crimes because of his race - Swarns is his lawyer) and Kenneth Fults (whose Georgia jury had one member who later said of the death sentence, "that's what the nigger deserved"). Swarns sees these overt cases as exceptions only in their bluntness; usually discrimination is more subtle. "If you have to have racial epithets coming out of your mouth to prove you're discriminating," she says, then it's "going to be impossible" for defense attorneys to prevail on claims of bias. A small group of judges, including Bennett and Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, have suggested that the ultimate way to fix the situation is to completely eliminate "peremptory challenges" - the ability of prosecutors and defense attorneys to cut jurors from the pool without a reason. But David LaBahn, president of the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, says prosecutors need a lot of discretion to vet jurors. He describes jury selection as "an art, not a science," and says that since most states require a unanimous jury in order to impose a death sentence, a single juror can keep a death sentence from being imposed, leading "over and over" to costly retrials. This, LaBahn said, "would not be justice." (source: themarshallproject.org) *************** Supreme Court takes up racial discrimination in jury selection The original jury pool for Timothy Foster's 1987 murder trial in Rome, Ga., included 10 blacks among 95 potential jurors. During the selection process, prosecutors highlighted their names, circled the word "black" on their questionnaires and added handy notations such as "B#1" and "B#2." After more than half the pool was excused for specific reasons, each side was allowed to make a set number of additional strikes - as long as it wasn't because of race or gender. On a sheet they labeled "definite NO's," prosecutors listed the 5 remaining black prospects on top, and they ranked them in case "it comes down to having to pick one of the black jurors." Foster, who is black, was swiftly convicted of murdering an elderly white woman. At sentencing, the prosecutor urged the all-white jury to impose death in order to "deter other people out there in the projects" - where 90% of the residents were black. In a case that would appear to have multiple smoking guns, Foster's conviction and death sentence will go on trial Monday at the Supreme Court - and so, too, the process by which judges consider claims of racial discrimination in jury selection. The case is important on 2 levels. If the justices find that Foster's constitutional rights were violated and instruct that he be given a new trial, the ruling could impact the way prosecutors, defense attorneys and trial judges handle jury selection in the future. And because Foster received a death sentence, it could fuel concerns previously voiced by 2 justices that the death penalty itself may be unconstitutional - in this case because of racial bias. In capital punishment cases, where jury selection can take almost as long as the trial itself, "the racial diversity of the jury is everything," says Stephen Bright, Foster's lawyer at the Southern Center for Human Rights. Since the high court upheld a controversial form of lethal injection 4 months ago, 8 executions have gone forward in 5 states - Texas, Missouri, Georgia, Virginia and Florida - and 2 more are scheduled this year. Dozens of others have been delayed, including all those previously scheduled in Arkansas, Ohio and Oklahoma - the state that won the case in June - because of continuing doubts about the method of execution. Foster's case raises another concern about the death penalty: racial discrimination in its application and, in particular, in jury selection. Despite the Supreme Court's 1986 ruling in Batson v. Kentucky that said prosecutors cannot have jurors dismissed because of their race, civil rights groups contend the practice still exists today. "I think the court is upset, and that's why they keep taking these cases, because it does persist," says Christina Swarns, director of litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. As a result, she says, "it undermines confidence in the outcomes that the jury actually produces." A new study by the anti-death-penalty group Reprieve Australia showed that prosecutors in Caddo Parish, La., struck would-be jurors who were black three times as often as others. In 200 verdicts over a 10-year period ending in 2012, juries with fewer than 3 blacks did not acquit any defendants. When 5 or more blacks participated, the acquittal rate was 19%. Another study in North Carolina in 2012 found blacks were twice as likely to be struck from juries by prosecutors. And in Houston County, Ala., from 2005-09, prosecutors removed 80% of blacks qualified for jury duty, producing juries with either 1 black or none at all. Georgia officials accuse Foster's lawyers of acting on "unfounded speculation." Their Supreme Court brief argues that the prosecution's notes, which the defense gained through a public records request, are "perfectly consistent with conscientious, non-discriminatory prosecutors preparing to rebut a defense challenge to the array of the jury and a pretrial Batson challenge to any black prospective juror that may be peremptorily struck." Joshua Marquis, an Oregon prosecutor active with the National District Attorneys Association, says most prosecutors take the Batson process seriously and avoid jury strikes based on race, ethnicity and gender. Foster's case, he says, "is literally an artifact from a generation ago. The question is, does this reflect what???s going on today in America???s courtrooms? I really don't think that it does." But E.G. "Gerry" Morris, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, says discrimination remains prevalent, particularly in the Deep South. "This case is certainly a blatant example of it," he says. "The fact that this occurred in a death penalty case just underscores the seriousness of it." A brief submitted on Foster's behalf by a group of prominent former prosecutors says discrimination "goes both ways" - defense lawyers seek to strike white jurors disproportionately just as prosecutors go after black jurors. Their recommendation? "This court should send a clear message that blatant race discrimination will not be tolerated in jury selection." (source: USA Today) ********************* Photographer recreates the last meals of death row inmates In the 18th century, French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin said, "Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are." Now, in 2015, a photographer from New Zealand is using that old adage to humanize inmates on death row. >From Ted Bundy to Timothy McVeigh, photographer Henry Hargreaves has recreated the last meal requests of notable criminals executed under the American penal system, and photographed them. The meals range from original recipe KFC chicken to mint chocolate chip ice cream and pecan pie; all fairly relatable items that the average viewer is likely to have consumed in his or her own life. And that's the idea behind the project. "I read about what they ordered, and it gave me a glimpse into the inmates as people," Hargreaves explains. "They kind of treat them like statistics, like these anonymous faces of death. And suddenly, when I realized what these people like to eat, and you know these are things that I understand, they became real people in my mind." Hargreaves contacted several U.S. prisons to inquire about photographing actual last meals, but was told such a thing would never be allowed. So, he did a little research, and chose instead to recreate the last meals of men and women who had already been executed. In doing so, he found that the re-creation actually posed a number of fascinating questions, as well. "There's never actually been a real picture of a last meal," Hargreaves says. "So, to me, what this was also about was recreating what I think the last meal may be like. You know, do they serve it on plastic plates, or on china? Does the shift take pride in cooking this last meal for someone, or do they just slap it together with no love? It was a conversation with all those sorts of things as well." As a New Zealander, Hargreaves admits that it's difficult for him to wrap his head around the death penalty, and in particular the disproportionate number of African-Americans put to death. However, he insists that his "No Seconds" photo series isn't about swaying public opinion on the death penalty in either direction. "Look, I'm not trying to preach whether someone should agree or disagree with the death penalty," Hargreaves says. "All I'm trying to do is open up the conversation about it... to get people to empathize with the condemned men and woman as real people." Of all the photographs, Hargreaves says the ones of Ricky Ray Rector and Victor Feguer's last meals are his favorite. He finds the one of Rector - who was mentally impaired - particularly haunting because he had chosen to save his pecan pie for later. "This guy might have been so checked out that he didn't even know he was off to be executed," says Hargreaves. "So, suddenly he's being punished for something that doesn't even register with him." Feguer's, on the other hand, Hargreaves finds especially meaningful because of the polarizing nature of his food choice. "We think about last meals, and is it something that's going to be totally gluttonous," Hargreaves says. "And then he just has a single olive. You know, it's so simple, beautiful, and kind of final. It's almost like a full stop at the end of his life." (source: CBS news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Nov 2 09:55:23 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2015 09:55:23 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 2 INDIA: Maharashtra: Kolhapur serial rapist to be hanged, President Pranab Mukherjee rejects mercy plea President Pranab Mukherjee has rejected the mercy petition of a serial rapist, convicted for raping 4 minor girls and brutally killing 2 - aged 5 and 10 years. Kolhapur resident Mohan Anna Chavan had first raped a minor girl in 1989, for which he received a 2-year jail term and was soon out on bail. Once out of jail, he committed his 2nd rape - of a 9-year-old - the same year. This time, the court sentenced him to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment. In 1999, he completed his term and walked out of jail, but as a more heinous criminal. He soon picked up 2 minor girls - aged 5 and 10 years - raped them, and killed them brutally. The court termed it as a "rarest of rare" case deserving death penalty. His mercy petition was finally rejected by the President on October 5. "Chavan has already exhausted all possible legal remedies and we expect to get the date for his execution soon," said a senior officer from the prison department. In 2008, the Supreme Court had first rejected his appeal against the Bombay High Court judgment upholding the lower court judgment, awarding him the death sentence. "Shockingly, a large number of criminals go unpunished, thereby encouraging them ... Justice demands that courts should impose punishment befitting the crime so that courts reflect public abhorrence of the crime. The court must not only keep in view the rights of the criminal but also the rights of the victim of the crime and the society at large while considering the imposition of appropriate punishment," the apex court noted. As per the prosecution, Sangita, 5, and Sheela, 10 (both names changed), were living in Gulamb village in Kolhapur and were studying in the Ist and the 4th standards, respectively. Chavan was their neighbour and lived there with his wife and daughter, who, too, testified in the court as a witnesses against Chavan. On December 14, 1999, Chavan had a scuffle with Tanaji Jadhav, cousin of Sangita and Sheela. He threatened Jadhav that he will settle the issue by the evening itself. Later in the day, Chavan went to a grocery shop with his daughter Reshma. The 2 girls were also there at the shop. Both Reshma and Sheela asked him to buy them chocolates. On the pretext of not having change, Chavan sent his daughter Reshma home and asked the two girls to accompany him. He then took them to an isolated place and raped them and threw Sangita's body into a nearby well. He hid Sheela's body in a bush. When the 2 girls didn't return home, angry villagers nabbed Chavan since the girls were last seen with him. Soon, he was handed over to the police and he was convicted on the basis of strong circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial evidence that nailed Chavan in court. The deceased were last seen with him. Forensic report confirmed that the clothes of Chavan were stained with blood Group A, which is the blood group of both the victims Dead bodies of both girls were recovered on his disclosure. (source: dnaindia.com) ************************* India asks for access to 'terror emails' Australia is reportedly considering cooperating with Indian authorities on a terror case that could end with the suspect getting the death sentence. Attorney General George Brandis last week had talks with India's Union Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh on security cooperation. Indian media reports say Australia indicated it would consider a request to share information about the Yahoo email account of ISIS recruit Areeb Majeed. The Indian Express reported "a government source" had said Australia was considering the request "favourably" but wanted clarification on the issue of the death penalty. Senator Brandis' office said it would not comment on the attorney general's private meetings or investigations. The Express reports Indian authorities have already told Australia they would not guarantee Majeed would be spared the death penalty if convicted on the back of the email evidence. The server of the Yahoo account is in Australia, and its communications could prove crucial to learning what the Mumbai engineering student did during his time in Iraq and Syria. It's alleged the 23-year-old trained as an ISIS suicide bomber before sneaking back into India late last year. The email account could also be key to learning about ISIS recruiting and conspiracy more broadly in India. The issue comes as federal parliament prepares an inquiry into how Australia should advocate for the abolition of the death penalty worldwide. Following Indonesia's executions of Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, it was argued Australia's diplomatic approaches on the death sentence may be more effective if they are more consistent. In its submission to the inquiry, Reprieve Australia calls for a whole of government strategy to underpin domestic policies. Australia must ensure it doesn't send people back to countries where they might face the death penalty, and also that it won't facilitate the application of the death penalty by others, it says. UN Special Rapporteur Christof Heyns, in a report released last week, also warned that states must be careful. When offering financial or technical assistance to executing countries, "any such assistance must be offered only after obtaining guarantees that no death sentence will be imposed." The inquiry will hold public hearings on dates yet to be announced. (source: 9news.com.au) PAKISTAN----execution Murder convict executed in Sahiwal Pakistan on Monday morning executed a man convicted of murder in Sahiwal, Samaa reported. "In 2003, Imtiaz Hussain had murdered a man over a dispute. He was hanged until death," sources quoted central jail authorities as saying. The hangings come as Pakistan's controversial lifting of a moratorium on executions last year is under growing scrutiny. Pakistan ended the 6-year moratorium after Taliban militants massacred more than 150 people - mostly children - at a school in Peshawar last December. Supporters argue that the death penalty is the only effective way to deal with the scourge of militancy in the country. But critics say the legal system is unjust, with rampant police torture, poor representation for victims and unfair trials. (source: samaa.tv) IRAN----executions 2 Prisoners Hanged in Public Northeastern Iran 2 prisoners, both reportedly 30 years old, were hanged in public in Aliabad-e Katul (a city located in the province of Golestan) early morning Sunday November 1. According to a report by Tasnim, an official state-run news outlet, citing Esmaeil Mohammadi, the Attorney General of Golestan, the prisoners were executed on alleged rape charges. The hangings were carried out during the Muslim holy month of Muharram, despite that Iranian authorities do not typically carry out executions during this time. (source: Iran Human Rights) LIBYA: Saadi Gaddafi in court charged with murdering footballer----The former leader's son is also under investigation for distributing land mines and weapons, and bringing foreign mercenaries to fight during the 2011 uprising Saadi Gaddafi, the football-mad son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, appeared in court on Sunday charged with murdering a Libyan footballer in 2005. Saadi, 42, who looked pale, spoke only to confirm his name but has pleaded not guilty to the charge. His principal lawyer Ahmed Nashad requested more time to prepare the defence and acquire further documents relating to the death of Bashir Al-Riani, a former footballer and coach with Tripoli's Al-Ittihad football club. The hearing was adjourned, after less than an hour, until 6 December. The only people who attended the trial, apart from lawyers, journalists and prison staff, were 6 family members of Al-Riani, who Saadi is alleged to have killed on 23 December 2005. "It is impossible to describe how we feel today. We have waited such a long time for justice," 1 female relative told Middle East Eye. "But we will not be satisfied until Saadi is executed for this crime." Under Libyan law, the death penalty can be given to a defendant if he is found guilty of 1st degree murder, said head of investigations for the General Attorney's Office, Sadiq Al-Sour. He added, however, that if a close family member of the victim forgave the accused, the sentence could be reduced to life imprisonment. But Al-Riani's family was adamant that there would be no forgiveness, insisting that the only justice for them would be for Saadi to face execution. "It was not an accident, it was murder and we are sure he is guilty," the female relative said. "And even if he didn't actually kill Bashir, Saadi is responsible because, back then, he was in charge of everything and did nothing to stop other ill-treatment." She claimed that, before his death, Al-Riani had received numerous threats, and had been beaten, and chased by dogs on several occasions. Although they were happy to talk to the press, Al-Riani's relatives did not wish to give their names. In an interview with Human Rights Watch (HRW) in September, Saadi said he was accused of killing his friend. "There was no such thing as friendship with the old regime. They owned us," Al-Riani's female relative said. 1 of Al-Riani's cousins explained that the football coach had failed to come home on the night of 23 December and the family had no idea he was dead until 3 days later, when a local hospital telephoned to say his body had been found dumped in a street. "The body was in terrible shape, with a deep wound in his side," he said. "Bashir's face was unrecognisable - swollen and all different colours, although we don't know for certain if this was because of beating or because he had been dead for 3 days." The family said they had pressed for an investigation at the time but, although a case was opened, it never led anywhere. "There was no justice under the old regime. The investigators just asked us lots of questions but didn't seem to be actually working on the case," the cousin said. Al-Riani's case was reopened after Saadi was extradited to Libya from Niger, where he had lived under house arrest since fleeing there during the 2011 Libyan uprising. Since his extradition, Saadi has been held in solitary confinement in a windowless room, according to HRW. In a private interview with the organisation - the 1st since his extradition - he claimed that he had been intimidated and threatened under questioning. This claim appears to be supported by leaked video footage clearly showing Saadi being blindfolded and beaten on the soles of his feet during interrogation. Although admitting he had been "terrorised", Saadi declined to discuss any details with HRW. The head of Hadba Prison, Khaled Al-Sharif, said that the prison's previous director had been suspended because of these torture allegations. Saadi also told HRW that he had not been allowed to meet with layers in private and claimed defence witnesses had been intimidated and were afraid of reprisals. There is no witness protection programme in Libya. Nashad, the lawyer leading Saadi's defence team of 4, confirmed that guards had been present at all meetings with his client but said that this had not interfered with his ability to do his job. Saadi is also being investigated for involvement in other crimes, Al-Sour said. These include distributing land mines and weapons, and bringing foreign mercenaries to fight during the 2011 uprising. Saadi is expected to stand trial separately for these crimes once the investigations have been completed. On Sunday, Saadi appeared at Tripoli Appeals Court, a purpose built courtroom in the grounds of Hadba Prison, where inmates include many senior officials from the old regime. In July, the same court sentenced nine men to death, including Saadi's brother Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi (sentenced in absentia) and Muammar Gaddafi's former spy chief Abdullah Senussi, in a trial that was criticised by Amnesty International, HRW and the UN for failing to meet international fair trial standards. Senussi and his seven co-defendants have lodged appeals against their sentences at the Tripoli Supreme Court. (source: middleeasteye.net) NAURU: UN members to question Nauru on rights concerns A review of Nauru's human rights record this week will give United Nations members a chance to express concerns about issues like press freedom and the treatment of refugees. Nauru is one of 14 countries being examined as part of the UN Universial Periodic Review process in Geneva. International rights groups have recently condemned Nauru for what they see as restrictions on media and the poor treatment of refugees and asylum seekers in the Australian-run detention centre there. The acting head of the UN Human Rights Office for the Pacific, Catherine Phuong, says the review will give members a chance to discuss those issues. "It is an opportunity for other states to ask questions and to make recommendations and I think this process is important in terms of raising those issues and having an open discussion about them." Catherine Phuong says there is still a need for Nauru to develop legislation on domestic violence, gender equality, child protection and to abolish the death penalty. (source: Radio New Zealand) INDONESIA: Jakarta "Toilet Bomber" Demanded 100 Bitcoins, Inspired by ISIS----The bomber of a mall on the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia, attempted to extort 100 bitcoins from the mall and was inspired by ISIS. The bomber of a mall on the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia, attempted to extort 100 bitcoins from the mall and was inspired by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), say police. According to local media reports, Leopard Wisnu Kumala was allegedly responsible for the bombing last week that injured one person in the Alam Sutera Mall in Tangerang. He allegedly planted the bomb in a toilet, which exploded at around noon on Wednesday. CCTV footage showed him carrying a bag into a washroom at the mall and exiting shortly before the blast. It was allegedly the 4th bomb he planted at the mall since July. His 1st attempt resulted in an explosion and the other two did not. Police commented that there were similarities between the latest and previous attempts. After he planted last week's bomb, he contacted the mall and demanded 100 bitcoins, at the time worth approximately 400 million rupiah, or $30,000 (USD/IDR = 13,600). Interestingly, the mall's management responded by sending him approximately 1/400 of this amount, or 0.25 BTC. Bitcoin is the go-to currency for extortionists looking to avoid apprehension or seizure of their winnings, due to its decentralization from financial authority and perceived anonymity. The 29-year old assailant reportedly worked in the IT department at a company near the mall. He was arrested at his home a few hours after the explosion. His motives were reportedly both economic and ideological. He was reportedly 20 million rupiah in debt for his home, motorcycle and credit cards, and his wife had asked him to buy a car. He also reportedly admitted to police that he was inspired by ISIS following recent media reports of the conflict in Syria, as well as by another Jakarta-area mall bombing in February. Police believe that the attempted bombings are connected with ISIS, not with the homegrown al-Qaeda-affiliated Jemaah Islamiyah. Police blamed the February incident on Indonesians returning from fighting alongside ISIS. The incident employed the use of a low-powered chlorine bomb, the variety often used by ISIS militants. The Jakarta police chief, Tito Karnavian, said in a statement that the attacker sowed fear amongst the public. As such, he will be charged in accordance with a 2003 anti-terrorism law, which carries a maximum sentence of the death penalty. (source: financemagnates.com) BANGLADESH: Bangladesh govt to 'give strong reply' to Amnesty International remarks on war crimes trial The government is preparing to issue a 'strong reply' to Amnesty International after it questioned the war crimes trial and made controversial remarks on the role of freedom fighters. Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali said in a news call on Sunday the government would do everything to protest against the statement. State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam dubbed the statement 'unacceptable'. "It (attempted to humiliate) independence and freedom fighters," he said. "The government is preparing to give a firm reply by studying the Amnesty report in detail," he added. The human-rights organisation has been questioning the process of the war crimes trial from the beginning. The London-based group in a report published on Oct 27 questioned the trial and appeal processes of war criminals Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid. The Supreme Court will hear their death penalty review petitions on Monday. "Serious flaws" occurred in their trial and appeal processes, the rights group said. The politicians face possible hanging for atrocities committed during the 1971 War of Independence from Pakistan. "Serious crimes were also committed by the pro-independence forces, but no one has been investigated or brought to justice for them," the Amnesty International also remarked. Ganajagaran Mancha, which demands highest punishment of war criminals, demanded apology from Amnesty International for the remarks. It urged the government to lodge a protest with the organisation. (source: bdnews24.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Nov 2 17:06:51 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2015 17:06:51 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MISS., MO., NEB., USA Message-ID: Nov. 2 MISSISSIPPI: High Court Won't Hear Appeal From Miss. Death Row Inmate The Supreme Court won't hear an appeal from a Mississippi death row inmate who pleaded guilty in the rape and killing of a waitress in 2000. The justices on Monday let stand a lower court ruling that denied Thomas Loden Jr.'s request for a new court hearing to determine whether his lawyers gave him poor legal advice. Loden argued that his original defense attorneys failed to fully investigate his mental condition and gave him bad advice that led him to plead guilty and waive jury sentencing. A federal appeals court said Loden himself told his lawyers not to question prosecution witnesses or present evidence at a sentencing hearing to help him avoid the death penalty. The American Bar Association had filed a brief urging the justices to take the case. (source: Associated Press) MISSOURI----impending execution Victim's family prepares for execution of their mother's killer, Ernest Lee Johnson The night she found out her mom had been murdered, Carley Schaffer sat outside her house in a Philadelphia ice storm and smoked a cigarette. She waited for her sister to pick her up so they could travel to Columbia for the funeral. She listened to the ice crackle in the trees. Saturday, more than 20 years after her mother's death, Schaffer prepared once again to travel to Missouri from the East Coast - this time to watch the execution of her mom's killer. Her mother, Mary Bratcher, was 1 of 3 people killed by Ernest Lee Johnson in Casey???s General Store the night of Feb. 12, 1994. Bratcher, Fred Jones Jr. and Mable Scruggs were all employees at the store closing up for the night when Johnson knocked on the door. Johnson, looking for money to buy drugs, robbed the store and bludgeoned all 3 employees to death with a hammer. He hid the bodies in the bathroom and in a cooler. Police later found bloody shoes and a bank bag with a couple hundred dollars and store receipts in Johnson's house. He has been convicted of the murders and was sentenced to death 3 separate times through his appeal process. His attorneys have an appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court that argues Johnson is mentally disabled and should not be executed, according to the Associated Press. Johnson, 55, is scheduled to die by lethal injection after 6 p.m. on Tuesday. He is the last person on death row for a crime committed in Boone County. If executed, he will become the 7th person executed in Missouri this year. Schaffer and her 2 siblings planned to be at the state prison in Bonne Terre for the execution. For Schaffer and her sister, Lorrie Heichelbech, who lives in Columbia, it's not about vengeance or finding peace. It's about honoring their mother's memory and supporting each other through the end of more than 2 decades of legal proceedings. "The only peace I'm going to get is to stop having to wait for the next step in the legal process," Schaffer said. "It's not bringing my mom back. I've known that since the 1st sentence. It doesn't change my reality. It doesn't change that I'm going to grieve for her for the rest of my life." Coffee and cigarettes Mary Bratcher was dealt a bad hand in life, her children said, but played her cards as best she could and with as much joy as possible. The 5th of 11 children, Bratcher grew up fast and tough. After her husband was arrested and imprisoned for dealing drugs, she raised their 3 kids by herself. "Many people would have laid down a long time ago, given the hand she was given," Heichelbech, 45, said. The 3 children were the free lunch kids, Schaffer said, and moved from one rented trailer home to another as their mom tried to make ends meet as a convenience store manager. Bratcher wore hand-me-downs and shoes with holes in them so her kids could have nicer things. "She led by example," Schaffer, 42, said. "You work hard. You don't make excuses, and you rise above your circumstances." She loved to sing The Supremes, Diana Ross and Frank Sinatra, especially "White Christmas" and "I'll Be Seeing You." She always smelled like coffee and cigarettes and had "quite the potty mouth," Heichelbech said. She giggled watching her girls dance disco in their living room. Sometimes those giggles became peals of laughter. Bratcher's laugh was a force. It was deep and seemed to come from every part of her body, Heichelbech said. It made everybody else in the room laugh. "I could hear her in a store laughing, and I knew it was her and exactly where she was," Heichelbech said. "I would give my right kidney to hear it again." Bratcher was the manager at Casey's and had gone to the store to help Scruggs, a new employee, the night she was killed. When Johnson knocked on the glass, Bratcher recognized him and let him in, Heichelbech said. "She always managed to find the good in people," she said. "That might have led to her death." Johnson's other victims had people who relied on them, too. Jones, 58, took care of his elderly mother and his twin brother, who had been disabled by a stroke. He was a quiet man who liked to laugh, according to previous Missourian reporting. After his death, his brother's care was turned over to a state agency, according to an obituary in the Columbia Daily Tribune. Scruggs, 57, was a single mother and worked at Casey's and as the chief clerk at the MU Student Health Center. Her co-workers at the health center described her as unusually dedicated and said the job meant "everything" to her, according to previous Missourian reporting. The night she was killed at Casey's she was covering a shift for another worker. "You could sum her attitude up in 4 words - 'I want to help,'" a friend said at Scruggs' funeral, according to an obituary in The Columbia Daily Tribune. Scabs Heichelbech remembers little about the weeks after her mom's death besides seeing her aunts, buying the casket and speaking at the funeral, which more than 300 people attended. Her brother, Rob Bratcher, was 18 at the time and the only sibling living in Columbia. He struggled with his mother's death much more than his sisters, Heichelbech said. Rob Bratcher declined to speak to the Missourian for this story except to say that his mother was a good person. He lives in Kansas City now with his wife and 2 kids and works in commercial banking. Most of those weeks after the murder are a blur for Schaffer, who was 20. But winter, cold and ice storms always bring back the memories and reminders of the absence they surround. "I let myself grieve during the winter," she said. "My family knows what to expect. It's not easy, but we get on." Schaffer's children, 10 and 13, know Bratcher as Grandma Mary, their guardian angel who looks out for them from heaven. Teaching them about their grandmother and how she died has been bittersweet, Schaffer said. Telling the good stories passed on her memory. Explaining her death and why they'll never know Bratcher hurts all over again. Her daughter once cried for the loss of her grandmother, mourning a woman she had never known. That's the worst part, Schaffer said: watching her mother's murder hurt her child. It makes her angry. Heichelbech's son met Bratcher when he was a child, but he doesn't remember the grandma that doted on him. "I can tell stories, but it doesn't cut it," Heichelbech said. "I can't even convey half of her spirit. It's a void in his life." Schaffer became a drug counselor to help people with addictions like Johnson. She wants to help people stay away from the path Johnson chose. "Part of trauma recovery is taking that trauma and creating a new meaning for it," Schaffer said. "I think what I'm doing now is an honor to her memory." Johnson's execution on Tuesday will be the end of the legal proceedings that repeatedly forced the siblings to revisit that trauma. "I struggled so long to deal with the anger and the horror of her death," Schaffer said. "Sometimes I want to wad it up in a ball and stick it in the back of the brain. Times like this we have to unwad the ball and rip off the scab." Any anger the sisters had toward Johnson has dissipated, they said, though they don't sympathize with him. "Once I came to the reckoning of it all, being angry at him was only destroying me," Heichelbech said. "It wasn't going to touch him in any way. It does nothing but wreck you as a person." The execution will be an opportunity to put the crime of their mother's death to rest. No longer will they have to find babysitters when they're called to court. No longer will they have to face their mother's murderer. No longer will they be left in limbo. The loss will last forever, they said, but at least now they'll be able to deal with it on their own timetable. "I feel that I need to ride this out. To stand it out and survive it," Schaffer said. "I'm ready for this to be done." (source: The Missourian) ************** Attorneys asks Supreme Court to halt Ernest Lee Johnson's execution Only an order from the U.S. Supreme Court or a grant of clemency from Gov. Jay Nixon can stop Tuesday's scheduled execution of Ernest Lee Johnson for the 1994 murder of 3 people at a Columbia convenience store. The Missouri Supreme Court on Monday turned down Johnson's request that it appoint a judge to consider evidence that he is intellectually disabled and therefore it would be unconstitutional to execute him. The court did not explain its reasoning in the 2-sentence decision. Johnson's attorneys, Jeremy Weis and Brian Gaddy, on Sunday filed a petition seeking a hearing before the federal high court, arguing that the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals was mistaken when it denied Johnson's latest appeal Friday. They argue the drugs used by the state, midazolam and pentobarbital, pose "a substantial and unjustifiable risk" of seizures during the execution because of a slow-growing brain tumor and scarring from surgery that removed portions of the tumor in 2008. "If left to stand, the lower court opinions in this case create an impossible burden on a condemned inmate to allege an alternative method of execution," Gaddy wrote in the appeal directed to Justice Samuel Alito. The Eighth Circuit properly applied the law, and alleging the drugs could pose a risk is not the same as showing they do pose a risk, Attorney General Chris Koster's office argued in a brief filed Monday morning. "The court of appeals held Johnson's complaint to the same standard as any other complaint filed in federal district court," Assistant Attorney General Michael Spillane wrote. "Those holdings are not error." Johnson, 55, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Tuesday. Driven by his addiction to crack cocaine, Johnson on Feb. 12, 1994, robbed Casey's General Store, 2200 Ballenger Lane, and used a hammer and screwdriver to kill Mary Bratcher, 46, Mable Scruggs, 57, and Fred Jones, 58. Bratcher, a single mother with three children, traded shifts that night so another employee could attend a birthday party. Jones lived with his mother and cared for his twin brother, Ted, who was confined to a wheelchair after a stroke. Scruggs was a single mother working 3 jobs. Johnson is 1 of 33 inmates on Missouri's death row. Johnson will be the seventh inmate in Missouri to be executed in 2015 if he dies Tuesday. Weiss said Monday that he does not expect the U.S. Supreme Court to act on the appeal until Tuesday. A petition for clemency is pending before Nixon, spokesman Scott Holste wrote in an email. "The governor will act on the petition after completion of a thorough review," he wrote. In the petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, Johnson???s attorneys argued allowing the execution using the two drugs would violate Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishments. State law allows the use of lethal gas for executions, which they said does not pose the same risks of seizures and pain. The Eighth Circuit improperly applied the standard established in a June decision from Oklahoma, Johnson's attorneys wrote. In that decision, the high court ruled an inmate must show "a substantial risk of serious harm, an objectively intolerable risk of harm" and that an alternative method of execution is available. Missouri has not executed an inmate using gas since 1965 and does not have a working gas chamber. The Eighth Circuit ruled that while gas is legally available in Missouri, it is not "a feasible or readily implementable alternative." An inmate should only have to show in an initial appeal that an alternative method is available, not how quickly it could be used, the appeal said. "Such a standard would be impossible to meet and would render the Eighth Amendment meaningless in the context of method-of-execution challenges," the attorneys wrote. (source: Columbia Tribune) NEBRASKA: Nebraska prison officials tried unsuccessfully to buy lethal injection drug from U.S. distributor Nebraska prison officials recently made an unsuccessful attempt to buy a lethal injection drug from a United States distributor after having spent almost $28,000 months ago to get the drug from overseas. The Nebraska Department of Correctional Services last month filed a purchase request for $826 to buy four units of pancuronium bromide, a paralytic agent that is the 2nd of 3 drugs administered under Nebraska's lethal injection protocol. The Oct. 14 document, obtained by The World-Herald under an open records request, listed as the vendor Gulf Coast Pharmaceuticals of Ocean Springs, Mississippi. But the next day, the order was canceled, according to a handwritten note on the purchase document. "Product not available," the note said. The document shows the administration of Gov. Pete Ricketts is actively exploring other options to replenish the state's expired supplies of lethal drugs after attempts to obtain the substances from India have so far been thwarted. Ricketts announced in May that the state had paid a total of $54,400 to broker Chris Harris in India to import 1,000 units each of pancuronium bromide and sodium thiopental, but the plan quickly hit roadblocks. The Food and Drug Administration announced it was under a federal court-order not to allow the importation of sodium thiopental, an anesthetic that is the 1st drug given in Nebraska's sequence. The last U.S. maker of sodium thiopental discontinued manufacturing the drug in 2011, largely because it no longer wanted to be an indirect party to executions. That's why Nebraska and other death-penalty states have had to turn to overseas suppliers. The India broker tried to export packages of sodium thiopental in late August, but FedEx returned the drug because it lacked proper paperwork. The same broker also sold the drug to Nebraska in 2012, but a legal dispute over whether he had obtained it under false pretenses caused that supply never to be used in an execution. Death penalty opponents have criticized state officials for going back to the same broker in the latest effort to obtain the drugs. Critics have speculated that in their haste to obtain the drugs, Nebraska officials threw away money for purchases that will never arrive. Nebraska last executed a condemned inmate in 1997, when the state's execution method was electrocution. The governor recently said his representatives are in conversations with the Drug Enforcement Administration to allow the drugs in. It's unclear from the recently obtained documents whether the attempt to buy one of the drugs domestically means officials have abandoned their effort to import the Indian drugs, or whether it represents a second front in the increasingly difficult work of finding death penalty drugs. The governor's office did not immediately respond Monday to an email seeking comment. The documents also show that prison officials sought legal help in importing the drugs from Benjamin L. England & Associates, a Maryland law firm. England, according to his website, assists clients in navigating federal agency regulation and "is able to obtain release of most FDA detained shipments." Documents show Nebraska has so far paid $399 to England's firm to register the foreign sodium thiopental with the FDA. According to news reports, Ohio and Texas also have hired England for help in getting foreign-made lethal injection drugs imported. Arizona also is working with outside counsel, however, it's unclear if England represents that state. The Associated Press reported last month that federal authorities impounded orders of sodium thiopental that had been exported from India to Arizona and Texas. Meanwhile, Ohio has suspended executions until at least 2017 because of the drug shortage. (soruce: World-Herald) USA: Use of the death penalty is way down in recent years. Support for it is not. >From the floor of the Senate last week, Bernie Sanders made an unusual proposal for a presidential candidate. "I believe the time is now for the United States to end capital punishment," Sanders said. "Right now, virtually every Western industrialized country has chosen to end capital punishment. I would rather have our country stand side-by-side with European democracies rather than with countries like China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and others who maintain the death penalty. "I know that this is not necessarily a popular point of view," he noted, "but it is in my view the right point of view." It is not a popular point of view. In its most recent polling, Gallup found that 37 % of Americans opposed the death penalty, compared to 61 percent who supported it. What's interesting is that support has declined slightly since the peak of the 1990s crime wave -- but has fallen much more slowly than crime numbers. In other words, support for the death penalty rose as crime rose -- but as crime has fallen, support for the death penalty hasn't fallen as much. It's also worth noting the offset between the rate of violent crime and the number of actual executions. The peak number of executions was in 1999, 8 years after the peak in the crime rate. (This is due in part to the lengthy -- and growing -- time between sentencing and execution.) Where Sanders's argument is most potent is with the voters he most wants to win over during the next $ months: Democrats. In April, Pew Research found that only 40 % of Democrats back the death penalty at this point, compared to 71 % in 1995. That's a 44 % decrease (which, incidentally, is much closer to the overall drop in the crime rate). Sanders was responding to comments made by Hillary Clinton in the middle of last week, in which she stated that she didn't agree with how the death penalty had been applied, though she supports it as an option. According to Death Penalty Info, more than 1/4 of those executed since the death penalty was reinstated in the mid-1970s have been black. Blacks make up 13.2 % of the country's population. Clinton isn't alone in her attitude. On Sunday, Jeb Bush told "Meet the Press" that he was similarly conflicted. "[W]e should reform it," he told NBC's Chuck Todd -- citing the length of time it takes to resolve death penalty cases. That doesn't seem to be something that most Republicans will agree on. According to Pew, 77 % of Republicans support the death penalty -- a figure that's higher than the level of support among Democrats at the peak of the national crime wave. (source: Philip Bump writes about politics for The Fix----Washington Post) ****************** Timeline in Afonso Rodriguez's federal death penalty appeal extends into 2017----Lawyers in the case of a man sentenced to death for killing a University of North Dakota student in 2003 have discussed the timeline for his appeal - and it stretches into 2017. Lawyers in the case of a man sentenced to death for killing a University of North Dakota student in 2003 have discussed the timeline for his appeal - and it stretches into 2017. Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., of Crookston, Minnesota, filed a so-called habeas motion, generally considered the last step in the appeals process, in October 2011. Since then, a handful of hearings have been held in open court, including one in Fargo last month to investigate Rodriguez's claim of juror misconduct. U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson posted an updated briefing schedule for the case following Thursday's closed-door meeting with attorneys. Erickson said a hearing on mental health issues will be set for October 2016 and a hearing on forensic issues will be scheduled in January 2017. Lawyers handing the appeal have declined to comment outside the courtroom. Dru Sjodin, from Pequot Lakes, Minnesota, was abducted from the parking lot of a Grand Forks shopping mall in November 2003. Authorities say she was raped, beaten and stabbed. A jury sentenced Rodriguez to death on Sept. 22, 2006. It was the state's first federal death penalty case and resulted in tougher laws for sex offenders. The nearly 300-page appeal filed by Rodriguez's team claims, among other things, that he is mentally disabled and his trial lawyers were ineffective. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said in a speech at the University of Minnesota earlier this month that he wouldn't be surprised if the nation's highest court invalidates the death penalty. (source: Associated Press) ********** Supreme Court troubled by Georgia prosecutor's rejection of black jurors in death penalty case The Supreme Court appeared troubled Monday by the actions of a Georgia prosecutor in disqualifying all the black prospective jurors from the death penalty trial of a black teenager who was accused of killing an elderly white woman. At least 6 of the 9 justices indicated during arguments that black people were improperly singled out and kept off the jury that eventually sentenced defendant Timothy Tyrone Foster to death in 1987. Justice Elena Kagan said Foster's case seemed as clear a violation "as a court is ever going to see" of rules the Supreme Court laid out in 1986 to prevent racial discrimination in the selection of juries. Foster could win a new trial if the Supreme Court rules his way. The discussion Monday also suggested that a technical issue might prevent the justices from deciding the substance of Foster's case. Georgia Deputy Attorney General Beth Burton had little support on the court for the proposition that prosecutor Stephen Lanier advanced plausible "race-neutral" reasons that resulted in an all-white jury for Foster's trial. Foster was convicted of killing 79-year-old Queen Madge White in her home in Rome, Georgia. Several justices noted that Lanier's reasons for excusing people from the jury changed over time, including the arrest of the cousin of one black juror. The record in the case indicates that Lanier learned of the arrest only after the jury had been seated. "That seems an out and out false statement," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said. Justice Samuel Alito, who typically sides with prosecutors in criminal cases, was bothered by Lanier's explanation that the same juror also was not chosen because she was close in age to Foster. "She was in her 30s. He was 18 or 19," Alito dryly said. Georgia courts have consistently rejected Foster's claims of discrimination, even after his lawyers obtained the prosecution's notes that revealed prosecutors' focus on the black people in the jury pool. In one example, a handwritten note headed "Definite No's" listed 6 people, of whom 5 were the remaining black prospective jurors. The 6th person on the list was a white woman who made clear she would never impose the death penalty, Foster's lawyer, Stephen Bright said Monday. "Even she ranked behind the black jurors," Bright said. Burton tried to persuade the justices that the notes focused on black people in the jury pool because prosecutors were preparing to defend against claims that they were improperly trying to avoid having black jurors. Burton said the Supreme Court's ruling about race discrimination in jury selection was about a year old when Foster's case went to trial. The 1986 decision set up a system by which trial judges could evaluate claims of discrimination and the race-neutral explanations by prosecutors. Foster's trial lawyers did not so much contest his guilt as try to explain it as a product of a troubled childhood, drug abuse and mental illness. They also raised their objections about the exclusion of African-Americans from the jury. On that point, the judge accepted Lanier's explanations that factors other than race drove his decisions. The jury convicted Foster and sentenced him to death. The jury issue was revived 19 years later, in 2006, when the state turned over the prosecution's notes in response to a request under Georgia's Open Records Act. The name of each potential black juror was highlighted on 4 different copies of the jury list and the word "black" was circled next to the race question on questionnaires for the black prospective jurors. 3 of the prospective black jurors were identified in notes as "B#1," ''B#2," and "B#3." An investigator working for the prosecutors also ranked the black prospective jurors against each other in case "it comes down to having to pick one of the black jurors." Still, Georgia courts were not persuaded. The argument featured no discussion of limiting the discretionary, or peremptory, decisions to reject potential jurors. Justice Thurgood Marshall warned in the Batson case that racial discrimination would persist until those discretionary jury strikes were eliminated. A decision in the case, Foster v. Chatman, 14-8349, is expected by late spring. (source: Associated Press) ********************* Psych testing ordered for man accused of killing postal worker A Houston federal judge has ordered a competency exam for a man accused of killing a postal worker and who faces the death penalty. James Wayne Ham is accused of fatally shooting rural mail carrier Eddie "Marie" Youngblood in May 2013 as she made deliveries in Coldspring, a San Jacinto County town 60 miles north of Houston. He has been in federal custody for 2 years. The judge's order delays his capital murder trial, which was set for February. In October 2014, the government issued notice that they intended to seek the death penalty against Ham, 38. In a joint motion filed last month, Ham's lawyers and a federal prosecutor asked U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes to order competency testing for the defendant. After consulting with several psychological experts, the defense attorneys contend that Ham has an IQ of 65. The generally accepted threshold for intellectual disability is an IQ of 70. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to execute people who have limited mental function. The court updated their position in 2014 by deciding that Florida's strict cutoff at 70 for determining intellectual disability in capital cases was unconstitutional. In January, Texas officials executed convicted killer Robert Ladd, who had an IQ of 67. Defense lawyers Katherine Scardino and Robert Morrow said in the filing that Ham cannot understand "the proceedings against him" or "assist properly in his defense." The motion, also signed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Magliolo, said the government does not believe that Ham is impaired, but agreed to an evaluation on the issue. Writing that "the ends of justice served by this delay outweigh the interests of the public" and Ham "to a speedier trial," Hughes reset jury selection and a trial for May 17. According to the office of U.S. Attorney Ken Magidson, there are 2 pending capital cases - both involving fatalities during immigrant smuggling - in the Southern District of Texas. Federal prosecutors rarely seek the death penalty nationwide and have pursued the punishment in Southeast Texas only a handful of times. (source: Houston Chronicle) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Nov 2 17:07:40 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2015 17:07:40 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 2 PAKISTAN: Pakistan court orders blasphemy law reforms The effectiveness of a Supreme Court of Pakistan ruling that blasphemy laws be reformed to discourage false allegations hinges on the government's response to the order, a leader of the International Christian Concern watchdog group told Baptist Press. The 3-judge Pakistani bench called for reforms when it upheld the death penalty imposed upon Malik Mohammad Mumtaz Qadri for assassinating in 2011 Punjab Gov. Salman Taseer based on hearsay that Taseer had committed blasphemy. "In the absence of adequate safeguards against the abuse of the blasphemy law, people falsely accused of the offense suffer irrevocably," the judgment written Oct. 27 reads, but confirms that the reforms must still protect blasphemy laws. The ruling "ought to be understood as a call for introducing adequate safeguards against malicious application or use of [the blasphemy law] by motivated persons," the judges wrote. "If our religion of Islam comes down heavily upon commission of blasphemy then Islam is also very tough against those who level false allegations of a crime." William Stark, International Christian Concern (ICC) regional manager for South Asia, said the judgment has only opened a door to reforms that "Pakistan as a society must take the steps to walk through." The government must enact legislation to "combat mob violence and extra-judicial killings," "create harsh penalties for individuals who file false accusations of blasphemy," and protect mentally ill defendants who may not have had a "deliberate intention to blaspheme," Stark told BP. Pakistan remains a dangerous country for Christians. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom said in its 2015 annual report that the Pakistani government "failed to protect citizens, minority and majority alike, from sectarian and religiously-motivated violence, and Pakistani authorities have not consistently brought perpetrators to justice or taken action against societal actors who incite violence." For instance, on Oct. 14, a Pakistani court acquitted two Muslim men accused of kidnapping two Christian sisters from their village of Jaranwala, Faisalabad, and repeatedly raping them throughout the night, Morning Star News reported. The girls had identified the assailants as Muhammad Shahbaz and Muhammad Azeem, who lived in the same village. Wilson Chowdhry, head of the British Pakistani Christian Association, told Morning Star News the 2014 case against the men was allegedly lost due to a key witness who changed his testimony in the face of threats and a bribe. The family "didn't get justice," the girls' father told Morning Star News. "The lawyer didn't fight the case very well and with commitment. ... We face serious life threats from the culprits now, as they are being released from jail. I will appeal to the High Court, because I want justice for my daughters." In another case concerning the persecution of Christians in Pakistan, Christian mother Aasiya Noreen, commonly known as Asia Bibi, is awaiting a trial date before the Pakistan Supreme Court in the appeal of her death sentence for blasphemy. Arrested in June 2009 after Muslim coworkers in a berry field beat her when she refused to convert to Islam following a quarrel, Bibi received her death sentence in November 2010. The Lahore High Court on Oct. 16, 2014 upheld the death sentence for the mother of 2 children and stepmother to 3 others. The High Court's ruling to reform blasphemy laws is an important move in protecting citizens from violent religious extremism, Peter Jacob, executive director for the Center for Social Justice, told ICC. "Through this judgment, Justice Asif Saeed Khosa has ostensibly turned the tide on [the] oppressive environment against the discourse around rights and democratic values in this country," Jacob said. "Yet, minorities and [liberals] in Pakistan, who have often been the targets of the laws misuse, might have to wait for complete success until the Parliament overcomes [its] lethargy and indecision." Jacob cited a 2014 hallmark decision by Chief Justice Tassaduq Jillani, now retired, that was widely viewed as having potential to protect citizens from violent extremism. But many of the mandates Jillani issued after an attack that killed 81 Christians at a church in Peshawar have either not been implemented or have been outsourced to other agencies, ICC said. Specifically, the Pakistan federal government has made no moves to institute a task force to develop a strategy of religious tolerance, and has not appointed a special police force to protect places of worship for minorities, Stark told BP. "When I was in Pakistan," Stark said, "many of the church leaders I met with said that police officials told them that they needed to provide their own private form of security in order to meet this recommendation instead of a special police force being created." No criminal cases have been brought against those who desecrate places of worship of Christians and other religious minorities in Pakistan as Jillani ordered, Stark said. "I haven't heard of any of these types of cases being brought," Stark told BP, "despite multiple incidents of religious minorities' places of worship being desecrated." The Pakistani federal government outsourced some of Jillani's mandates to provincial governments in a move called a "National Action Plan." The provincial governments are charged with implementing "appropriate curricula at school and college levels to promote a culture of religious and social tolerance," and taking steps "to ensure that hate speeches in social media are discouraged and the delinquents brought to justice under the law," but Stark said none of these changes has been made. The federal government has at least 1 of Jillani's mandates, Stark said. Specifically, the government has created a National Council for Minorities' Rights, although Stark said the council's authority and responsibilities have not been determined. Also in line with Jillani's ruling, the Supreme Court has created a separate file to be placed before a three-member Bench to ensure that the judgment is followed, Stark said. The ICC, formed in 1995, describes itself as a group to help the worldwide persecuted Christian church through assistance, awareness and advocacy. (source: Diana Chandler is Baptist Press' general assignment writer/editor) BAHRAIN: Bahrainis Stage Massive Anti-Saudi Rallies in Solidarity with Jailed Cleric Bahraini people in different parts of the country poured into streets to voice their outrage over the Saudi regime's decision to execute prominent Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr and call for his immediate release. Large groups of people attended the demonstrations in northern towns of A'ali, Ma'ameer and Bilad al-Qadeem, the hometown of Bahraini opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman on the outskirts of the capital, Manama, according to the official website of Bahrain's February 14 Youth Coalition, a major opposition group. They chanted anti-Saudi slogans and called for the immediate release of sheikh Nimr, who has been sentenced to death on political grounds. Mohamed al-Nimr, the cleric's brother, told Tasnim on October 25 that the death sentence has been referred to King Salman's office for a final decision. Saudi Arabia's criminal court had earlier referred Sheikh Nimr's case to an appeals court, where the verdict was upheld in early March. The Bahraini protesters also condemned the Manama regime for its recent moves against the mourning ceremonies to mark the martyrdom anniversary of the grandson of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), Imam Hussein (AS). Bahrain, a staunch ally of the United States in the Persian Gulf region, has been witnessing almost daily protests against the ruling Al Khalifa dynasty since early 2011, with Manama using heavy-handed measures in an attempt to crush the demonstrations. Scores of Bahrainis have been killed and hundreds of others injured and arrested in the ongoing crackdown on the peaceful demonstrations. Troops from Saudi Arabia have been also deployed to Bahrain to assist in its crackdown on the peaceful protesters. (source: Tasnim News Agency) BANGLADESH: 40 Years into Jail Killing ---- Death convicts stay safe abroad Even though 40 years have passed since the killing of 4 national leaders at Dhaka Central Jail, none of the convicted killers has been brought to book. All the convicts are in hiding, in the USA, Canada and some other countries. And, there is no positive message from the government about bringing them back to the country. US Ambassador to Bangladesh Marcia Stephens Bloom Bernicat in August this year officially informed Dhaka that fugitive Rashed Chowdhury was staying in the US after securing political asylum there. A government taskforce, working since 2010 to locate and bring back the absconding killers, came to know that another convicted killer Noor Chowdhury is now in Canada, but staying there illegally. The country has declined to deport him as its policy does not approve sending back a person where there is a provision of death sentence. Canada, however, reportedly did not accept Noor's application for political asylum. The taskforce has no confirmation about the location of the other fugitives, as they are always on the move, a taskforce member told this correspondent, requesting anonymity. Amid such a situation, the nation observes the 40th anniversary of the Jail Killing Day today to mourn the four liberation movement heroes -- Syed Nazrul Islam, Tajuddin Ahmad, AHM Quamruzzaman and Captain M Mansur Ali. The 4 leaders were shot dead following repeated bayonet charges at the jail on this day in 1975. They were sent to jail soon after the August 15, 1975, bloodbath that claimed the lives of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of his family members. The 4 leaders had led the country's Liberation War while Bangabandhu was detained by the Pakistan army. Attorney General Mahbubey Alam, who is a member of the taskforce, told The Daily Star on November 1 that the government has taken necessary steps to bring the killers back to the country. But, unfortunately, the governments of the countries, where the killers are hiding, are not cooperating, he said. Contacted, Law Minister Anisul Huq, who heads the taskforce, repeated his previous statement that the government was trying its best to bring back the fugitive killers through diplomatic channels. He, however, did not elaborate on this saying if he disclosed the strategy, the convicted killers cannot be brought back. The Supreme Court on April 30, 2013, upheld the death penalty of three former army personnel and life term imprisonment of 8 others for killing the 4 national leaders. The 3 convicts, who were awarded death penalty, are Risalder (retd) Muslemuddin, Dafadar (dismissed) Marfat Ali Shah and Dafadar (dismissed) Abdul Hashem Mridha. The 8 convicts, who were handed down life term imprisonment, are Lt Col (dismissed) Khondaker Abdur Rashid, Lt Col (relieved) Shariful Haq Dalim, Lt Col (retd) SHMB Noor Chowdhury, Lt Col (retd) AM Rashed Chowdhury, Maj (relieved) Ahmed Shariful Hossain, Capt (retd) Abdul Majed, Capt (relieved) Kismat Hasem and Capt (relieved) Nazmul Hossain. The apex court affirmed the judgment of a Dhaka court which in 2004 convicted and sentenced Muslemuddin, Marfat Ali Shah and Abdul Hashem Mridha to death and handed down life term imprisonment to 12 others, including the 8. 4 others -- Lt Col (dismissed) Syed Farooq-ur Rahman, Lt Col (retd) Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Maj (retd) Bazlul Huda and Maj (retd) AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed -- were executed in the Bangabandhu assassination case. In 2011, the SC exempted Farooq, Shahriar, Mohiuddin and Bazlul Huda from the jail killing case as they were already executed. In August 2008, the High Court upheld the capital punishment of Muslemuddin and acquitted Marfat and Hashem. It also acquitted Farooq, Shahriar, Mohiuddin and Bazlul Huda. The HC did not say anything about the 8 others who got life term imprisonment from the SC on April 30, 2013. (source: The Daily Star) THAILAND: Thai woman killed daughter-in-law and then faked her own death She didn't approve of her son's fiancee. So what did Juree Janngam do? The 73-year-old hired hitmen to kill her son's fiancee just 16 days before the wedding was to take place. Juree was found guilty of murder, a crime which carries the death penalty. However, soon after she was let out on bail, her daughter claimed she died and was cremated, producing a death certificate to prove her death. But Bangkok police have now said that they are re-opening the case as Juree had been spotted in Hat Yai, a city in Southern Thailand near the Malaysian border, reported the Bangkok Post. The startling twist in a case which has gripped the Thai capital since 8 years ago has now resurfaced. Juree, a Songkhla resident, was arrested for hiring gunman Narin Janchay, 36, to kill pharmacist Riwprae Chotikarn, on Dec 13, 2007, just 2 weeks before Ms Riwprae was to wed Juree's son, Mr Wikrom Janngam. According to the victim's mother, Ms Ruedeemat Singmanee, Juree had opposed of the marriage, saying that Ms Riwprae was from a poor family and only wanted to marry her son for the family wealth. "Before my daughter died, she said Juree and her daughter stalked and verbally abused her constantly, especially as the wedding day approached," Ms Ruedeemat said. "Juree even said the wedding must be cancelled or else a funeral will be held instead." Narin and Juree were both given the death sentence. However, she appealed against the conviction and was granted bail of 5 million baht (S$197,000). On Feb 27, 2014, Juree's daughter, Ms Rasamee Janngam, claimed that her mother had collapsed and died after returning from the People's Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) rally in Bangkok 3 days earlier. She later claimed that Juree's body was cremated on Feb 28 and submitted a death certificate to refund the bail. But recently, witnesses had seen Juree at the Hat Yai market, shopping for groceries. The Supreme Court ordered a probe into Juree's "death" and found that Juree's funeral rite was never held. The death certificate was issued based on a document Ms Rasamee asked the village headman to issue to prove her mother's "death". Police superintendent Sompong Suwanwong said he sent officers to look for Juree for 3 months. Their investigations found that Ms Rasamee was regularly her mother around the Hat Yai district. "It is difficult to arrest Juree as some of her relatives are influential in Hat Yai, and may have helped her to elude arrest," he said. "It is a challenging case but we're confident everything will be solved soon." (source: tnp.sg) JAPAN: Justice Ministry panel begins first comprehensive review of sex crime laws in over a century A Justice Ministry panel on Monday began reviewing what critics call Japan's lax criminal penalties against rapists and other sex offenders, in the nation's 1st comprehensive effort in more than a century to overhaul laws on sex crimes. The panel of outside legal experts is tasked with discussing ways to revamp sex offense statutes that have remained untouched since their enactment in the Meiji Era, save a few minor changes. During the first session of its deliberations Monday, the panel discussed whether to make sex crimes such as rape and indecent assault prosecutable without a complaint being filed by a victim, the Justice Ministry said. Critics have long argued that victims tend to refrain from initiating legal action themselves, either because they are ashamed to come forward or are misguidedly convinced they are somehow at fault for what happened. This is often true even when their tormentors are family members, such as parents and siblings, critics say. Most panel members agreed that no complaint by the victims should be deemed necessary to prosecute such crimes, a Justice Ministry official told reporters. Other topics to be deliberated by the panel include raising the minimum sentence for rapists from the current 3 years to 5 years - equivalent to crimes such as murder, robbery and arson. While rape resulting in injury or death currently entails at least 5 years in prison, and a maximum of life, the panel will also consider increasing the minimum to 6 years. It will also debate updating the definition of rape, which the law currently stipulates as referring only to an assault against women in the form of vaginal intercourse. One possibility, the ministry said, is to make rape applicable to both male and female victims and inclusive of acts such as anal and oral sex. Furthermore, the panel will look into the possibility of setting up a new penalty against rape committed by offenders who have taken advantage of their "guardianship" over children under the age of 18, such as parents, in a bid to curb incestuous abuse. The move to review criminal penalties against sex crimes was originally spearheaded by Midori Matsushima, a former justice minister who, upon assuming the post in September 2014, declared that harsher penalties for sex offenders was a centerpiece of her policy agenda. After wrapping up the discussions, the panel will submit recommendations to the ministry so it can compile amendment proposals. (source: The Japan Times) SINGAPORE: see: http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/singapore-halt-kho-jabing-s-execution-ua-10315 (source: Amnesty International USA) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Nov 3 10:01:40 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2015 10:01:40 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., GA., MISS., MO. Message-ID: Nov. 3 PENNSYLVANIA: Attorney defended clients with vigor, success The son of a Sykesville chicken farmer who became one of the nation's fiercest criminal defense attorneys, Gary Zimmerman is remembered as a man who loved the law but also his friends and family. Gary B. Zimmerman of Shadyside died Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2015, of surgical complications at UPMC Presbyterian after a bout with lung-scarring pulmonary fibrosis. He was 75. "When it came to defending his clients, he was like a pit bull with a bone. He stayed on the case until the end, but there was a side of Gary many people didn't see. He quietly worked with clients to turn their lives around, and many of them did," said Duquesne University law professor Jane Campbell Moriarty, Mr. Zimmerman's wife of 28 years. Born to Wilson Blaine and Vaughn (Weber) Zimmerman on Aug. 14, 1940, Mr. Zimmerman left what was then Slippery Rock College to enlist in the Army. Honorably discharged as a sergeant, he returned from Germany to work as a private investigator. He graduated from Slippery Rock and then Duquesne University School of Law, attending at night, before joining the Allegheny County Public Defender's Office. In 1973, he met Common Pleas President Judge Jeffrey A. Manning, and they remained friends for 42 years. "It was the liberal public defender, Gary, versus the conservative prosecutor, me," said Manning, a former assistant district attorney. "They were ferocious battles. But the thing about Gary was that he would be a tenacious fighter in the courtroom and your best friend in the hallway." One of their grittiest duels was the 1975 case of Robert Wideman, a Brushton man tied to the slaying of an Overbrook car dealer during a botched robbery. Mr. Zimmerman convinced jurors that Wideman never pulled the trigger, garnering a 2nd-degree murder sentence. Moriarty said that Mr. Zimmerman defended nearly 100 accused murderers, and not one of them drew the death penalty. He never lost an appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Monroeville attorney Pat Thomassey also jousted with Mr. Zimmerman as a prosecutor, recalling best his litigation on behalf of Tarentum's Stanley Hoss, a convicted cop killer and kidnapper implicated in the 1973 death of Walter Peterson, the 1st black captain at Western Penitentiary in Pittsburgh. "They were 3 lifers who trapped him in a room. Through the butcher glass, people could see them beat a man to death with wooden chairs. But Hoss didn't get the death penalty. He got 2nd-degree murder," Thomassey said. "He did all that, but his daughters and his grandchildren were always his true joy. They meant everything to him, and those are the people he would want everyone to think about today," Moriarty said. Preceded in death by his parents and sister Karen (Zimmerman) Felczak, Mr. Zimmerman is survived by his wife; daughters Lisa Krackow of Point Breeze, Amy Haldane of Seattle and Kat Zimmerman of Denver; grandchildren Lela and Aaron Krackow and Gibson Zimmerman; and sister, Deb Zediak. A private memorial service is slated for late November, with McCabe Brothers Inc., Funeral Homes in Shadyside handling arrangements. Memorial donations may be made to the Simmons Center for Interstitial Lung Disease at the University of Pittsburgh or the Duquesne University School of Law's Call to Excellence Fund. (source: triblive.com) GEORGIA----new execution date Former Dougherty D.A. speaks out on Johnson execution date The former Dougherty County District Attorney says it's time for a killer who's been on death row for nearly 20 years to be executed. The state set November 19th as the execution date for Ray Johnson. In 1998, he was convicted of the brutal 1994 rape and murder of Angela Sizemore. Former Dougherty County District Attorney, Ken Hodges, says when he took office in 1997 there were 8 pending death penalty cases and Johnson's was one of the most horrific. "There was DNA evidence, there were eyewitnesses and there was a partial confession as to what occurred and so it's clear who committed this and it's time for justice to be had," said Ken Hodges, Former Dougherty County District Attorney. In 2011, a day before Johnson was supposed to be executed he was granted a stay so new DNA testing could be done on evidence. After years of hearings on those issues a judge in April denied Johnson's request for a new trial. The Georgia Supreme Court upheld that ruling. (source: WALB news) ***************** Supreme Court to Decide if Georgia Went Too Far in Excluding Black Jurors "We have an arsenal of smoking guns," a lawyer for a death row inmate told the Supreme Court on Monday. The justices were considering a case on race discrimination in jury selection, and there seemed to be consensus that prosecutors in Georgia had crossed a constitutional line in 1987 in their efforts to exclude all blacks from a jury that would hear a capital case against a black man, Timothy T. Foster, who was accused of killing a white woman, Queen Madge White. Prosecutors used peremptory challenges - ones that do not require giving a reason - to exclude every potential black juror. In 1986, in Batson v. Kentucky, the Supreme Court made an exception to the centuries-old rule that peremptory challenges are completely discretionary. It ruled that race discrimination in jury selection was unconstitutional and required lawyers accused of it to provide a nondiscriminatory explanation. Such challenges are rare, and most lawyers are capable of offering reasons unrelated to race. Many legal experts say the Batson ruling has turned out to be toothless and symbolic. But Monday's case, Foster v. Chatman, No. 14-8349, appeared poised to be an exception. "Isn't this as clear a Batson violation as this court is likely to see?" Justice Elena Kagan asked. The case certainly had unusually vivid evidence. In notes that did not surface until decades after the trial, the result of a public records request, prosecutors had marked the names of black prospective jurors with a B and highlighted those names in green. They circled the word "black" where potential jurors had noted their race on questionnaires. They ranked the black prospective jurors in case ???it comes down to having to pick one of the black jurors," as the prosecution's investigator put it in a draft affidavit at the time. In the end, prosecutors struck all 4 black potential jurors. When challenged, Stephen Lanier, the lead prosecutor, denied that race had been a factor and offered other reasons for the strikes. The black prospective jurors were confused, incoherent, hostile, disrespectful or nervous, he said, and three did not make enough eye contact. "All I have to do is have a race-neutral reason," Mr. Lanier said at the time, "and all of these reasons that I have given the court are racially neutral." The judge rejected the defense's objection. The Supreme Court's more conservative members mostly discussed potential hurdles in the case. Justice Antonin Scalia, for instance, said the trial judge was in the best position to assess the prosecutors' intent. "It's sort of hard for us to do it on a cold record," he said. Justice Kagan agreed but added that this was "a case where all the evidence of intentional discrimination was not before the judge at the time." Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. appeared troubled by some explanations offered by prosecutors that seemed to be at odds with the facts. A 34-year-old black woman, for instance, was said to be too close in age to the defendant, who was 19. (The prosecution did not challenge 8 prospective white jurors age 35 or under.) Beth A. Burton, a lawyer representing the State of Georgia, said prosecutors had noted the jurors' races and marshaled long lists of race-neutral explanations because the Batson decision had just been issued and they were unsure how to comply with it. Justice Stephen G. Breyer asked whether Mr. Lanier or the state had ever said such a thing at the time or in the decades before the case arrived at the Supreme Court. Ms. Burton said no. Justice Breyer underscored the concession. "So if that had been his real reason, isn't it a little surprising that he never thought of it, or didn't tell anybody, until you raise this argument in your main brief?" Justice Breyer asked. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy asked how courts should assess the "laundry list of reasons for striking the black jurors" when "some of those are reasonable and some are implausible." Stephen B. Bright, a lawyer for Mr. Foster, said courts should be wary of encouraging lawyers "to just give as many reasons as possible and hope that one will be acceptable." Justice Breyer added that the sheer number of explanations offered for striking black potential jurors was suspicious. It reminded him, he said, of excuses his grandson might offer for not doing homework. In the jury case, he said, "I think any reasonable person looking at this would say, no, his reason was a purpose to discriminate on the basis of race." Mr. Foster was convicted by an all-white jury and sentenced to death. He has spent decades on death row and is seeking a new trial. (source: New York Times) MISSISSIPPI: Federal court says death row inmate can make new appeal A federal appeals court ruled last week that a Mississippi inmate can try to overturn his death sentence by arguing that he is mentally disabled. A 3-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that Ricky Chase can file the petition with a federal district court, without saying how the court should rule. Chase was convicted and sentenced to death in the Aug. 14, 1989, killing of 70-year-old vegetable salesman Elmer Hart in Copiah County. The appeals judges said Chase can go ahead because his claims rely on a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling made after his initial federal appeal. The state had opposed Chase's efforts, arguing issues over his mental ability had already been litigated during the 1st appeal in 2003. At that time, Chase's lawyers had argued the original conviction should be overturned because the attorney who represented him at trial failed to raise his mental disability as a reason he should get a lighter sentence. The 3-judge panel disagreed, saying the 2002 ruling in Atkins v. Virginia was unavailable when Chase 1st began his federal appeal. "Atkins had not been decided when Chase's 1st federal habeas corpus petition was filed and decided in the district court," the panel wrote. It added that the mental disability issue "that Chase presented in his 1st federal habeas petition was not an Atkins claim." The inmate already unsuccessfully sought relief from the death penalty based on Atkins before a state trial court judge and the state Supreme Court. Chase has argued that a pretrial mental examination showed that he was mentally incapacitated. Chase said he was examined by 2 doctors. But court regards show 1 doctor did not find Chase was mentally handicapped. Mississippi's death penalty is effectively suspended right now because of a separate legal action where Chase and 2 other death row inmates have sued. A judge agreed in August with their claims that Mississippi plans to use drugs that don't meet state law requiring an "ultra short-acting barbiturate" that will render a person unconscious almost immediately. The state is appealing the ruling, saying the U.S. Supreme Court approved the use of the drug midazolam as a sedative in Oklahoma. Authorities said Hart's body was found on his bedroom floor beside his wife, who watched helplessly while gagged. Hart apparently had come home as his wife was being robbed by Chase and another man at the couple's rural home, according to the court records. His wife had been doused with an ammonia-like substance and tied up, court records showed. (source: Associated Press) MISSOURI----impending execution Ernest Johnson cannot be legally executed Tuesday evening, barring intervention from Gov. Jay Nixon or a court, Missouri will execute Ernest Johnson, a man with an IQ of 67. If allowed, Mr. Johnson's execution will violate the Supreme Court's ruling in 2002, Atkins v. Virginia, that the Constitution prohibits the execution of the intellectually disabled. Johnson murdered three employees of a convenience store in Columbia in February 1994. After his initial conviction in 1995, a jury sentenced him to death. The state Supreme Court subsequently ordered a new sentencing phase. That jury also decided on death. A third sentencing proceeding was held, with a new jury, after the Atkins decision, focusing on his mental capacity. That jury, too, decided on the death penalty. But because of his mental condition, Johnson cannot be legally executed. Prosecutors consistently have dismissed the significance of his disability and advocated for the death penalty. "To decide it's more likely true than not that this guy is mentally retarded," the prosecutor argued to a jury in 2005, "is an insult, an insult to these victims." The ethical duty of a prosecutor is to advance the ends of justice, not to rack up convictions or maximize sentencing outcomes. Prosecutors are bound by an ethical principle best summed up by a 1935 Supreme Court opinion: While the prosecutor "may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones." Use of incendiary arguments to advocate for a man's death - like those employed by the state throughout Johnson's sentencing proceeding - in the face of evidence that he is not even eligible for execution, is a subversion of the criminal-justice process. As the court reasoned in Atkins, criminal defendants like Johnson are less culpable and more exposed to unjust outcomes because of their disability. In 2014, the Supreme Court clarified that "established medical practice" and "scientific measurement" must determine whether a defendant has intellectual disability - not antiquated stereotypes or bright line IQ maximums. At trial, testing by both the prosecution and defense revealed Johnson had an IQ of 67, which is well within the range of intellectual disability. Johnson was born with the developmental consequences of fetal alcohol syndrome. In a series of IQ tests that began at age 8 and spanned decades, he scored below the threshold for intellectual disability 6 times. His scores on academic achievement tests consistently placed in him in the bottom 1st or 2nd percentile in subjects like math and reading. He learned to walk and talk much later than his siblings. His brother and sister recounted how when they were growing up, he lacked basic abilities like using a knife and fork. So how does a man with such diminished cognitive functioning face execution? Unfortunately, the facts of Johnson???s disability were clouded in court by the prosecutor's inflammatory rhetoric. Because the prosecutor could not empirically contest the truth of Johnson's disability, he instead resorted to offensive and incorrect arguments about the intellectually disabled to convince the jury to sentence him to death. The prosecutor first accused Johnson of artificially depressing his scores, but in doing so relied on the opinion of a person with no formal training in administering IQ testing and no training in making clinical observations. The prosecutor then argued to the jury that because Johnson watched television and played cards and basketball, he was not "a weak, little skinny, mentally retarded kid in prison" - hardly a clinical basis for an opinion on which Johnson's very eligibility for the death penalty depended. After hearing this unreliable evidence and improper argument, the jury sentenced Johnson to death. It is not too late to correct course in this case. Gov. Nixon should commute Johnson's sentence to life without parole. The governor could also appoint a Board of Inquiry to make an independent determination regarding the severity of Johnson's disability. In any case, to allow this execution to go forward would be to sanction a gross injustice. (source: Opinion; John N. Gallo served as an assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Illinois from 1989 to 1995----St. Louis Post-Dispatch) **************** Malden man will be facing death penalty A Malden, Mo., man's preliminary hearing was postponed last week after the state filed the necessary paperwork declaring its intentions to seek the death penalty in his case. Floyd Mantel Young Jr., 22, was supposed to appear Friday morning before Associate Circuit Judge Joe Satterfield for a preliminary hearing on the Class A felony of 1st-degree murder or in the alternative the Class A felony of 2nd-degree murder, the Class B felony of attempted 1st-degree robbery, 2 unclassified felonies of armed criminal action and the Class D felony of unlawful use of a weapon. Young is accused of causing the death of Dustin Greer of Bloomfield, Mo., by shooting him. The 28-year-old died July 21 at a Cape Girardeau, Mo., hospital after he was taken off life support. Greer died of injuries he suffered when he was shot in the head 3 days earlier while seated in his SUV. On Tuesday, Dunklin County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Jonce Chidister filed a notice of statutory aggravating circumstances with the court. The filing reportedly puts the defense on notice of what aggravating circumstances the state intends to rely on at trial. The aggravating circumstances Chidister cited are: -- The murder in the 1st degree was committed while Young was engaged in the perpetration of the felony of robbery; -- The murder in the 1st degree was committed while Young was engaged in the perpetration or was aiding or encouraging another person to perpetrate or attempt to perpetrate a felony; and -- The murder in the 1st degree was committed for the purpose of receiving money or any other thing of monetary value from the victim. The charges against Young stem from when Malden police officers began an assault investigation at about 3:20 a.m. July 18, according to Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Scott Stoelting's probable-cause statement. "When officers arrived at the rear of 405 N. Edward St., they observed a male, later identified as Dustin Greer, sitting in the driver' seat of a white Chevrolet Tahoe," Stoelting said. "Greer had an obvious gunshot wound to the front, left side of his head." Stoelting said the officers also noticed what appeared to be a bullet hole in the front, left fender of the SUV. As Greer was taken to the hospital for treatment, Malden and highway patrol officers reportedly processed the scene and interviewed witnesses. Stoelting said a witness identified Young as the alleged shooter. "The witness told investigators he saw Young point the gun inside the vehicle, and as the vehicle accelerated, he heard the gun go off," Stoelting said. "Prior to this shooting incident, the same witness observed Young with a pistol." During a follow-up interview, Stoelting said, the witness further told officers he was inside the SUV when Greer was shot. "This witness said ...Floyd pointed a gun inside and told Greer: 'Give me your -- -- money,'" Stoelting said. "This witness said Greer was holding $20 in his right hand and had his left hand on the steering wheel." Greer, according to the witness' statement, grabbed the gun Young was holding, and "they began struggling over the gun." "The witness said the gun went off a couple of times and (Greer) then began driving away." Stoelting said the witness reported hearing at least 2 or 3 more shots as the SUV "was rolling toward" a carport, which eventually was struck. Stoelting said investigators found 4 .380-caliber shell casings during their examination of the crime scene. "One casing was found in the vacant lot, where Floyd Young later puts himself while drinking," Stoelting said. "Another shell casing was found on the edge of East Francis Street." 2 other casings were found near what Stoelting described as acceleration marks of Greer's SUV in the alley. "The 2 casings found in the alley were located about 6 feet from where the acceleration marks were located in the gravel," said Stoelting, who was able to follow the acceleration marks into the grass yard where Greer's SUV came to a stop. Stoelting said the SUV also was examined and a bullet hole was found in the front, left fender. "The hole was at an angle as if the bullet struck the vehicle as it was driving away from the location where the shooter was standing," Stoelting said. Greer's wound, according to Stoelting, was to the upper left side of his head. "It appeared the projectile was fired at a downward angle because officers observed what they thought was the bullet in his right jaw area," Stoelting said. "The suspect shooter in this case is identified as being 6 (feet) 5 (inches) and weighing approximately 160 pounds." Stoelting said no shell casings or bullet holes were found inside Greer's SUV. After a warrant for his arrest was issued, Young turned himself in at the Malden Police Department. During a July 19th interview, Stoelting said, Young told him and Malden Police Chief Jarrett Bullock he was at a vacant lot across from where the shooting occurred at about 3 a.m. "Young said he was drinking and 'just hanging out,'" Stoelting said. "During this time, Young tells us a subject ... left the lot, walking east toward North Edwards Street. "A short time later, a white SUV pulls into the alley near where he is standing. Young tells us (the subject) yells for him, along with 2 other black males to come to the truck." According to his statement, Young told officers the SUV's driver produced a gun as he was approaching the vehicle. "The other 2 black males leave, and Young says he reached inside the vehicle and grabs for the gun," Stoelting said. "Young tells us as he's trying to get the gun away, it goes off once or twice." Stoelting said he confronted Young about him not being truthful. "Young then tells us the story that he gets control of the gun, and the white male (Greer) grabs the gun, and it goes off," Stoelting said. "Young claims he dropped the gun and ran off." Stoelting said Young again was confronted with "this lie." "After a few more minutes of talking, Young agrees to take us to the gun," Stoelting said. A .380-caliber Kel-Tec, which Young indicated was the one used in the alleged shooting, was turned over to officers, said Stoelting, who indicated the gun had been reported stolen from a Malden residence on May 26. Young, who continues to be held without bond in the Dunklin County Justice Center, is to appear at 1 p.m. Nov. 23 before Satterfield for a hearing in his case. A preliminary hearing date may be set at that time or motions may be heard. (source: The Daily Statesman) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Nov 3 10:02:26 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2015 10:02:26 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----NEB., COLO., NEV., USA Message-ID: Nov. 3 NEBRASKA: State fails again to get death penalty drug Nebraska prison officials unsuccessfully tried to buy a key lethal injection drug from a Mississippi-based pharmaceutical company after spending months trying to import tens of thousands of dollars in execution drugs from India, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. The Nebraska Department of Correctional Services ordered about $825 worth of pancuronium bromide last month from Gulf Coast Pharmaceuticals Plus, which replaced a firm that was dissolved in 2013 after it faced disciplinary action in other states. Documents obtained through an open records request show the order was placed Oct. 14, amid an ongoing challenge to lawmakers' decision to repeal the death penalty in Nebraska, which hasn't carried out an execution in 18 years. The four-box order was cancelled a day later, after the company said the product wasn't available. Nebraska had already spent $26,000 to buy 1,000 doses of the drug from an Indian distributor, along with 1,000 doses of the anesthetic sodium thiopental, but the shipment was blocked in India because it didn't have proper shipping papers. Similar orders by Arizona and Texas that made it to the United States were confiscated by federal authorities. Both drugs are required as part of Nebraska's 3-drug lethal injection protocol, but sodium thiopental currently has no legal uses in the U.S. Nebraska already has the 3rd drug, potassium chloride, which is used to stop the heart. The latest attempted purchase reflects problems faced by many death-penalty states trying to buy drugs for executions amid a nationwide shortage. It also followed months of public statements by Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts that the state was working to import the drug from India-based Harris Pharma. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has repeatedly said states cannot legally import lethal injection drugs, but Nebraska and others have attempted to do so. A Nebraska Department of Correctional Services spokesman didn't return phone messages seeking comment Monday. A message left for Gulf Coast Pharmaceuticals Plus also wasn't returned. Gulf Coast Pharmaceuticals Plus, based in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, bills itself as a pharmaceutical distributor to hospitals, pharmacies and physician practices. The company is owned by Debra Ritchey. Her husband, Kenneth Ritchey, was president of Gulf Coast Pharmaceuticals Inc., which lost its pharmacy wholesaler license in Oklahoma in 2010 after being accused of shipping unusually large amounts of pain killers and relaxants to Oklahoma pharmacies licensed by American Indian tribes. The company admitted selling 13.8 million doses of three different drugs to one pharmacy in a six-month period. It also acknowledged it didn't have procedures to monitor suspicious orders or seek a state license before it started doing business. The case triggered a wave of revocations in other states where the company was licensed. The new company was granted a license in March, but regulators believe the management hasn't changed, said Cindy Hamilton, the Oklahoma State Board of Pharmacy's chief compliance officer. "We're keeping an eye on them," Hamilton said. She said Oklahoma regulators revoked the old company's license because it was distributing "huge quantities of medication that could be abused" by the public. In Nebraska, lawmakers abolished the death penalty in May by overriding Ricketts' veto. But that triggered a statewide petition drive that halted the repeal until voters can weigh in on the issue during the November 2016 election. Nebraska currently has 10 men on death row, but it hasn't carried out an execution since 1997. The state has never used its current lethal injection protocol; the last execution relied on the electric chair. Dan Parsons, a spokesman for the anti-death penalty group Nebraskans for Public Safety, said the records provide more evidence that the state's death penalty is broken beyond repair, "and taxpayers are out tens of thousands of dollars." (source: Associated Press) COLORADO: Colorado death sentence inmates moved to state penitentiary----Nathan Dunlap and 2 other condemned inmates were moved from Sterling to Canon City 3 inmates in Colorado facing the death penalty were moved recently from a prison in Sterling to Canon City, a corrections official said Monday. Nathan Dunlap, Sir Mario Owens and Robert Ray are now being housed in the Colorado State Penitentiary, said Adrienne Jacobson, a Colorado Department of Corrections spokeswoman. The 3 were housed in the Sterling Correctional Facility for about the past 4 years, and the move back to Canon City brings them full circle. The 3 were moved to Sterling because of a lack of outdoor access, Jacobson said. That issue has been resolved and they are now back at the state penitentiary. All 3 are housed in "management controlled units," among a group of 5 other inmates. The death sentence inmates typically are out of their cells for about 4 hours daily. The recent moves, within the past 2 weeks, back to Canon City were without incident. (source: Denver Post) NEVADA: Man who killed Wash. woman in Las Vegas faces death penalty A jury that quickly found a self-styled pimp guilty of killing 3 people in a spectacular shooting and fiery crash on the Las Vegas Strip returns to a Nevada courtroom on Monday to begin deciding whether he should receive the death penalty. The jury deliberated less than 20 minutes a week ago before finding Ammar Asim Faruq Harris guilty of killing an aspiring rapper in a Maserati sports car and a cab driver and a tourist from Washington state in a taxi that exploded in a fireball early Feb. 21, 2013. No one disputed during his weeklong trial that the 29-year-old Harris was the shooter. Prosecutors and witnesses said Harris argued with a man at a hip-hop concert at the Aria resort, and video showed the black Range Rover he was driving jockeying with the Maserati during a short chase between stoplights on neon-lit Las Vegas Boulevard. Harris didn't testify at trial, and isn't expected to testify during the penalty phase. He maintained through his lawyers that he was defending himself when he shot into the Maserati, killing aspiring rapper Kenneth Wayne Cherry Jr., and wounding a passenger, Freddy Walters. The sports car then sped through a red light and crashed into a taxi that ignited in flames, killing cab driver Michael Boldon and passenger Sandra Sutton-Wasmund of Maple Valley, Washington. 5 other people were injured in several other vehicles involved in chain-reaction crashes. Dashboard video from a nearby taxi showed apparent gunshots from the black SUV before the carnage in front of the Caesars Palace and Flamingo resorts. Cameras caught the Range Rover speeding away in the night. Although police found no gun in the wrecked Maserati, and no bullet holes were found in the Range Rover, Harris' lawyers, Thomas Ericsson and Robert Langford, maintained the shooting was self-defense. Harris grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and lived in Miami and Atlanta. He fled Las Vegas the day after the shooting, and was arrested a week later in Los Angeles. He was convicted in 2013 of raping and robbing an 18-year-old woman at a Las Vegas condominium in June 2010, and is serving 16 years to life in Nevada prison. That case is being appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court. Harris was previously convicted in South Carolina in 2004 of a felony weapon charge, and he was convicted earlier this year of bribing a Nevada prison guard to smuggle cellphones, takeout chicken and vodka to him behind bars. (source: KOMO news) USA: Plea hearing set for man accused of killing police informant A Charleston man charged by federal prosecutors with killing a police informant is expected to plead guilty next week. Marlon Dewayne "Ice" Dixon, 39, is accused of killing Branda Mae Delight Basham, 21, to prevent her from testifying or continuing to provide information against him to police. Basham's body was found on railroad tracks on the West Side in July 2014. A plea hearing is set for Nov. 9 in front of U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Johnston in Charleston. Prosecutors in U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin's office wouldn't say Monday whether the Department of Justice has determined yet whether to seek the death penalty against Dixon. The charges a federal grand jury returned against Dixon last October made him eligible for the death penalty or life in prison, Goodwin has said. It's up to the DOJ to make that determination. "There is a review process within the DOJ that looks at a number of factors under the indictment," Goodwin said last year. Charleston attorney John Carr, who represents Dixon, wouldn't comment Monday about the case. In cases where the death penalty is a possibility, a defendant is appointed 2 attorneys - one of whom should be experienced with handling those types of cases. Claire Cardwell is serving as lead counsel for Dixon because she's from Richmond, Virginia, where the death penalty is used. West Virginia abolished capital punishment at the state level in 1965, but the federal government can still ask for it. A 7-count indictment charges Dixon with murder, 3 counts of distributing heroin, 2 counts of tampering with a witness by killing her, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. According to the indictment, Dixon was convicted in federal court of distributing cocaine in 1999 and again in 2006. He was convicted in 2007 of malicious wounding in Kanawha Circuit Court.Prosecutors allege Dixon killed Basham in retaliation for her cooperation with police. She was shot 3 times on July 12, 2014. Her body was found near Breece and Madison streets. Dixon was arrested about a week later. He was originally charged with 1st-degree murder in Kanawha Circuit Court, but federal prosecutors decided to take the case. Goodwin previously cited his office's crackdown on heroin distribution as a reason for filing the federal charges. Dixon has remained jailed without bond since he was arrested in July 2014. Basham was working as an informant for the Metropolitan Drug Enforcement Network Team, according to an affidavit police used to obtain a search warrant for Dixon's cell phone. At least 3 times in May 2014, Basham made controlled purchases of heroin from Dixon. A woman told police that Dixon showed up at her house the night Basham was killed and asked her to wash his clothes. Dixon can allegedly be seen on surveillance footage wiping down the front doorknob and door at the woman's home, according to police. Police found blood on both the door and a pair of athletic shoes alleged to be Dixon's. The same witness told police Dixon was carrying a black pistol in his waistband the night of Basham's slaying and told her Basham was killed because she wore a wire and was working as an informant for the police, court documents state.Basham's cellphone records show communication with a number police believe belonged to Dixon in the moments leading up to her death. Phone records allegedly show Dixon was the last person to communicate with Basham. (source: Charleston (W. Va.) Gazette Mail) ************* Some find redemption on death row, but few find mercy Strapped to the execution gurney in Huntsville, Texas, Michael Hall told those assembled to watch him die that he was not the same man who had shot a 19-year-old woman to death 13 years earlier. "The old is gone," he said. "That person is dead." Stories of condemned inmates who find God and goodness while they await execution are nothing new. But in recent decades, they have become a lot more plausible. A century ago, the condemned counted their time on death row in months. Now they count it in years - and sometimes decades. Those executed in 2011, the year Hall was put to death, had spent an average of 16.5 years on death row. As a historian of the modern American death penalty, I have argued that the extraordinary amount of time that now elapses between sentencing and execution has changed the public's perception of capital punishment. It has also changed the condemned. Death row transformations The passage of time now allows those sentenced to death to do what their predecessors never could have done. They publish books warning children about the dangers of gang membership. They earn theology certificates from divinity schools. They even fall in love and get married. Those on both sides of the political spectrum have been moved by stories of a condemned person's transformation. In the 1990s, conservative Evangelical minister Pat Robertson led a campaign to save the life of Karla Faye Tucker, a Texas woman whose "genuine change of heart" seemed so authentic that it forced him to rethink his support of the death penalty. In the 2000s, a decidedly more progressive set of advocates tried to stop the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams in California. Williams, a cofounder of the Crips street gang, had been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his antigang activism from death row. To execute him would be to execute a man who no longer existed, they argued. But these well-publicized campaigns, and their less-visible counterparts, have failed. Tucker was executed in 1998, Williams in 2005. Redeemed, but not saved Just this past September, Pope Francis pleaded with the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to spare the life of Kelly Gissendaner, a woman who planned her husband's murder in 1998. In her decade-and-a-half stay on death row, Gissendaner had earned a theological certificate and struck up a friendship with the internationally renowned German theologian Jurgen Moltmann. A photo of her graduation from her theology program shows her proudly showing Moltmann her final project for the class: a devotional called "Journey of Hope by Faith." Gissendaner's redemption did not matter. Georgia executed her on September 30. Her death was consistent with a peculiar trend in the history of the American death penalty: As the growing amount of time between sentencing and execution has made redemption claims more plausible, mercy has ironically become more difficult to find. Skepticism about jailhouse conversions and a desire to do justice for murder victims and their family members are certainly part of the reason. But a less obvious and strikingly different explanation comes from our history. In the 17th and 18th centuries, rehabilitation was a central objective of execution. In Colonial America, Puritans conceived of a death sentence as a mechanism for inducing penitence in the wayward. Even in the 19th century, a few supporters of capital punishment took issue with the notion that the punishment of death was at odds with the goal of reforming the wicked. The sentence of death was far more likely to bring a wayward sheep back into the flock than was consignment to the penitentiaries that were sprouting up in the nation, conservative ministers like George Cheever thought. When it's made explicit, such logic may seem foreign to modern Americans living in a comparatively secular age. But popular culture from our recent history shows us that this way of thinking still holds unconscious sway over us. In several cinematic takes on the death penalty at the end of the 20th century - from The Green Mile and Dead Man Walking to The Chamber - a death sentence, brought to its conclusion, helps guilty inmates find a goodness within themselves that was never before there. An execution date, these films suggested, prompts a degree of self-examination and personal transformation that incarceration cannot rival. A holy penalty These films suggest that a centuries-old strain of Christian thought remains with us, softening our collective capacity to see the death penalty as cruel. In a nation filled with believers in an afterlife, the redemption of a condemned person does not make the death penalty horrible; it makes it holy. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has suggested that Americans' religious character has made them more tolerant of capital punishment. Scalia, a Catholic defender of the death penalty, has noted that it is no surprise that the global movement against the death penalty took its firmest hold in "post-Christian Europe" rather than in the still-Christian United States. "For the believing Christian, death is no big deal," he has argued, not an end to all existence, but merely to an earthly one. In a more secular form, we might hear echoes of such thinking in a 2007 Supreme Court opinion written by Justice Anthony Kennedy. "It might be said," Kennedy observed, "that capital punishment is imposed because it has the potential to make the offender recognize at last the gravity of his crime." Such a sensibility helps to explain why death penalty abolitionism is difficult in the United States. In our collective imagination, capital punishment has sometimes seemed like a sanction that brings closure not only to the family members of victims, but also to the condemned themselves. "If the State of Georgia offers no mercy, she has received already the mercy of Heaven," the German theologian Moltmann said when the Georgia Board of Pardon and Paroles denied Kelly Gissendaner???s clemency last February. In American culture, though, there has long been a symbiotic relationship between the harshness of the state and the mercy of heaven. (source: Daniel LaChance, theconversation.com) ************** 'Western Bandit' suspect charged with capital murder, faces death penalty A man suspected of being the "Western Bandit" was arrested and charged with capital murder and dozens of counts of attempted murder, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office announced Monday. Patrick Watkins, 51, was charged with 2 counts of murder, 26 counts of attempted murder, 13 counts of assault with a firearm, 5 counts of shooting at an occupied car, and 4 counts of 2nd-degree robbery and felon in possession of a firearm. Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck said Watkins has a violent history during a press conference Monday afternoon. Mayor Eric Garcetti was also in attendance and spoke out against Watkin's suspected actions. "In some ways just calling him a bandit doesn't begin to capture the fear and the actions of this man who is a cold-blooded killer," Garcetti said. He is suspected of killing Nathan Vickers on Jan. 17, 2011 and Larise Smith on Dec. 8, 2014. Both charges carry special circumstances, which makes Watkins eligible for the death penalty. Investigators said Watkins was linked to the series of crimes with the help of DNA evidence collected during a prior arrest. The nickname "Western Bandit" comes from the series of armed robberies and shootings that happened along Western Avenue between November 2011 and November 2014. Watkins is suspected of riding his bicycle up to people sitting in cars along the avenue. Authorities said he demanded cash or opened fire on occupants. In some cases, he is said to have approached people on foot and either robbed them or shot them. The case remains under investigation with the LAPD. (source: KABC news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Nov 3 10:03:13 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2015 10:03:13 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 3 AFGHANISTAN----female stoned to death Afghan woman stoned to death for 'adultery' A young Afghan woman was stoned to death after being accused of adultery, officials said Tuesday, a medieval punishment apparently recorded in a video that harks back to the dark days of Taliban rule. The 30-second clip run in Afghan media shows a woman in a hole in the ground as turbaned men gather around and hurl stones at her with chilling nonchalance. The woman, named by officials as Rokhsahana and aged between 19 and 21, is heard repeating the shahada, or Muslim profession of faith, her voice growing increasingly high-pitched as stones strike her with sickening thuds. Policy reversal in Afghanistan The killing took place about a week ago in a Taliban-controlled area just outside Firozkoh, the capital of central Ghor province, officials said, confirming the video which went viral on social media. "Yes, the footage shown in the media is related to Rokhsahana, who was stoned to death," a spokesman for Ghor's Governor Seema Joyenda told AFP. Rokhsahana was stoned by a gathering of "Taliban, local religious leaders and armed warlords", Joyenda said. Joyenda, 1 of only 2 female governors in Afghanistan, said Rokhsahana's family had married her off against her will and that she was caught while eloping with another man her age - seen as tantamount to adultery. The man was let off with a lashing, Joyenda's spokesman said. The brutal punishment meted out to Rokhsahana highlighted the endemic violence against women in Afghan society, despite reforms since the hardline Taliban regime fell in 2001. In March a woman named Farkhunda was savagely beaten and set ablaze in central Kabul after being falsely accused of burning a Koran. The mob killing triggered protests around the country and drew global attention to the treatment of Afghan women. Joyenda condemned the stoning in Ghor, calling on Kabul to launch a military operation to rid the area of insurgents and other armed groups. Mortar shells fired from Afghanistan land in Kurram Agency "This is the 1st incident in this area (this year) but will not be the last," she said. "Women in general have problems all over the country, but in Ghor even more conservative attitudes prevail." In September a video from Ghor appeared to show a woman - covered head to toe in a veil and huddled on the ground - receiving lashes from a turbaned elder in front of a crowd of male spectators. The flogging came after a local court found her guilty of having sex outside marriage with a man, who was similarly punished. Shariah law decrees stoning as the punishment for men and women convicted of having sex outside marriage, but the penalty is very rarely applied in Muslim countries. Public lashings and executions were common under the Taliban???s 1996-2001 rule, when a strict interpretation of Sharia law was enforced, but such incidents have been less common in recent years. The Taliban have so far not commented on the stoning in Ghor. Long condemned as misogynistic zealots, the militants have recently sought to project a softened stance on female rights. But the insurgents' recent 3-day occupation of the northern provincial capital of Kunduz offers an ominous blueprint of what could happen should they ever return to power. Harrowing testimonies have emerged of Taliban death squads methodically targeting a host of female rights workers and journalists just hours after the city fell on September 28. (source: The Express Tribune) PAKISTAN----executions 4 executed in 2 Punjab jails 4 death row prisoners in 2 jails of Punjab executed in the wee hours of Tuesday, ARY News reported. 3 condemned prisoners were executed in Gujrat district jail on Tuesday morning. 3 convicts, 2 brothers and their maternal uncle, were hanged to death over double-murder in year 2000. They had committed murder of 2 brothers over personal enmity 15 years ago. Another death row convict, Akram, was hanged to death in Kasur district jail for killing a man in 1998. The hangings brought the tally of executions to more than 250 since the Pakistan ended a 6-year moratorium on the death penalty in December, after Taliban militants gunned down more than 150 people, most of them children, at Army Public School in Peshawar. Pakistan had initially reinstated hangings only for those convicted of terrorism, but in March this year they were extended to all capital offences. The executions have been opposed by the United Nations and European Union (EU). Amnestry International and other rights groups campaigning against capital punishment, have criticized the government of Pakistan's decision of resumption of executions in the country. (source: arynews.tv) ************* Parliamentary panel approves death penalty, life imprisonment for child rapists In what will be a historic legislation, a parliamentary panel approved on Tuesday life imprisonment or death penalty for a child's rapist. "Whosoever commits an offence under sub-section (1) of section 376 against a woman when she is under 14 years of age shall be punished with imprisonment for life or death," a source quoting the amended clauses of the Pakistan Penal Code 1860 told The Express Tribune. The bill, which has been approved by the National Assembly's Standing Committee on Interior, will now be sent to the National Assembly for approval. "It's a historic legislation which will prevent children from rapists," said MNA Shaista Perverz, who moved the bill. The number of cases of rape reported each year in Pakistan run into some thousands. Very few, however, ever reach their logical conclusion. In November last year, the interior ministry had told the Senate that an alarming 14,583 rape cases had been registered in the country over the last 5 years. Punjab, which accounted for 12,795 of the cases, saw convictions in just 949 cases. Of the 90 rape cases reported in the federal capital, there was conviction in only 1 case. In August, a gang of 20 to 25 men had filmed as many as 400 videos of sexual abuse involving at least 280 children belonging to Hussain Khan Wala village in Kasur, Punjab. As the country's biggest child pornography scandal went viral on social media it prompted country-wide outrage while the law enforces sprang into action to defend themselves and to downplay the sickening child abuse expose. PPP for joint sitting of parliament on anti-rape legislation Last month, a report of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) probing the scandal revealed that as many as 239 children were sexually abused and 31 cases had been registered. Activists condemning the Kasur child abuse case have demanded that the case be in tried in military court and that the real culprits behind it be arrested. *************** Teenager sentenced to death for minor's murder An anti-terrorism court sentenced a teenager to death and two others to life in prison for kidnapping and murdering an 8-year-old child in Gilgit. The death penalty was handed to Shoaib Ahmed during a hearing in the court of Judge Raja Shahbaz. Shoaib was also fined Rs0.3 million. Teenager held for rape and murder of minor The court sentenced Abrarul Haq and Muhammad Usama to life in prison and a fine of Rs0.3million each. Abrar and Usama are 15 and 16 years of age, respectively, while Shoaib is 17. Husnain, the victim, was murdered by the convicted teenagers in November 2014 after being sexually abused. In an effort to keep him quiet about the assault, investigators said the three boys brutally killed the victim and dumped the body in a cave near the Gilgit River. Investigators added they cut his ears, smashed his head with stones, stabbed and finally strangled him. Husnain was left in a pool of blood 500 metres from his house in Majini Mohalla. Minor raped, killed in DI Khan According to the 7-page judgment, "The prosecution has proven its case against Shoaib Ahmed, Ibrarul Haq and Muhammad Usama beyond a shadow of doubt by producing sufficient evidence such as circumstantial evidence, accounts of where they were last seen evidence, CCTV footage, medical evidence, forensic serological report, recovery of the body by the suspects, confessional statements, judicial confessions and recovery of the weapon." The judgment added Shoaib was convicted under Section 302 (b) of the Pakistan Penal Code (intentional and deliberate murder) and Section 7 (a) of ATC Act 1997. Shoaib will be hanged to death. The 2 other convicts were sentenced under sections 302/34 of PPC and Section 7(A) of ATC act 1997. (source for both: The Express Tribune) SINGAPORE: Halt the execution of Kho Jabing The Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (Adpan) urgently calls on the government of Singapore to halt the impending execution of 31-year-old Sarawakian Kho Jabing, whose application for clemency was rejected by the president of Singapore on Oct 19. Kho Jabing was arrested in February 2008 for his participation in a robbery during which he hit a victim with a wooden stick or branch, resulting in the man's death. He was convicted in 2010 under Section 300c of Singapore's Penal Code, and his mandatory death sentence was confirmed by the Court of Appeal in 2011. In 2013, amendments to Singapore's mandatory death penalty regime came into force, allowing Jabing the opportunity to be re-sentenced. Describing Jabing???s actions as "opportunistic and improvisational", a High Court judge re-sentenced him to life imprisonment with 24 strokes of the cane. However, the prosecution appealed and in January 2015 a 5-judge Court of Appeal reinstated the death sentence after deeming in a majority decision that Jabing had "exhibited a blatant disregard for human life". It is important to note that Jabing's final death sentence was not passed with a unanimous decision, but a slim majority. 2 of the 5 appeal judges did not feel that the death penalty was appropriate for his crime, and felt that there was reasonable doubt as to the number of times and intensity with which Jabing had hit his victim that would affect any consideration of whether he had acted with a blatant disregard for human life. The death penalty is the most final and irreversible of punishments. We cannot afford a single shred of doubt when a state condemns an individual to the gallows. Yet here we have the case of 3 learned judges - the High Court judge and 2 Court of Appeal judges - saying they did not believe capital punishment suitable in Jabing's case. It is therefore unsafe to pass the ultimate sentence of death when doubt clearly exists even among Singapore's most esteemed legal professionals. Adpan urges the president and the cabinet of Singapore to reconsider their decision not to grant Jabing clemency. (source: malaysiakini.com) BANGLADESH: 2 get death penalty for killing schoolgirl A Narayanganj court awarded death penalty to 2 accused and life term to 3 others for raping and killing schoolgirl Tania in Siddhirganj upazila of Narayanganj. The special tribunal for women and children repression prevention in Narayanganj has delivered the verdict on Tuesday in presence of the convicts. The death row convicts are Mohor Chan and Amir Hossain. Safar Ali, Nur-e-Alam and Monir were awarded life term. Public persecutor Rakib Uddin said Amir and his allies gang raped and later strangled Tania to death on 13 December in 1999. They dumped her body in Shitalakhya River. Later, police recovered her body. Tania's family members filed a case with Siddhirganj police station. Tania was a class VIII student of Rebati Mohan High School. (source: prothom-alo.com) INDONESIA: Pedophile suspected of sexually abusing 15 children would rather face death penalty than castration The police have arrested the 1st suspected pedophile who might be chemically castrated for the horrid crimes he allegedly committed. The suspect, Maskur, is suspected of sexually abusing at least 15 children around Pancoran, South Jakarta. Yesterday, Women's Empowerment and Child Protection Minister Yohana Yembise visited Maskur, who is in police custody, to tell him first hand that he may be the first to be punished with castration. "He apologized. He said, 'give me lashes or give me the death penalty, but don't castrate me,'" Minister Yohana said as she recalled their meeting, as quoted by CNN Indonesia yesterday. That said, Yohana conceded that the presidential decree authorizing the use of chemical castration to punish pedophiles is yet to be signed. "Until now there's no scientific proof that castration as a punishment can deter sexual violence. So we're still looking into it academically," she said. Maskur is suspected of sexually abusing at least 15 children between the ages of 6 and 12 during the last 3 years. The South Jakarta Police are conducting medical tests on 11 of Maskur's alleged victims. Under the current Child Protection Laws, Maskur could face 20 years in prison if proven guilty. (source: Coconuts News) ISRAEL: Death penalty for terrorists 'will return sanity to Israel'----Dozens of rabbis call on gov't to implement death penalty; initiators say it would also stop citizens taking law into their own hands. Dozens of Israeli rabbis have signed a halakhic (Jewish legal) ruling calling on the government to institute the death penalty for terrorists. The letter, initiated by the Derekh Hayim organization, calls for authorities to act with an iron fist against the ongoing wave of terrorist attacks. "In these difficult times, when Jewish blood is being spilled like water, we must repeat the obvious: Anyone who wants to harm a Jew, it is imperative to preempt him and kill him before he carries out his deed," the letter reads, going on to site the Talmudic dictum that "he who comes to kill you, arise and kill him first." "It is forbidden to be negligent regarding (the Torah command) 'Do not stand idly by your fellow's blood," it continues, saying those principles also apply "after the act." "The government must decree the death penalty for terrorist murderers," the letter adds, stressing that any leniency towards "encourages terror." Implementing the death penalty would serve as a deterrent, and ensure that even if captured alive the terrorist would not be able to carry out any attacks in the future, i.e. upon his or her release from prison. The rabbis added that taking a strong hand against terrorism would also win Israel respect internationally. They noted that Israeli law actually already includes the option of the death penalty, meaning that far from embarking on an arduous legislative process the government simply needed to opt to use it. Israel has only ever handed down the death penalty once, when it executed Nazi leader and one of the architects of the holocaust Adolf Eichmann in 1962. Despite having the option to use it in other cases, such as mass-murdering terrorists, Israel has observed an unofficial indefinite moratorium on the death penalty since then. The letter was signed by dozens of rabbis including Derekh Hayim chairman Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg; former Kiryat Arba-Hevron Chief Rabbi and leading Religious-Zionist figure Rabbi Dov Lior; Temple Institute head and halakhic authority Rabbi Yisrael Ariel; Kiryat Motzkin Chief Rabbi David Drukman; Alon Shvut Chief Rabbi Gidon Perel; Karnei Shomron Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Levi; Yitzhar Chief Rabbi David Dudkevich and numerous religious-Zionist roshei yeshiva (yeshiva deans). Derekh Hayim spokesman Rabbi Yossi Pla'i explained the motivation behind the letter. "When government policy is that there is no death penalty for terrorists, and on the contrary, we see that even terrorist murderers sit in prison in good condition and are released in (prisoner swap) deals, this is something which erodes the feeling of security" for Israel's citizens, he said. "As a result, it is no wonder that members of the public want to harm terrorists themselves, in the knowledge that they will not receive a fitting punishment" he added, referring to the increased incidents of incensed civilians attempting to lynch neutralized terrorists who carried out attacks. Handing the death penalty to terrorists who harm Jews would mark a "return to sanity and justice," he said. (source: Israel National News) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Nov 3 10:47:27 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2015 10:47:27 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS Message-ID: Nov. 3 TEXAS----new execution date Adam Ward has been given an execution date for March 16 (2016); it should be considered serious. (source: NH/RH) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Nov 3 13:20:13 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2015 13:20:13 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, GA., MO., USA Message-ID: Nov. 3 TEXAS: Jury convicts man of capital murder in triple slaying Johnathan "J-Boi" Sanchez did not react Tuesday as he was convicted of capital murder. Eyewitnesses, the murder weapon and blood on his clothes combined to put the 27-year-old in the middle of a Copperfield-area massacre 2 years ago. Wearing a blue pull-over sweater and high-collared shirt that hid gang tattoos on his neck, Sanchez gazed down as state District Judge Mark Ellis read the decision handed down by the jury after deliberating five hours over 2 days. On Wednesday, jurors will return to court to begin hearing a week of evidence in the punishment phase of Harris County's first death penalty trial this year. Sanchez was convicted of killing three people and wounding two others on the afternoon of Nov. 20, 2013 The jury deliberated about 4 hours Monday after hearing closing arguments in the grisly triple slaying. They returned Tuesday to deliberate for another hour before reaching a decision. Prosecutors have said Sanchez, allegedly a member of the 59 Piru street gang and affiliated with the Houstone Tango Blast, was taking hallucinogens and threatening violence in the days before the shooting. Prosecutors Traci Bennett and Lisa Collins did not comment after the verdict. Sanchez went an acquaintance's apartment and opened firing, killing Yosselyn Alfaro, who was celebrating her 21st birthday and Daniel Munoz and Veronica Hernandez, both 17. 2 survivors were rushed by Life Flight helicopter ambulance to the hospital after telling authorities Sanchez shot them, investigators said. They still have not fully recovered from their wounds. Defense attorneys Skip Cornelius and Rudy Duarte said they were disappointed but did not comment further. Jurors had been sequestered Monday night while deliberating the guilt or innocence. Sequestration is rare in the hundreds of trials that take place every year in Harris County, but it is not unusual for jurors in death penalty cases to spend the night in a downtown hotel if their deliberations stretch into the evening. (source: Houston Chronicle) GEORGIA----new execution date Execution date set for Marcus Ray Johnson for 1994 Albany murder Georgia has scheduled the execution of Marcus Ray Johnson for Nov. 19, making him the 1st to be put to death since Kellie Gissendaner was executed Sept. 30 and the 1st of 7 men who have exhausted their regular appeals and are eligible to be executed. Johnson, now 50, was sentenced to die for the murder of Angela Sizemore, a woman he had met at an Albany nightclub. The morning after they were last seen together, March 24, 1994, her battered and bloody body was found in her Suburban parked behind an apartment complex. Johnson told police Sizemore became angry because he did not want to "snuggle" after sex so he punched her in the face. He told police he remembers walking away after he punched her but nothing more until he woke up in his front yard as the sun came up. Investigators said Sizemore was stabbed or cut 41 times and she had bruises and marks from being struck and dragged. At least 6 other men are eligible for execution and their dates should be set over the next few months. (source: Atlanta Journal Constitution) MISSOURI----impending execution Man with IQ of 63 set to become Missouri's 7th execution this year ---- An appeal claims execution drugs could cause violent and painful seizures for Ernest Lee Johnson, who had a most of a benign brain tumor removed in 2008 Ernest Lee Johnson is scheduled to die on Tuesday for the 1994 killing of 3 convenience store workers in Missouri. He would be the 26th person executed in the US this year and the 7th in Missouri. Only Texas, with 12, has performed more executions. Johnson, 55, had most, but not all, of a benign brain tumor removed in 2008, and a recent MRI revealed up to 20% of his brain tissue was also removed. An appeal to the US supreme court claims the brain tumor and damage, combined with the execution drug, could cause a violent and painful seizure upon injection. A 2nd appeal, to the Missouri supreme court, claims Johnson's life should be spared because he is mentally disabled. The Missouri attorney general's office says both claims are without merit. Johnson was convicted of 3 counts of 1st-degree murder for killing 46-year-old Mary Bratcher, 57-year-old Mable Scruggs and 58-year-old Fred Jones during a closing-time robbery of a Casey's General Store in Columbia on 12 February 1994. Johnson wanted money to buy drugs, authorities said. All 3 workers were beaten to death with a claw hammer, but Bratcher was also stabbed at least 10 times with a screwdriver and Jones was shot in the face. Johnson hid the bodies in a cooler. He was arrested after police found a bank bag, stolen money and store receipts at Johnson's home. Johnson grew up in a troubled home and his attorney, Jeremy Weis, said his IQ was measured at 63 while still in elementary school. He was already on death row in 2001 when the US supreme court ruled that executing the mentally handicapped was unconstitutionally cruel and a new sentencing hearing was ordered. Johnson was again sentenced to death in 2003. The Missouri supreme court tossed that sentence, too, forcing another sentencing hearing. In 2006, Johnson was sentenced to death for a 3rd time. The brain tumor was removed in an operation in 2008. While benign, doctors could not remove the entire tumor. Weis said the combination of the remaining tumor and the fact that Johnson lost about one-fifth of his brain has left him prone to seizures and with difficulty walking. Missouri's execution drug is a form of pentobarbital believed to be manufactured by a compounding pharmacy - the state won't say where it gets it. Weis cites a medical review by Dr Joel Zivot, who found "significant brain damage and defects", according to court filings. "Mr Johnson faces a significant medical risk for a serious seizure as the direct result of the combination of the Missouri lethal injection protocol and Mr. Johnson's permanent and disabling neurologic disease," Zivot wrote. Court filings by the attorney general's office note that Missouri has carried out 18 "rapid and painless" executions since it went to the 1-drug method in November 2013. (source: The Guardian) USA: Death Penalty Opponents Split Over Taking Issue to Supreme Court In the long legal struggle against the death penalty, the future has in some ways never looked brighter. In a passionate dissent in June, Justice Stephen G. Breyer invited a major challenge to the constitutionality of capital punishment. This fall, Justice Antonin Scalia all but predicted that the court???s more liberal justices would strike down the death penalty. But lawyers and activists opposed to the death penalty, acutely conscious of what is at stake, are bitterly divided about how to proceed. Some say it is imperative to bring a major case to the court as soon as practicable. Others worry that haste may result in a losing decision that could entrench capital punishment for years. "If you don't go now, there's a real possibility you have blood on your hands," said Robert J. Smith, a fellow at Harvard Law School's Charles Hamilton Houston Institute. His scholarship was cited in Justice Breyer's dissent from a decision upholding the use of an execution drug that 3 death row inmates argued risked causing excruciating pain. But others are wary. "There are reasons to be cautious about pushing the court to a decision too early," said Jordan M. Steiker, a law professor at the University of Texas. The divide is partly generational. Many veteran litigators have suffered stinging setbacks in the Supreme Court, and they favor an incremental strategy. They would continue to chip away at the death penalty in the courts, seek state-by-state abolition and try to move public opinion. Some younger lawyers and activists urge a bolder course: to ask the Supreme Court to end capital punishment nationwide right away. Though Justice Breyer's dissent was joined only by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the more aggressive advocates are confident they can persuade 5 justices to do away with a punishment explicitly contemplated in the Fifth and 14th Amendments, which call for grand juries in federal cases involving "a capital or other infamous crime" and say that no person may be deprived "of life, liberty or property, without due process of law." That means picking up the votes of not only the rest of the court's liberal wing - Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan - but also, crucially, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. Evan J. Mandery, the author of "A Wild Justice," a history of the last major challenges to the death penalty in the 1970s, said there were good arguments on both sides of whether to mount such an effort. "It's a very complicated gamble," he said. "The fear is that if you push and you lose, you could end up worse off." All concerned agree that much has changed since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 4 years after it had effectively struck it down. Last year, only 7 states carried out executions. 19 states and the District of Columbia have abolished the death penalty entirely, seven of them in the last decade. Governors and courts have imposed moratoriums in others, and the number of death sentences and executions continues to drop. The Supreme Court itself has barred the execution of juvenile offenders, people with intellectual disabilities and those convicted of crimes against individuals other than murder in the last decade. The more cautious, step-by-step approach would ask the court to further narrow the availability of the death penalty by, for instance, forbidding the execution of mentally ill people and of accomplices who did not kill anyone. The more assertive one would introduce a broad case aimed at the death penalty itself. Both sides look to history for instruction, but they draw different lessons. Justice Breyer, for his part, has told friends that his dissent was partly inspired by a similar one a half-century before. The earlier dissent, by Justice Arthur J. Goldberg, helped create the modern movement for the abolition of the death penalty and led to a 4-year moratorium on executions. The 1963 dissent, in Rudolph v. Alabama, was drafted by a law clerk, Alan M. Dershowitz, who would go on to become a law professor at Harvard and a prominent litigator. A young Stephen G. Breyer began his own clerkship with Justice Goldberg the year after. Collecting data on national and international practice, Justice Goldberg's dissent urged the court to hear a case on whether the death penalty for rape violated the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. "The goal was to ask litigators to start raising challenges to the death penalty," Professor Dershowitz said. "It was an invitation to litigation. It was not a common tactic back then, and we were much criticized for it." The dissent spurred the creation of capital litigation projects at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and at the American Civil Liberties Union. Justice Breyer's dissent was far more elaborate. It was 46 pages long, included charts and maps, and set out in detail the argument that the death penalty violated the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishments. Professor Dershowitz said he was delighted that another former clerk of Justice Goldberg's was carrying on his old boss's project. "The goal in both cases is to encourage the court to play a more active role and to encourage litigants," he said. But opinions vary about the correct reading of the aftermath of the Goldberg dissent. Some veteran opponents of the death penalty noted that it took nine years of methodical litigation after the 1963 dissent before the Supreme Court effectively struck down the death penalty in 1972 in Furman v. Georgia. Even then, they said, the effort in the end yielded only a relatively brief moratorium. Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which has long played a central role in the fight against the death penalty, chose her words carefully in response to questions about her group's current strategy. "There is something undoubtedly powerful in having a Supreme Court justice lay out the brief for the unconstitutionality of the death penalty and to issue the challenge," she said. But it is Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and not Justice Breyer, she said, whose vote will be crucial. Litigators who work in cases in states committed to the death penalty said they were not counting on a general reprieve from the Supreme Court. "The Breyer dissent was a dissent that 2 justices signed," said David R. Dow, a law professor at the University of Houston and the founder of the Texas Innocence Network. "I don't get too excited about 2 justices," he added. "The Breyer dissent means so little in terms of the imminent demise of the death penalty that I wouldn't spend any time on it." On the other side of the debate is the Eighth Amendment Project, a new group seeking prompt action. "We certainly have a feeling we're getting close," said Henderson Hill, the group's executive director. "We're getting warm." He said he understood why some were skeptical. "Lawyers are by their nature cautious," he said. "When you???ve been part of the killing fields of Texas, you have to concentrate on your clients and you don't have the luxury of thinking, 'What if?'" Mr. Hill said one case from Texas might serve as the right vehicle to mount a broad challenge. It concerns Julius Murphy, who was convicted of robbing and killing a stranded motorist. Among his lawyers is Neal K. Katyal, a prominent Supreme Court litigator and a former law clerk to Justice Breyer. "After Justice Breyer's dissenting opinion," Mr. Katyal said, "the time to test his views in the crucible of argument before the full court has come." In a brief to Texas's highest court for criminal matters, Mr. Katyal's law firm devoted a substantial passage to a direct attack on the death penalty, echoing the themes in Justice Breyer's dissent. Should the Texas court rule against Mr. Murphy, an appeal to the Supreme Court seems inevitable. In the meantime, the Eighth Amendment Project is hard at work identifying other cases that could serve as vehicles to end the death penalty, ideally ones involving impulsive crimes, intellectual disability and claims of innocence. Among cases the group hopes to avoid are ones arising from killings of police officers, murders for hire and torture. Whatever the eventual case, the group wants to have dozens of friend-of-the-court briefs ready for filing. Professor Dershowitz said a vigorous litigation strategy was the right approach. "Justice Breyer would not have written this dissent if he did not think this was a good time to bring cases to the attention of the court," he said. "Now it's up to litigants to figure out the right case." (source: New York Times) ************** If we're committing a crime to punish a crime, should we be doing it at all? Drugs commonly used for lethal injection in death penalty cases have increasingly become as scarce as the incarceration itself, leading a number of states to form contracts with illegal venders to obtain the magical serum of death. Since the introduction of the death penalty in 1976, the U.S. has executed a total of 1,419 people, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. According to the Arizona Republic at first states used propofol, but after Michael Jackson???s death the company temporarily took the drug off the market - thiopental went on the rise. According to the Guardian, thiopental has been around for nearly 77 years, and although it predates the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938, according to the Arizona Republic, thiopental is a fairly safe anesthetic. "Sodium thiopental is an intravenous drug used (in the past) to induce or start anesthesia, which then, generally, continued with gas anesthesia once an airway was established," said Stuart Hameroff, the UA director of the Center for Consciousness Studies and emeritus professor of Anesthesiology. "Thiopental (in sufficient dosage) renders the patient unconscious. They are not aware. They 'go to sleep' and lose consciousness for the duration of the drug effect," he said. As death row grew in size so did the demand for drugs to carry out the deed, and once propofol disappeared states burned through the nation's supply of thiopental. Executioners ran completely out of luck since the drug isn't manufactured in the U.S., according to the Arizona Republic. The only producer of thiopental, Hospira, was forced to shut down U.S. production and move to Italy as the only way to keep its license to manufacture, according to the Guardian. States are unable to obtain thiopental overseas either because of the European Union ban on the exportation of drugs used for capital punishment, according to The Atlantic and the Arizona Republic. According to the Republic, however, the U.S. has been illegally importing such drugs since 2010. States that continue to attempt to obtain thiopental include Nebraska, Tennessee, California, Texas and Arizona, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Shortages have left states illegally importing this drug largely from a manufacturer and distributor by the name of Chris Harris. With zero pharmaceutical background, Harris runs his cartel silently out of a rented office space in India, restricting contact with his own employees to mostly email. On July 25, shipments of the drug were stopped by the FDA at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport and confiscated, according to the Associated Press. The Arizona Department of Corrections purchased 1,000 vials of thiopental at $25 a piece, adding up to nearly $27,000 with shipping costs according to the Arizona Republic. That's money that could easily help fund government projects for rehab centers or mental disorder research or public safety - but nope, Arizona said screw that, let's just kill already imprisoned criminals instead of trying to help or stop more. Sometimes states without such hefty sums of money lying around instead turn to mixing experimental drugs together in hopes the concoction will result in a swift painless death. This has been far from the reality. According to the Arizona Republic, during July 2014, Joseph Rudolph Wood was injected with the controversial mix of drugs that Oklahoma had previously attempted but failed; it took Wood 2 hours to die. As of October 2015 only 31 states still allow the death penalty, and the rate of incarcerations has dropped significantly since its peaking days in 1999. The total number sentenced to death that year was 279, and in 2014 that number was 73, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Killing is never the answer; ask any elementary school student that question. Not only are the kids right, but the facts also agree. According to a study by the National Research Council, 88 % of experts agreed that executions do not lower homicide rates. The shortage of lethal drugs shouldn't be taken as an opportunity to try and create new ones or buy ourselves into a grave, but a chance to end the death penalty once and for all. Whether it's propofol or thiopental, both drugs are humane ways to end a prisoner's life, but if an entire continent is prepared to drop the all charges, then perhaps it's time America puts down the needle. (source: The Daily Wildcat) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Nov 3 21:41:15 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2015 21:41:15 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., OHIO, MO., CALIF. Message-ID: Nov. 3 GEORGIA: U.S. Supreme Court: Race not a factor in Ga. death case? Really? A majority of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday appeared ready to say race was a primary reason prosecutors struck all the prospective African-American jurors in a Georgia case where an all-white jury sentenced a young black man to death. At least 6 of the high court's 9 justices reacted with skepticism - if not outright disbelief - to arguments that Floyd County prosecutors struck all 4 of the eligible black jurors for reasons other than race in the death-penalty case against Timothy Tyrone Foster. If the court finds race was a primary factor, then Foster will be awarded a new trial because it would mean prosecutors violated Batson v. Kentucky, a Supreme Court ruling that sought to end race discrimination in jury selection. It appeared unclear during Monday's arguments whether the high court will use Foster's case to set a new benchmark in such cases or if it will confine its decision to the facts of his trial. It also appeared possible the court could wait before deciding the jury selection issue on its merits. At least 3 justices - Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy - indicated they may want to send the case back to the Georgia Supreme Court and let it decide an arcane procedural issue before moving forward. A decision is expected by the end of June. 8 of the high court's justices asked questions on Monday. The exception was Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative, who said not a word, as is his custom. Justice Elena Kagan was as blunt as could be when she described her take on the case. She cited notes obtained by Foster's lawyers under the Georgia Open Records Act that showed prosecutors were focusing on all the black jurors as a group and trying to determine which would be best-suited to sit on the jury if they had to pick one. "All the evidence suggests a kind of singling out," Kagan said. "Isn't this as clear a Batson violation as a court is ever going to see?" Foster sits on death row for sexually assaulting and then killing Queen Madge White, a 79-year-old retired elementary school teacher, at her Rome home in August 1986. During closing arguments, then-District Attorney Stephen Lanier urged jurors to sentence Foster to death "to deter other people out there in the projects." Almost 2 decades later, Foster's new lawyers obtained the notes prosecutors compiled as they prepared to pick the jury. On the lists of prospective jurors, the prosecution team highlighted all the African-American jurors with a green marker. The notes also referred to black jurors as "B#1," "B#2" and "B#3." Another note listed 6 "definite NO's," the top 5 of which were the remaining black jurors at that time. 'AN ARSENAL OF SMOKING GUNS' During Monday's arguments, Foster's lawyer, Stephen Bright, noted that the sixth person on that list, a white woman, had made it clear she could not impose the death penalty under any circumstance. "But even she ranked behind the black jurors in terms of the priorities that the prosecution had for striking," he said. "... We have an arsenal of smoking guns in this case." Deputy State Attorney General Beth Burton tried to convince the justices that Lanier, the district attorney, removed blacks from the jury for reasons other than race and noted the district attorney gave a number of acceptable "race-neutral" reasons to justify his strikes. As for the color-coded jury notes, she said, they were prepared that way because prosecutors were getting ready to defend a Batson challenge to their use of strikes against the African-American jurors. 'REASON WAS TO DISCRIMINATE' But Justice Stephen Breyer wasn't buying it. He noted the explanation of preparing for a Batson challenge was first raised many years after Foster's initial appeals. "Isn't it a little surprising that he never thought of it - or didn't tell anybody?" Breyer asked, referring to Lanier, as spectators throughout the packed courtroom broke into laughter. ",... So it's hard to believe that's his real reason." As for all the "race-neutral" reasons Lanier gave for explaining his strikes of black jurors, Breyer compared that to his grandson saying he didn't want to do his homework because he was too tired. His grandson could also say that he'd promised a friend he'd play basketball with him, that there was a great show on TV, that his stomach was upset and that he wanted to eat spaghetti. "And so I would say my answer to my grandchild is, 'Look, you're not too tired to do your homework,'" Breyer said. "And I think any reasonable person looking at this would say, 'No, his reason was a purpose to discriminate on the basis of race.'" REMOVED JUROR REMEMBERS Even Justice Samuel Alito, 1 of the court's more conservative members, expressed unease with Lanier's explanation as to why he removed prospective black juror Marilyn Garrett. "What about (Lanier) giving a reason for dismissing her that she was close in age to the defendant?" Alito asked. At the time of the trial, Garrett was 34. Foster was 19. Garrett, now Marilyn Whitehead, is 63 and still remembers the experience. "I felt like they discriminated against me," she said Monday. "After that, I felt like I never wanted to be on a jury again because of the way I was treated." (source: myajc.com) OHIO: Let the death penalty die in Ohio after forced hiatus in executions Ohio hasn't executed anybody since January 2014, when Dennis McGuire took about 25 minutes to die from a previously untested two-drug concoction of midazolam and hydromorphone. Legal challenges to Ohio's lethal-injection method of execution have contributed to the delay, but even though a recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court has made those challenges tougher, procuring the necessary drugs remains an issue. Last month, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction postponed executions until 2017 because of problems finding the drugs needed to carry them out. The legislature should take this hiatus from capital punishment as an opportunity to conduct a full review of Ohio's death penalty law, and the mood of the people, to see if it's time to scrub it altogether. Rather than waste time trying to find new sources of lethal-injection drugs -- or contemplating alternate forms of execution, such as electrocution, hanging, the gas chamber or even the firing squad, all of which some states have embraced as optional measures -- Ohio needs to search its collective soul for the right thing to do. Meanwhile, the case against the death penalty continues to mount. Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeifer, who as a young legislator helped write the state's death penalty law, now openly opposes it, having called it "a death lottery" for its unfairness. Ohio Supreme Court Justice William O'Neill, the only Democrat on the court, has dissented rather than vote to schedule execution dates for 5 condemned prisoners. "While I recognize that capital punishment is the law of the land, I cannot participate in what I consider to be a violation of the Constitution I have sworn to uphold," he said in 2013. The state legislature thought it solved the supply problem of death-penalty drugs last year by granting anonymity to compounding pharmacies that make them. The continuing lack of death-penalty drugs in Ohio shows that ploy didn't work. The time has come for Ohioans and their elected representatives to have a serious discussion about ending the death penalty. But there is only 1 logical conclusion: Abolish capital punishment in Ohio. (source: Editorial, cleveland.com) MISSOURI----stay of impending execution Supreme Court halts Missouri execution The Supreme Court on Tuesday night halted a scheduled execution in Missouri, saying that the lethal injection should be delayed until after a lower court rules. Ernest Lee Johnson was sentenced to death for killing 3 people with a claw hammer in 1994. His attorneys wrote in filings asking the Supreme Court to stay the execution that Johnson had brain surgery in 2008 to remove a tumor, but that part of the tumor could not be removed. Johnson is missing between 15 and 20 % of his brain, the attorneys wrote. As a result, Johnson has brain damage and a doctor cited as a medical expert believes he could suffer seizures due to the lethal injection, his attorneys said. The office of Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster argued in court filings that the execution should proceed, writing that Johnson waited too long to make his argument. In an unsigned order, the justices said they were granting the stay request pending an appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. The complaint from Johnson "alleges that Missouri's method of execution violates the Eighth Amendment as applied to a person with his particular medical condition," the justices wrote. In the order, the justices continued: A supporting affidavit by a medical expert states that "[a]s a result of Mr. Johnson's brain tumor, brain defect, and brain scar, a substantial risk of serious harm will occur during his execution as result of a violent seizure that may be induced by [the] Pentobarbital injection." They went on to say that the appeals court will have to decide whether a complaint of Johnson???s that was dismissed was properly dismissed or should have been allowed to progress. Johnson was scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. local time. (source: Washington Post) CALIFORNIA: Defendant withdraws legal challenge in Ceres death penalty case Mark Edward Mesiti on Tuesday declined his first opportunity to defend himself in court against allegations he sexually abused his 14-year-old daughter, Alycia Mesiti, whose body was found buried in the backyard of a Ceres home. The defendant has chosen to represent himself in court, giving him the ability to make arguments, cross-examine prosecution witnesses and speak directly to a jury. The prosecution is seeking the death penalty. Mesiti, 47, withdrew a motion to challenge an indictment charging him with murder and numerous counts of sexual abuse. He decided to drop the motion after Stanislaus Superior Court Judge Thomas Zeff refused to postpone Tuesday's hearing, telling the defendant there was not sufficient legal grounds to delay the proceeding. The defendant told the judge that a law clerk had not been able to visit him in jail, because the clerk had to be screened. Mesiti said he was not able to prepare for the hearing, so he would have to withdraw the motion if the hearing wasn???t postponed. The capital murder case now moves back to Judge Dawna Reeves' courtroom. She will preside over the case through the trial, which has not yet been scheduled. A pretrial hearing is scheduled Wednesday. Authorities on March 25, 2009, discovered the girl's body buried in the backyard of a home on Alexia Avenue in Ceres, where Mesiti's family lived when Alycia disappeared in August 2006. He had since moved to Southern California. Mesiti on Tuesday was supposed to challenge evidence the prosecution presented to the grand jury behind closed doors. The August 2013 indictment also charges Mesiti with the sexual abuse of 2 other girls. INIDICTMENT CHALLENGE Martin Baker, who initially filed the motion on Mesiti's behalf June 26, appeared in court Tuesday as acting advisory counsel to Mesiti. In Baker's filed motion, the attorney asked the court to drop the murder charge that alleges Mesiti killed his daughter while sexually assaulting her. Stanislaus County forensic pathologist Sung-Ook Baik told the grand jury that Alycia died from mixed-drug intoxication. A toxicology found Morphine and anti-anxiety and anti-depressant drugs in her system. The prosecution argues that the girl was drugged, and that images found on computer hard drives show Mesiti photographed himself sexually abusing his daughter while she was unconscious. Baker argued that toxicologist Bill Posey's very clear opinion was that none of the drugs were ingested at lethal levels just prior to death. The defense attorney also argued that hair testing by toxicologist Lee Blum clearly showed that this combination of drugs had been chronically ingested by Alycia roughly 25 months prior to her death. DRUG TESTS Baker wrote in his motion "Just because (the) defendant chose to molest Alycia M. on several occasions while she was rendered non-combative by the ingestion of prescription drugs, we cannot ignore the fact that Alycia M. was ingesting those same drugs for at least 12 months when (the) defendant had no access to her." In the prosecution's response filed Aug. 17, Chief Deputy District Attorney Annette Rees argued that Posey testified that this drug combination slows the body's central nervous system, and that the lack of movement can cause a person to literally drown in their own fluids. The prosecutor also argued that Blum testified that the hair tests cannot determine when the drugs were ingested, only that they were ingested over a period of 18 months to 2 years. Rees wrote in her response that Mesiti's method of drugging girls to commit sexual crimes continued after Alycia's death, when he drugged a 17-year-old girl and videotaped himself sexually assaulting her. The prosecutors also alleges that Mesiti drugged an 8-year-old girl and videotaped himself performing lewd and lascivious acts on her, also after Alycia's death. (source: Modesto Bee) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Nov 3 21:41:56 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2015 21:41:56 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 3 AUSTRALIA: Catholic bishops offer help in Australia's stalled campaign to ban death penalty worldwide Australia's Catholic bishops have offered the Church's assistance in Canberra's concerted but stalled efforts to abolish the death penalty across the world Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne, the President of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, has written to a Federal Parliamentary inquiry, saying the bishops would be happy to assist the Australian Government where it could to make contacts with appropriate Holy See diplomats. "The imposition of the death penalty is cruel and unnecessary for what it does to those found guilty, to their families and to our society," Archbishop Hart said in a letter to the Secretary of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, whose Human Rights Sub-Committee is conducting the inquiry. "Communities are much richer when they can demonstrate mercy. "We can recognise the seriousness of the offences committed but still oppose the death penalty. Our concern for the worth of human life motivates our opposition to the death penalty. "The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference would be happy to assist the Australian Government where it can to make contact with appropriate Holy See diplomats. It would also be pleased to assist where possible with making representations to other national governments with the assistance of the respective National Catholic Bishops Conferences." On 21 July, Australia's Foreign Minister, Ms Julie Bishop, asked the Committee to report on Australia's advocacy for the abolition of the death penalty. 3 months earlier, 2 Australians, Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, members of the so-called Bali 9, were among 8 prisoners executed by firing squad on an Indonesian prison island despite having served 10 years for drug smuggling and in defiance of pleas to President Joko Widodo for their death sentence to be commuted. The bishops' submission said: "The drug crimes Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were convicted of are abhorrent. Justice must prevail and appropriate punishment be used for the common good of the community when crimes are committed. "But jail sentences, not execution, are the more appropriate means for punishing offenders and deterring those who would consider committing such crimes." It quoted Pope Francis' speech to the US Congress on 24 September in which he supported the US bishops' efforts to abolish the death penalty, saying "a just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation". The parliamentary committee's website says the Committee "acknowledges that the issue of the death penalty is of great concern to the Australian public, particularly in light of cases of Australians who have or may face capital punishment overseas". (source: The Tablet) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Nov 4 12:01:36 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2015 12:01:36 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., ALA., OHIO, MO. Message-ID: Nov. 4 TEXAS: Death warrant for Ward delivered Hunt County Sheriff Randy Meeks was scheduled Tuesday to deliver the death warrant for Adam Kelly Ward. Meeks traveled to the Texas Department of Corrections Tuesday, as the death warrant has to be hand delivered to the agency's director by the sheriff of the county in which the conviction occurred. The death warrant was signed Monday by 354th District Court Judge Richard Beacom. Ward is set to die by lethal injection on the evening of March 22, 2016. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2007 for the 2005 death of Michael "Pee Wee" Walker, a City of Commerce Code Enforcement Officer. (source: Greenville Herald-Banner) ********** Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----12 Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----530 Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. # 13---------November 18--------------Raphael Holiday-------531 14---------January 20 (2016)-----Richard Masterson--------532 15---------January 27---------------James Freeman---------533 16---------February 16--------------Gustavo Garcia--------534 17---------March 9------------------Coy Wesbrook----------535 18---------March 22-----------------Adam Ward-------------536 (sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin) FLORIDA: Convicted Cop Killer Dies on Death Row A man convicted of killing a Tallahassee Police officer has died on death row. The Department of Corrections confirms that Clarence Jones died of what appears to be natural causes last week. He'd been on death row for 26 years. Jones was sentenced to death for ambushing Tallahassee Police Officer Ernie Ponce de Leon during a traffic stop back in 1988. David Ferrell worked with Ponce de Leon at TPD back then. "When Ernie got murdered that morning it just... personally made me realize how dangerous this job really is," Ferrell said. "Ernie and Greg responded to a suspicious persons call down on Lake Bradford Road. It was a standard, common call and the first thing you know, it turns into a running gun battle." Ferrell says Jones' death does not bring him any closure. He still misses his fellow officer and friend and continues to fasten Ponce de Leon's picture to his bike as a way to honor him during remembrance rides. A DOC spokesman says Jones died last Tuesday, October 27th. Both FDLE and the DOC's Inspector General are investigating, which the DOC says is standard protocol in any unattended deaths. (source: WCTV news) ************* Convicted murderer's lawyer appeals death sentence The case against a prison escapee found guilty of killing a Florida State University student and dumping his body in a field off State Road 16 will head to the Florida Supreme Court. In June 2014, a St. Johns County jury unanimously voted to recommend the death penalty for Kentrell Feronti Johnson, who was found guilty of first-degree murder and kidnapping relating to the death of Vincent Binder, a 29-year-old FSU graduate student. But the judgment was appealed Tuesday by Johnson's lawyer, Michael Reiter, who said the Seventh Judicial Circuit "acted in bad faith" when the court failed to uphold an agreement between Johnson and the state attorney's office in Tallahassee. The Seventh Judicial Circuit serves Flagler, Putnam, St. Johns and Volusia counties. Tallahassee is in the Second Judicial Circuit, which covers Franklin, Liberty, Gadsden, Leon, Wakulla, and Jefferson counties. When Johnson was arrested in South Florida, he was interviewed by attorneys representing the Second Judicial Circuit who said they wouldn't pursue the death penalty if he helped him find the body, according to Reiter. "Johnson relied upon his bargain with the State of Florida not to pursue the death penalty if he helped locate the body of Vincent Binder. As a result of Florida's reneging on their agreement, Johnson's constitutional rights were violated," the appeal states. Reiter added, "No matter where the body was found, the death penalty was not an option (per the agreement)." He also said since Johnson had already been charged of the crimes in Tallahassee, there was no reason for St. Johns County to charge him as well. "There was no reason other than to avoid the agreement," he argued. But one state attorney's office can't bind another, Vivian Singleton, assistant state attorney for the Florida Attorney General's Office, argued. "Attorneys only have the power to prosecute in their circuit," Singleton said. "And the judge can't take sentencing guidelines away from a state attorney." And since there was no formal agreement, the Seventh Judicial Circuit has no way of knowing what the actual agreement was, she said. During the trial, Judge Raul Zambrano said he didn't have the authority to enforce the agreement, but Reiter pointed to Florida statutes that would allow it in some cases. "I believe he did have authority," he said. Johnson was not working alone; he escaped from a Louisiana prison with Quentin Marcus Truehill and Peter Marcus Hughes on March 30, 2010. The men stole a car and drove across the Florida Panhandle. They drove into Tallahassee on April 2, and they came across Binder as he was leaving a friend's apartment after midnight. The men kidnapped him in an attempt to steal his money. Police believe he was alive when they crossed into St. Johns County, where he was killed and left in a field near the outlet mall on S.R. 16. The group then headed back south, but not before using Binder's debit card in Jacksonville and in Madison County. They were eventually arrested in Miami on April 22, 2010. Binder's body was found in St. Johns County 6 days later on April 28. Truehill was convicted of 1st-degree murder and kidnapping on Feb. 10, 2014. He is also facing the death penalty. Hughes was spared the death sentence when he pleaded guilty on June 19 in exchange for a sentence of life in prison. State Attorney R.J. Larizza told The Record last year the state did not pursue the death penalty against Hughes because there was medical evidence that he suffered from some degree of mental retardation, which would have made it illegal to impose death in his case. During Tuesday's proceedings, held in a Tallahassee courtroom, Singleton asked the Supreme Court to "affirm the conviction and sentence." The justices did not make an immediate ruling, but are expected to make a decision at a later date. (source: St. Augustine Record) ******************* Man Convicted of Killing FSU Student Appeals Death Sentence A man on death row for kidnapping and killing an FSU student is now appealing to the state's highest court. We were there as attorneys for Kentrell Johnson asked justices to overturn his death sentence in the abduction and murder of Vincent Binder. FSU student Vincent Binder was found stabbed to death in a field off I-95 near St. Augustine. His body was found weeks after he disappeared while walking home from a friend's house in Tallahassee in April 2010. Now Kentrell Johnson, one of the men on death row for kidnapping and killing Binder, is asking the state's highest court to overturn his death sentence. "The reason they found that body was that map," defense attorney Michael Reiter stressed in his arguments to the Florida Supreme Court this morning. Reiter claims Kentrell Johnson made a deal with prosecutors here in Tallahassee that if he led police to Binder's body, he could avoid the death penalty. Prosecutors in St. Johns County - where Binders body was found and the murder likely took place - did not agree to that deal and a judge there later sentenced Johnson to death. "What that causes is a lot of abuse prosecutors have by making agreements knowing they don't have to bind them - abide by them if another jurisdiction picks up the case," Reiter said after the hearing. The Attorney General's office argued there are conflicting opinions about what the deal was, whether Johnson's map actually led police to the body and whether that deal extends beyond Tallahassee. "The State Attorney does not have the ability to bind another State Attorney's office," Assistant Attorney General Vivian Singleton argued before the Florida Supreme Court. "That's not the ultimate bait and switch?" one of the justices asked her. A Supreme Court decision on Kentrell Johnson's direct appeal could take months. We reached out to Vincent Binder's friend today. Beth Frady was one of the last people to see him alive. "Today's hearing changes nothing for those closest to Vince," Frady said. "Our world and this world will never be the same because we are without Vince. Vince's family and friends continue to trust the criminal justice process and believe justice will continue to be served as the process moves forward." This afternoon, we also spoke to Assistant State Attorney Georgia Cappleman, who made the deal now being debated before the Supreme Court. This afternoon, Cappleman told us, "The defendant (Kentrell Johnson) represented that the body was in Leon County. I agreed to waive the death penalty in exchange for him taking us to the body. This was done to recover the body for the sake of the family. However, the defendant did not hold up his end of the bargain as he did not take us to the body," she said. "I never made a deal which involved any crime occurring outside my jurisdiction, nor did I represent in any way that I was authorized to make decisions on behalf of any other state attorney," Cappleman said. We will let you know when the Supreme Court makes a decision in Johnson's case. (source: WCTV news) ALABAMA: 1 dead, 1 charged with capital murder Juan Blue, 36, has been charged with capital murder after allegedly firing a fatal gunshot that killed a 44-year-old man. The Union Springs Police Department would not reveal the victim???s name, however other sources say the victim was Christopher Harris. Union Springs Police Department Captain Ronnie Felder said the incident occurred in front of a home located on Carter Street in Union Springs. According to Captain Felder, Blue allegedly drove a white Pontiac G6 car to the home on Carter Street. While still inside the vehicle, he fired a weapon striking Harris who was outside the home. Blue then left the scene. Harris was transported by Haynes Ambulance and Haynes LifeFlight. He was pronounced dead in Montgomery. The shooting occurred around 12:09 a.m. early Friday morning, October 30, 2015. Reports say the 2 individuals had an ongoing feud. Union Springs Police apprehended Blue within a couple hours at his home on Owens Street without incident. He is currently incarcerated in the Bullock County Jail. No bond has been set. If convicted of capital murder, he could be sentenced to life in prison or the death penalty, according to the Code of Alabama. (source: Union Springs Herald) OHIO: Jury to decide death penalty in Daniel French case Daniel French, convicted killer of 87-year-old Barbara Howe, will be back in court today for a hearing in which the same jury that convicted him will determine whether he should live or die. The trial's penalty phase is expected to take 2 days - with friends and family being called to the stand by the defense as well as a psychologist who interviewed French at the Butler County Jail, where he has been housed since his arrest in December 2014, about 2 1/2 years after Howe was killed in her cottage at Mount Pleasant Retirement Community. Last month's 9-day trial, which included French's full confession, also revealed some aspects about his life that may have shaped his mind set. French grew up in Middletown and is one of nine children. After their father's death about 3 years ago, some of the siblings didn't get along and stopped talking with each other, according to an interview French had with police. Kenneth French, Daniel's brother, called police after he saw him around the time of Howe's slaying on Oct. 28, 2012. During his testimony on day 4 of the trial, Kenneth French said he struggled for weeks about calling the police, but ultimately did make that call. He told police his brother was wearing a Mount Pleasant shirt even though he no longer worked at the retirement community. Kenneth French said he had a bad feeling when he met his brother, who he referred to as "Danny," in the parking lot of a Kroger in Walton, Ky. on Nov. 1, 2012. "When I get out of the truck, he gives me a big hug and tells me he loves me," Kenneth French told prosecutors during direct examination. He said that was odd behavior for his brother, who had called him the day before to ask if they could meet on his way from Monroe back to their sister's house in Berea. "I felt like he was telling me goodbye for the last time," Kenneth French said, sobbing at times during his testimony. Daniel French told police several times he was depressed and even suicidal. Kenneth French said he too felt like "Danny" was going to take his own life. "But everybody has been in a depression since my father died," Kenneth French said to defense attorney Melynda Cook during cross examination. 2 other siblings, Wanda Allen, the sister French was living with when arrested in Berea, Ky. and LeeAnn Ifcic, the sister he was staying with in Monroe when Howe was killed, may also be called to the stand by defense attorneys. Ifcic sat outside the courtroom during the entire trial because she was listed as a prosecution witness and could not hear testimony due to separation of witnesses. Ultimately the prosecution did not call Ifcic to testify and she was permitted in the courtroom during closing arguments. When the jury returned guilty verdicts after just 2 hours of deliberation, Ifcic sobbed as the verdict was read. "I love my brother and I always will," she said. French's taped interview with police were played during the trial, but the penalty phase may be the 1st time the jury will actually hear from him. He did not testify during trial, but he will be permitted to give an unsworn statement during the mitigation hearing. The penalty phase is expected to go into Thursday because a psychologist who evaluated French is not available to testify until Thursday morning. The prosecution will make arguments about the crimes French has been convicted of to support the death penalty, but it is limited in this phase to calling witnesses in rebuttal to issues raised by the defense. "I am not permitted to put family members on to talk about how they have been affected by this crime," said Butler County Prosecutor Michael Gmoser. Gmoser said they will likely not call any witnesses. French, a former maintenance man at Mount Pleasant Retirement Community, hatched a plan to rob Howe using the ruse of repairing her medical alarm system. Once he gained entry to her home, French shocked her with a stun gun, but when she didn't go down, he choked her, then slit her throat with a double-edged knife. He then put Howe's body in the trunk of her red Cadillac and drove it to a Middletown apartment complex. The cover up DNA and the crime, French poured cleaning supplies and vacuum clean debris on Howe's body before walking to Walmart and calling a cab. The jury will consider 4 sentences for French, death, life without the possibility of parole, 30 years to life and 25 years to life. He also pleaded guilty on Oct. 14 to lesser charges of aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery, gross abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence the carry a prison sentence of up to 27 years. Butler County Common Pleas Judge Charles Pater will officially sentence French on Nov. 16. (source: Journal-News) **************** Fewer executions point to changing opinions on death penalty----Public support for the death penalty has gradually fallen, and the number of times juries and courts are willing to impose it also has fallen. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 2014 saw the lowest number of executions in 20 years The death penalty is in a long, slow decline in Ohio and nationally, according to opinion polls and how often it's being used. Surveys show support for the death sentence is at a 40-year low, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, and last year saw the lowest number of executions in 2 decades. He said people are seeing practical problems with putting people to death, including the costs and botched executions. There also has been what he called an innocence revolution - a wave of death-row inmates later proved not guilty. "DNA has shown people have gone to death row who clearly didn't commit the offense," Dunham said. "Innocent people are being convicted. There are false confessions; there are fabricated confessions. That's causing people concern." Death-penalty supporters argue that harsh justice is a deterrent to crime. The last execution in Ohio was of convicted murderer Dennis McGuire in 2014. Executions were put on hold after McGuire appeared to suffer for 26 minutes before dying. The state recently announced the delay of all executions until 2017 as it searches for hard-to-acquire drugs needed for lethal injection. Dunham said there used to be the misconception that if a capital convict was not executed, he or she eventually could be released on parole. Court rules were changed, he added, so that juries are now informed that a life sentence would really mean life behind bars. "Immediately when the juries were told that their sentencing option was life without possibility of parole and death, as opposed to just life or death, the rate of death sentencing dropped dramatically," he said. Dunham said FBI figures, confirmed by several studies, show the death penalty doesn???t deter crime in any measurable way. "There actually is no demonstrable effect at all," he said. "In fact, murder rates are higher in states that have the death penalty than in states that don't have the death penalty." More information is online at deathpenaltyinfo.org. (source: Morrow County Sentinel) MISSOURI: Supreme Court Grants Stay For Missouri Man On Death Row----Ernest Lee Johnson claims the execution drug could cause painful seizures because he still has part of a benign tumor in his brain. The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday put on hold the execution of a Missouri man convicted beating 3 people to death with a claw hammer while a lower court considers an appeal. Ernest Lee Johnson claims the execution drug could cause painful seizures because he still has part of a benign tumor in his brain, and surgery to remove the rest of the tumor in 2008 forced removal of up to 20 percent of his brain tissue. The Supreme Court granted a stay while the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals considers whether his complaint was properly dismissed. It wasn't immediately clear how quickly the appeals court might rule. Johnson, 55, had been scheduled to die at 6 p.m. at the Missouri state prison in Bonne Terre. A 2nd appeal, to the Missouri Supreme Court, claims Johnson's life should be spared because he is mentally disabled. The Missouri Attorney General's Office says both claims are without merit. Johnson was convicted of 3 counts of 1st-degree murder for killing 46-year-old Mary Bratcher, 57-year-old Mable Scruggs and 58-year-old Fred Jones during a closing-time robbery of a Casey's General Store in Columbia on Feb. 12, 1994. Johnson wanted money to buy drugs, authorities said. All 3 workers were beaten to death with a claw hammer, but Bratcher was also stabbed at least 10 times with a screwdriver and Jones was shot in the face. Johnson was arrested after police found a bank bag, stolen money and store receipts at Johnson's home. Johnson grew up in a troubled home and his attorney, Jeremy Weis, said his IQ was measured at 63 while still in elementary school. Testing after his conviction measured the IQ at 67, still a level considered mentally disabled. He was already on death row in 2001 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing the mentally disabled was unconstitutionally cruel and a new sentencing hearing was ordered. Johnson was again sentenced to death in 2003. The Missouri Supreme Court tossed that sentence, too, forcing another sentencing hearing. In 2006, Johnson was sentenced to death for a 3rd time. The brain tumor was removed in an operation in 2008. While benign, doctors could not remove the entire tumor. Weis said the combination of the remaining tumor and the fact that Johnson lost about 1/5 of his brain has left him prone to seizures and with difficulty walking. Missouri's execution drug is a form of pentobarbital believed to be manufactured by a compounding pharmacy - the state won't say where it gets it. Weis cites a medical review by Dr. Joel Zivot, who examined MRI images of Johnson's brain and found "significant brain damage and defects that resulted from the tumor and the surgical procedure," according to court filings. "Mr. Johnson faces a significant medical risk for a serious seizure as the direct result of the combination of the Missouri lethal injection protocol and Mr. Johnson's permanent and disabling neurologic disease," Zivot wrote. Court filings by the Attorney General's office note that Missouri has carried out 18 "rapid and painless" executions since it went to the one-drug method in November 2013. Other death row inmates have had mixed success in pursuing claims that medical conditions should preclude them from execution. In May 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court stopped the execution of Missouri inmate Russell Bucklew, who claimed the execution drug could cause suffering due to a rare congenital condition that causes weakened and malformed blood vessels as well as tumors in his nose and throat. The case was sent back to U.S. District Court, but remains unresolved. In March, Cecil Clayton claimed a sawmill accident that damaged his brain in the 1970s should prohibit execution. The courts disagreed, and Clayton, 74, was put to death. (source: Associated Press) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Nov 4 12:03:54 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2015 12:03:54 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 4 IRAQ: Iraq hands 2 Saudis death, 3 on the list Iraq's Central Criminal Court has sentenced 2 Saudis to death by hanging after finding them guilty on terrorism charges, with 3 others likely to share the same fate, according to a report in a local publication on Tuesday. However, Hamed Ahmed, the Saudi lawyer who represented the 2 men in Iraq has claimed the verdict was politically motivated. He said his clients, Batal Al-Harbi and Abdulrahman Al-Qahtani, were the victims of the country's political turbulence. Ahmed further claimed that there was little evidence to prove they committed crimes that would justify the death penalty. He said he would appeal the decision and file a motion with the Iraqi Supreme Court. A decision on the appeal was likely to be made next year, he said. Al-Harbi was sentenced to death on Oct. 26 for having joined an armed group and attempting to launch a suicide attack. He was one of 25 people arrested in 2011 and accused of belonging to Al-Qaeda. Ahmad said 3 other Saudis, currently facing trial in a court next to Baghdad International Airport, are also likely to be sentenced to death. (source: Arab News) AFGHANISTAN: Taliban Stone Woman To Death For Eloping A young Afghan woman has been stoned to death by the Taliban in Afghanistan's western zone, officials confirmed on Tuesday. Footages of the stoning surfacing in social media shows the woman in a hole in the ground as scores of violent men casually hurl stones at her. Forced to marry against her will, the woman named Rokhshana was stoned after she was caught eloping with another man in Ghor province, provincial Police Chief Gen. Mustafa said. "Taliban ordered stoning of the girl after she was caught eloping with a man on the mountains," he said. "Police has started investigations and will arrest the perpetrators soon." The incident happened a week ago in a village, 40 kilometers from Firozkoh, the provincial capital. Rokhshana, 19, can be heard screaming in the disturbing clip. The governor Seema Joyenda has also confirmed the stoning and said Rokhshana was "stoned to death by Taliban, local religious leaders and irresponsible armed warlords." According to Joyenda, 1 of Afghanistan's only 2 female governors, Rokhshana's family had "married her to someone against her will and she was eloping with a man her age." She strongly condemned the stoning and called on the central government to take actions against the brutal killing as soon as possible. According to her, the presence of more than 10,000 irresponsible armed men in Ghor has caused violation of women's rights. Meanwhile, civil society and women's rights activists strongly condemned the stoning and called it an "unacceptable and unforgiveable act." This is not the 1st case a woman stoned to death in public. A number of similar cases have occurred in the past during the Taliban regime, ousted in 2001. (source: rawa.org) INDIA: Mumbai court awards death sentence to Chandrabhan Sanap, prime accused in TCS The man, Chandrabhan Sanap, convicted for the murder and rape of a TCS employee Esther Anuhya in January a year ago, a Mumbai Court today has been sentenced him to death. "The case falls under the category of the rarest of rare, hence the accused is awarded death sentence... he must be hanged by his neck till he is dead", said Special Women's court judge Vrushali Joshi while pronouncing the verdict. On March 3, Sanap was arrested from Nashik and was charged with murdering and raping Esther. Pretending to be a cab driver, he offered to drop her off at Andheri on his 2-wheeler where he raped and murdered her at an isolated place. The victims family welcomed the courts decision and said, that they were happy with the judgement. "His cruelty did not stop at banging the victim's head and smothering her. He poured petrol on her and abandoned the partially burned body in the open". Sanap later told awaiting mediapersons that the police as usual have accused someone wrongly as he had not committed any such crime. Another homemaker said Sanap, his mother, younger brother and sister had lived in the SRA building from 2005 to 2014 when Sanap was sent to jail for an earlier crime. Judge Joshi observed: "This is the rarest of rare cases..." "The case has again raised the question of working women's safety". "The incident created a dent in the belief that Mumbai is still a safe city for women". Special public prosecutor Raja Thakare, who examined 39 witnesses, then sought for death penalty for the convict. Esther's father S Jonhatan Prasad, however, while speaking to dna over phone, got emotional and said the loss caused to their family is irreversible. The woman had arrived from Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh at the Lokmanya Tilak Railway Terminus after a Christmas break to rejoin work at the Tata Consultancy Services in Goregaon here. "He (Sanap) had called a tantrik to perform a pooja in repentance", the counsel had argued. (source: nysepost.com) ENGLAND: 50 years on, the debate over what replaces the death penalty continues The consignment in 1965 of the hangman's noose to the penal history museum was, by any standards, a monumental event. It was engineered by the National Campaign for the Abolition of Capital Punishment. A clutch of ardent reformers influenced and persuaded parliamentarians to vote for the abolition of the death penalty for murder, during just one year's legislative programme and debates. The campaign was formed a decade earlier by pressure groups such as the Howard League for Penal Reform. I was the most junior campaigner, an aspiring barrister whose advocacy for penal reform was just beginning. Among the list of eminent speakers on the platform at the inaugural meeting in November 1955 - at the Central Methodist hall in Westminster - was the novelist JB Priestley, Lord Pakenham (later Lord Longford, a member of the incoming Labour government in 1964, and a lifelong penal reformer), Gerald Gardiner QC (Labour's lord chancellor from 1964-70) as Lord Gardiner, a passionate law reformer and ardent abolitionist, and CH Rolph (a prominent writer and a former inspector of police in the City of London). The spur to the public debate on the death penalty stemmed from a trilogy of miscarriages of justice. In 1953, Derek Bentley was executed for the murder of a policeman on the rooftop of a warehouse in Croydon, south London. Bentley was, at most, an accomplice to Christopher Craig (who was under the legal age for execution), who fired the fatal shot in the course of a botched robbery. Bentley's conviction for murder was posthumously quashed in 1998. In 1950, Timothy Evans was unjustly hanged on the evidence of a neighbour, John Christie, who was subsequently convicted of murder, in a house they shared in west London. The 3rd case was more controversial. Ruth Ellis had shot an abusive and unfaithful lover in a fit of jealousy. Despite 50,000 people signing a petition seeking her reprieve, she was hanged at London's Holloway prison in 1955. After her death, prominent people, the trial judge and prosecuting counsel gave financial support to Ellis's son and daughter. The campaign to rid the country of capital punishment did not end in November 1965. The Act was made conditional on its renewal by December 1970. At heart of the media campaign were 2 fearsome antagonists - the publisher, Victor Gollancz and novelist Arthur Koestler. Koestler's Reflections on Hanging, which was serialised in 5 lengthy instalments in the Observer, demonstrated that the overwhelming majority of the crimes were murders resulting from domestic violence. The notion that the victims were primarily little old ladies in unprotected post offices murdered by young robbers was shown to be a myth which had dictated a distinctive punitive response. Their prime target was the legislature. The presumption was that parliament should lead, not follow public opinion. In contrast to the politicians and religious organisations who were loud supporters, the judiciary was silent. In the 1950s, the then lord chief justice, Lord Goddard, had claimed in a legislative capacity that the High Court judiciary was solidly behind him - predictably, for a confessed authoritarian - in supporting the penalty. But recent archival discovery has revealed that parliamentarians were privately assured of a post-1961 judiciary favourable to reform. On an occasion in February 1961, the new lord chief justice, Lord Parker, arranged through the Home Office to meet secretly with the lobby correspondents at Westminster. They were assured of a majority favouring "life after death" as the alternative sentence of the court. On 9 November 1965 the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act was given the royal assent. But the subject is not closed, even though the campaign was dissolved in 1984 when I was its last chairman. 50 years on, the debate over the penalty for murder [ what replaces the hangman's noose - rumbles on. Although there is no prescribed sentence of "whole life", (English law has never, either before or after the 1965 abolition, related the life sentence to natural life) a handful of convicted murderers have been told officially that they will be kept in prison for the rest of their lives. Is it not inhumane in a civilised society to say of anyone that he or she will never leave prison alive? It is literally an immuring within prison walls - on the grounds, not of credible public danger, but of imputed morality, or revenge ("a just desert"). No matter that the offender may have the capacity for change, or may do so, no matter that the passage of years and physical degeneration may render the offender???s condition no different from that of any other elderly person who is in need of long-term personal and nursing care: for that offender the prison door is as surely shut as if it had been bricked up, leaving no more than an aperture through which a coffin might pass. (source: The Guardian) IRAN: At Least 7 Prisoners Transferred to Solitary in Preparation for Execution On Sunday November 1, at least 7 prisoners at Rajai Shahr Prison, who are allegedly sentenced to death for murder, were reportedly transferred to solitary confinement in preparation for their executions. According to close sources, this is the 4th time that Hassan Javadi, one of the prisoners, has been transferred to solitary confinement in prepartion for his execution. The names of 4 of the other prisoners are: Arash Azarmipour, Ghorban Golmohammadi, Ali Shahi, and Massoud Ostadkarim. (source: Iran Human Rights) SINGAPORE: Death Row in Singapore I was sitting in a hotel room in Kuala Lumpur when I received the message on Monday afternoon. It was from Jumai, a short but heart-breaking note, sent over WhatsApp: "My brother this Friday die." Jumai's brother is a 31-year-old Malaysian man named Jabing. For the past week myself and and other anti-death penalty activists have been in constant contact with Jumai, booking her and her mother flights to Singapore, picking them up at the airport, meeting in the evenings for updates and thinking of ways to get her brother off death row. I was in the Malaysian capital in the hopes of lobbying local human rights groups and politicians to act for their fellow countryman; and endeavor that yielded limited success. It had been a long and arduous seven years for Jumai and her mother. Her brother, Jabing, was arrested in 2008 when he was 24 years old for his involvement in a robbery that led to a man's death. Jumai's father died of a stroke a few months later, which she attributed to health problems triggered by anxiety and worry for his son. 2 years later, Jabing was convicted of murder and sentenced to death under Singapore's mandatory death penalty regime. Under the law, anyone convicted of murder must be sentenced to death, with no chance for mitigating factors to be taken into account. But that wasn't the end of the family's emotional rollercoaster. The Singapore government amended the mandatory death penalty law in 2013, allowing judges the discretion to choose between death and life imprisonment with caning - a vicious punishment in which the inmate is strapped down and whipped with a long rattan cane - for all but the most serious category of murder, as well as certain cases of drug trafficking. Jabing was eligible for re-sentencing, and a High Court judge ruled that there was "no clear evidence" he had snuck up behind his victim and hit him over the head with a piece of wood. The death sentence was set aside, replaced with a life sentence and 24 strokes of the cane. Kho Jabing has exhausted all his legal appeals. Any relief was short-lived. The prosecution appealed the sentence, and in January 2015 the Court of Appeal - Singapore's highest court - returned Jabing to death row in a in a 3-2 ruling. Although the 2 dissenting judges felt that there was insufficient evidence to determine how many times Jabing had struck his victim with the piece of wood or caused the skull fractures that led to the man's death, the 3 judges in the majority believed that Jabing had showed a "blatant disregard for human life" in a way that "outraged the feelings of the community" and therefore deserved to die. The rich Southeast Asian city-state of Singapore has long been committed to capital punishment. The death penalty was brought into law while Singapore was still a British colony, and has remained even though the United Kingdom itself abolished executions in all circumstances in 1998. Capital crimes aren't limited to murder, but also include unlawful use of firearms and engaging in drug trafficking, with the latter making up the bulk of cases. 15 grams of heroin or 500 grams of cannabis can earn the offender a 1-way trip to the gallows - the method of execution that Singapore has always used. It's a harsh position, deliberately adopted to signal Singapore's uncompromising stance on crime. The lack of evidence that the death penalty works as a deterrent is no barrier to the government claiming that it is the threat of the noose that maintains the city's safe, low-crime reputation. Addressing a session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2014, Law Minister K Shanmugam vigorously defended the use of the death penalty for drugs. "Singapore is probably either the only country, or one of the few countries in the world, which has successfully fought this drug problem," he declared. "For those who ask for whom the death penalty can be a deterrent, I say to them, come and see for yourself in Singapore, and compare the region and the rest of the world." The Supreme Court Building in Singapore, designed by Foster and Partners. The disc at the top of the building houses the courtroom of the Court of Appeal, Singapore's final appellate court. Due to the relatively low number of murder cases, discussion about the death penalty for murder is less common than the debate surrounding Singapore's war on drugs. But the pro-death penalty rhetoric will be familiar to anyone who has ever encountered the issue: Since this person took someone else's life, why does he deserve to live? In other words, an eye for an eye. This narrative of retribution and punishment can also be found in the courthouse. "Although a number of jurisdictions followed the 'rarest of the rare' principle in deciding whether or not to impose the death penalty, this was not appropriate for Singapore," wrote the Court of Appeal in the 2015 judgement that sent Jabing back to death row. "A more appropriate principle to adopt would be whether the actions of the offender would outrage the feelings of the community." All of this makes the struggle for abolition an uphill battle. Beyond a small circle of supporters there is little sympathy for people like Jabing or his family. Mercy is also in short supply; Jabing's appeal for a presidential pardon was rejected in mid-October. It was distressing for the family, but not a surprise. The last time an inmate was granted a reprieve was in 1998. The rejection of Jabing's clemency appeal sparked off a flurry of activity. The most cruel of silent countdown clocks had begun to tick. Matters have been made more complicated by the family's limited means. Jabing comes from a poor, rural part of Sarawak in east Malaysia. His family speaks no English; his sister speaks Malay, while his mother is most comfortable in her native Iban. They flew to Singapore in 2010 to see Jabing; it took them 2 years to save up enough to visit him. In May we flew them back to Singapore to submit their appeal to the president for mercy, giving them another chance to see him. We flew them here again once we'd heard that the pardon had been denied. My brother says he wants his body to be flown back to Miri Every day, from Monday to Saturday, Jumai and her mother Lenduk would make the journey from their hostel to the imposing Changi Prison Complex in eastern Singapore to spend precious time with Jabing. They had about an hour and a half each time - treasured minutes and seconds in which they could sit and talk to him. A glass pane separated them; it'd been a long time since they'd been able to touch one another. The night after their 1st visit with Jabing we sat down to dinner together in a quiet hawker center. "My brother says he wants his body to be flown back to Miri," Jumai said. Jabing had been clear with his instructions. He'd converted from Christianity to Islam in prison, and wanted to be buried in the proper Muslim way. Fulfilling his last wish would involve the ordeal - not to mention expense - of getting a casket shipped from Singapore to Miri, then transported to the family's rural village. He told his sister to ensure that the whole process be taken care of by the Malaysian embassy; he was worried that we Singaporean activists had done too much for him already. It was a refrain we'd heard before from inmates and their families; despite their personal anguish, they would sometimes feel embarrassed or guilty about having put activists - seen as kind-hearted strangers - to too much trouble. It was a surreal conversation to have around a plastic table on a hazy evening - a discussion of tentative funeral plans for a young man who was not only still alive, but physically in his prime. Part of me wanted to shut down such talk; it felt too much like giving up, like accepting the execution as inevitable. Yet this was what was on Jabing???s mind, and what he had asked his sister to do. Jumai Kho and her mother Lenduk anak Baling with the family's personal letter of appeal to the President of Singapore asking him to grant clemency to their brother and son. A week passed before 3 police officers asked to speak to Jumai and her mother after they were done with their visitation in Singapore. The dreaded day had come. It was Monday; the officers told the family that Jabing would hang on Friday Nov. 6. Executions in Singapore usually take place at 6 a.m. every Friday morning. Just as early-risers stir from their beds and children get ready for school, the inmate is taken from his or her cell to the execution chamber. A noose - measured out according to the individual's weight - is placed over the prisoner's head, the knot behind the right ear to ensure the spinal cord is snapped upon the impact of the long drop through the trapdoor. No one, apart from prison officers and doctors, is allowed to be present. From what we can gather, the process is quick, methodical, and by the book. The family is expected to claim the body by a certain stipulated time, or the state will cremate the remains. Before the execution there is a bizarre and somewhat disturbing charade. About a day or so before execution the inmate is allowed to change out of his prison uniform into regular clothes, and is made to pose for a photo shoot. The photos are then provided to the family as mementoes of their lost loved one. It was for this shoot that Jumai and Lenduk found themselves, late on Monday night, in a sprawling 24-hour mall in Little India, looking for clothes Jabing would be able to wear. While Jumai tried to make sure that her brother would get everything he needed, Lenduk looked listlesssly at all the choices. How was she to choose, knowing that it would likely be the last set of clothes her only son would ever wear? Both women were still reeling from the news. "If you could see my breath, you'd see it slowly disappearing," said Jumai through a Malay translator. "I still cannot accept the fact." No one is willing to give up while Jabing is still alive. Yet the knowledge that time is running out and chances of a last-minute reprieve are slim is constantly at the back of all our minds, family and activists alike. "If there is an opportunity for us to keep him alive, then at least we will have the chance to come and visit him," Jumai said. "But sometimes I feel like all hope is lost." (source: Kirsten Han, roadsandkingdoms.com) *************** Mercy for Kho Jabing: An open letter to the Cabinet We are writing this letter of appeal for Kho Jabing, whose petition for clemency was rejected on 19 October 2015. We urge the Cabinet to reconsider his clemency in light of the fact that there was no unanimous decision even at the highest court of the land, and our learned judges were split in their opinion of whether the death penalty was appropriate in his case. We also seek the compassion of the Cabinet for the family of Jabing, who have gone through much suffering since his original sentencing. His father passed away while Jabing's case was ongoing, and Jabing's sister Jumai believes that her father's illness prior to his death was due to Jabing's incarceration, which came as a great blow for him. His mother, who has been unable to work due to health reasons, has lost both her sources of financial support and has been living on the goodwill of her neighbours and minimal state welfare ever since then. On top of her ill-health, the thought of losing Jabing, her only son, is too much for his mother to bear. We cannot imagine the effect his death will have on her wellbeing. We understand the grievousness of his offence but hope that he will be given a second chance and a more meaningful way to atone for his crime. We hope that our Ministers will be compassionate and consider all factors related, especially the impact of capital punishment on Jabing's family, and exercise mercy by commuting his death sentence to that of life imprisonment. Yours sincerely, Singapore Working Group on the Death Penalty (source: wordpress.com) VIETNAM: Malaysian woman nabbed in Vietnam for smuggling cocaine Vietnam has arrested a Malaysian woman for smuggling cocaine, state media said today, a crime punishable by death in the communist country. Gurcharan Kaur, 44, was caught with 5kg of cocaine at Ho Chi Minh City's international airport on Tuesday night, according to Tuoi Tre newspaper. She had travelled to Columbia, Panama, Brazil and Dubai before landing in Vietnam where authorities detected the powdered drug in her baggage, it reported. Under some of the world's toughest drug laws, anyone found guilty of possessing more than 600g of heroin or cocaine can face the death penalty in Vietnam. Dozens of foreigners have been sentenced to death for drug offences but it has been decades since a foreign national was executed in the country and drug-smuggling and use is commonplace. In September, an Australian woman of Vietnamese origin was imprisoned for 20 years for trying to smuggle heroin in her underwear. Last year, a Filipino man and woman were sentenced to death for smuggling in 5kg of cocaine. (source: themalaysianinsider.com) BANGLADESH: Narayanganj court sentences 2 to death for murdering schoolgirl in 1999 A Narayanganj court has sentenced 2 men to death and 3 others to life imprisonment in a case over raping and murdering a schoolgirl nearly 15 years ago. 'Tania', who was an 8th grader at Siddhirganj's Rebtimohon Pilot High School and College, was raped and strangulated to death by the 5 accused on Dec 13 in 1999. Women and Children Repression Prevention Special Tribunal's judge Rashidul Haque Raja delivered the verdict in the case on Tuesday, said State counsel Rakib Uddin Rakib. All the accused were present in court during pronouncement of verdict. Of them, Mohor Chan and Amir Hossain Khokan were given the death penalty, while Safar Ali, Nure Alam and 'Monir' were awarded life imprisonment. After murdering the girl, they had dumped the body on the bank of Shitalakkhya River. Tania's uncle had later filed the case with Siddhirganj police accusing the 5. 19 witnesses had deposed in court in the case. (source: bdnews24.com) **************** Nizami's appeal hearing not resumed The Supreme Court yesterday could not resume the hearing on the appeal filed by condemned war criminal Motiur Rahman Nizami, challenging a verdict that sentenced him to death for his war crimes during the 1971 Liberation War. A four-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha was scheduled to hear Nizami's appeal but they could not do so as one of the judges was not present, two deputy attorneys general requesting anonymity told The Daily Star. They, however, could not say why the judge was absent in the bench. SC Registrar General Syed Aminul Islam also said he did not know anything about the absence. On September 9, the four-member bench started hearing the appeal and adjourned the proceedings till yesterday. On November 23 last year, Jamaat-e-Islami chief Nizami challenged the death penalty. International Crimes Tribunal-1 on October 29 last year gave him the death penalty on 4 charges, including murdering intellectuals. (source: The Daily Star) PAKISTAN: Pakistan moves toward death penalty for child sex abuse Pakistan has taken a step towards punishing the sexual abuse of girls with life imprisonment or even death after an influential parliamentary committee voted to amend current laws. The National Assembly's standing committee approved the proposal by lawmaker Shaista Perveiz Malik on Tuesday, according to a statement on parliament's website on Wednesday. "After detailed discussions, the committee unanimously passed the bill," it said. The amendment only appears to address the sexual abuse of girls aged under 14, not boys. Under the existing penal code, the punishment for rape ranges from a minimum of 10 years' incarceration to the death penalty, but it does not specify the victim's age or gender. The bill will now come before lawmakers in both parliamentary chambers, who are set to pass it into law. Shaista Malik told the committee the state should protect vulnerable women and children. In a report, independent child rights watchdog Sahil said that last year almost 10 children were sexually abused in Pakistan every day on average. Parliamentary records show that some 14,583 rape cases were registered in Pakistan between 2009-2014, while only 1,041 offenders were convicted. Pakistan ended a 6-year moratorium on the death penalty last year, at first just for terror-related charges but later for offences including murder, drug smuggling, blasphemy and treason. (source: The Gulf Today) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Nov 4 12:02:58 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2015 12:02:58 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----NEB., ARIZ., NEV., ORE., USA Message-ID: Nov. 4 NEBRASKA: Nebraska tried to get lethal injection drug from Mississippi ---- Order placed in October for pancuronium bromide from Gulf Coast Pharmaceuticals was cancelled after company replied it was unavailable Nebraska prison officials unsuccessfully tried to buy a lethal injection drug from a Mississippi-based pharmaceutical company after spending months trying to import some from India, the Associated Press has said, citing documents it obtained. Nebraska correctional services ordered about $825 worth of pancuronium bromide in October from Gulf Coast Pharmaceuticals Plus, which replaced a firm that was dissolved in 2013 after it faced disciplinary action in other states. The AP said documents obtained through an open records request showed the order was placed 14 October amid an ongoing challenge to lawmakers' decision to repeal the death penalty in Nebraska, which has not carried out an execution in 18 years. The 4-box order was cancelled a day later, after the company said the product wasn't available. Nebraska had already spent $26,000 to buy 1,000 doses of the drug from an Indian distributor, along with 1,000 doses of the anesthetic sodium thiopental, but the shipment was blocked in India because it didn't have proper shipping papers. Similar orders by Arizona and Texas that made it to the United States were confiscated by federal authorities. Both drugs are required as part of Nebraska's 3-drug lethal injection protocol, but sodium thiopental currently has no legal uses in the US. Nebraska already has the 3rd drug, potassium chloride, which is used to stop the heart. The latest attempted purchase reflects problems faced by death-penalty states trying to buy drugs for executions amid a nationwide shortage. It also followed months of public statements by Republican Governor Pete Ricketts that the state was working to import the drug from India-based Harris Pharma. The US Food and Drug Administration has repeatedly said states cannot legally import lethal injection drugs, but Nebraska and others have attempted to do so. A Nebraska Department of Correctional Services spokesman didn't return phone messages seeking comment on Monday. A message left for Gulf Coast Pharmaceuticals Plus also was not returned. In Nebraska lawmakers abolished the death penalty in May by overriding Ricketts's veto. But that triggered a statewide petition drive halting the repeal until voters can weigh in on the issue during the November 2016 election. Nebraska has 10 men on death row but has not carried out an execution since 1997. The state has never used its current lethal injection protocol; the last execution used the electric chair. Dan Parsons, a spokesman for the anti-death penalty group Nebraskans for Public Safety, said the records provided more evidence the state's death penalty was broken beyond repair "and taxpayers are out tens of thousands of dollars". (source: The Guardian) **************** 'Daily Show' segment on Nebraska death penalty could air Wednesday night For those who are curious about how "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah" will slice and dice Nebraska's death penalty wrestling match, the segment could air as early as Wednesday evening. Dan Parsons, spokesman for anti-death-penalty group Nebraskans for Public Safety, said he's heard from a "Daily Show" producer that the segment taped in Lincoln will probably be on Wednesday night's show. That could change to later this week, he said. The show airs at 10 p.m. on Comedy Central, Time Warner Cable channels 67 and 113. Wednesday's show should re-air at 5:28 p.m. on Thursday. The TV show sent one of its new correspondents, Desi Lydic, for an interview and walk around the Capitol with Sen. Colby Coash. The crew also went to The Mill in the Haymarket, and Lydic did a monologue, of sorts, with barista Alison Schuerman. "They were poking fun at our death penalty mess," said Mill co-owner Tamara Sloan. Nebraska hasn't used the death penalty for nearly 2 decades, but 10 men sit on death row in Tecumseh. Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers, along with Coash and other senators, were successful in passing a bill to abolish the death penalty in May and then overriding a veto by Gov. Pete Ricketts. Now, a group of death penalty supporters -- bankrolled in part with several hundred thousand dollars from Ricketts and his father, Joe -- have gathered enough petition signatures to put the repeal on hold until a public vote in November 2016. In the meantime, the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services has no way to carry out the penalty because it can't get the drugs it needs to carry out a lethal injection -- but not for lack of trying. (source: Journal Star) ARIZONA: Arizona says it has necessary drugs to carry out executions The state of Arizona says it has a 3-drug combination available to use in executions once they resume. In a federal court notice filed Tuesday, the state says it has midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride on-hand and that it plans on using that combination when executions resume. It's also seeking to obtain sodium thiopental, a drug that's banned in the U.S. The FDA has seized a $27,000 shipment of the drug in July, which the state is appealing. The notice was filed after a federal judge last week said he wouldn't resume a civil rights lawsuit against the state until it revealed which execution drugs it had in its possession. Arizona attorneys have requested that the lawsuit, filed in June 2014 on behalf of several death row inmates, be resumed after it was put on hold last year through an agreement by both parties. The state can't perform executions until the suit is resolved. The death row inmates seek information about which drugs and drug suppliers the state planned on using in executions, which the Department of Corrections had refused to release. Arizona and other death penalty states have struggled to obtain lethal injection drugs after European companies stopped supplying them several years ago. Sodium thiopental, one of those drugs, is banned in the U.S. Executions were put on hold following the July 2014 death of convicted killer Joseph Rudolph Wood, who was administered 15 doses of midazolam and a painkiller and who took over 90 minutes to die. His attorney, Dale Baich, says the execution was botched. Since then, the Department of Corrections has issued new protocols that include 4 different drug combinations that can be used in executions. But Baich said the state shouldn't use midazolam at all anymore. "The state's decision to use midazolam as part of a 3-drug formula and continue to experiment in carrying out executions is problematic," Baich said. "Arizona should know better and not use this drug again." (source: Associated Press) NEVADA: Prosecutor contests psychologist report in death penalty hearing in Vegas Strip shooting-crash A forensic psychologist testified Tuesday that a structured environment like prison might help a self-styled pimp convicted of killing 3 people in a shooting and fiery crash on the Las Vegas Strip. But a prosecutor provided records showing that Ammar Asim Faruq Harris had disciplinary trouble in prisons in South Carolina and in Nevada - where he was convicted of bribing a guard to smuggle items to him. Prosecutor David Stanton undercut psychologist Shera Bradley's conclusions that Harris grew up sexually abused, neglected and impoverished and that the 29-year-old Harris might benefit from a controlled prison environment without access to drugs, alcohol or weapons. "Are you aware ... that what was actually smuggled into High Desert State Prison involving Ammar Harris was cellphones, chicken wings, alcohol and methamphetamine?" Stanton asked. Stanton and prosecutor Pamela Weckerly on Wednesday will urge the jury to sentence Harris to death. Defense attorneys Robert Langford and Thomas Ericsson will seek life in prison. Bradley acknowledged during questioning by Stanton that most of her conclusions about Harris were based on his own accounts and documents collected by his defense team. Harris again chose not to attend his death penalty hearing after being found guilty Oct. 26 of 3 counts of murder and other charges in the February 2013 vehicle-to-vehicle shooting. He didn't hear wrenching testimony Monday and Tuesday from mournful family members of aspiring rapper Kenneth Wayne Cherry Jr., who was mortally wounded in a Maserati, taxi driver Michael Boldon and passenger Sandra Sutton-Wasmund of Maple Valley, Washington. "We're almost 2 years and 9 months into this," said James Wasmund, the soft-spoken husband of the 3-time breast cancer survivor and mother of 3 who was killed in the flaming taxi. Wasmund, who has declined in the past to speak publicly, characterized his wife of nearly 20 years as a "ball of energy" and emotional center of their family - and a community coach and catalyst in their tight-knit town outside Seattle. He said it became a family joke that he became known by her maiden name, Sutton. "We lost a year we don't even remember," Wasmund lamented. "Nobody's moved. Nobody's matured. I just hope she's proud of us. We're not doing well, but we're trying." Bradley was the only witness in Harris' defense. She testified that she couldn't reach his mother about his accounts of his upbringing in a broken family in the New York area before he was arrested at age 17 with a stolen gun in a stolen car in South Carolina. Harris' father died when he was 2, and his mother didn't enroll him or his younger sister in school while they moved from one public housing project to another or spent time homeless, Bradley said. The mother neglected her children's medical and emotional needs, and Harris told the psychologist his mother was only happy when he brought her money. A brief enrollment in high school ended when Harris was suspended for fighting with another student. Stanton noted that Harris had a chance at probation revoked for failing to follow rules following his weapon possession conviction in South Carolina. Harris now is serving 16 years to life for raping and robbing an 18-year-old woman at a Las Vegas condominium in 2010. The jury won't hear about that case, which is being appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court. (source: Associated Press) OREGON: Attorney says if Dayton Rogers gets death penalty again, case could last 30 years, cost $3 million The cost of sentencing Dayton Leroy Rogers to death could hit up to $3 million if the case winds its way through a potentially decades-long appeals process, a defense attorney told a Clackamas County jury on Tuesday. But if Rogers instead got a true life sentence, it would offer "a real punishment (that) will bring this matter to an end, once and for all," attorney Lynne Morgan said in her opening statement. Morgan also gave jurors a snapshot of Rogers' tormented youth rife with instability, perverse sexuality and unpredictable violence. Defense witnesses will explain how Rogers' twisted childhood led to his heinous crimes, she said. Rogers, Oregon's most prolific serial killer, was convicted of fatally stabbing 7 women in 1987. A jury in 1989 sentenced him to die. But the Oregon Supreme Court has overturned death sentences for Rogers three times, most recently in 2012. He again faces a 12-person jury that will decide his fate in Clackamas County Circuit Court. Over the last few weeks, jurors have heard gruesome details of Rogers' murder spree and how he took prostitutes to a remote spot east of Molalla, where he tortured them before killing them, sometimes sawing off their feet. William Long, an attorney, theologian and writer who has studied the Oregon death penalty, told jurors that it could take up to 30 more years if the Rogers' case continues to wind its way through the 10-step appeals process that starts when the jury renders its verdict. A death sentence is not "the quicker, cheaper option," Long said. "The numbers just don't bear that out." Many of the steps are discretionary and state and federal courts could elect to not hear the appeals, said Long, author of "A Tortured History: The Story of Capital Punishment in Oregon." But if Rogers' case were to go through all 10 steps, it could cost taxpayers as much as $3 million more in legal costs, Long said. Rogers, 62, could be in his early 90s by the time his appeals ended and is more likely to die of old age than lethal injection, Long said. Prosecutor Scott Healy disputed Long's conclusions, noting that Oregon's appeals process is moving more quickly today and that the courts aren't required to the case at each step of the 10 steps. Healy said that $3 million spent over 30 years is not excessive and noted that Long once called Rogers was "the worst of the worst" inmates in Oregon's prison system. Morgan said defense witnesses will explain how Rogers' warped childhood turned him into a murderous sexual sadist. His parents, Ortis and Jasperelle Rogers, were both "psychotic and paranoid and likely schizophrenic," she said. By the time Rogers was 17, the family had moved 39 times, mostly between Oregon and Idaho with time in Washington, Arizona, Texas and California. "The Rogers family was isolated from outsiders and was totally under Ortis' control," Morgan said. "(Ortis) was obsessed by preaching his own interpretation of the Bible. Jasperelle was paranoid about the coming of the end of the world," Morgan said. Beatings were frequent and "transgressions were violently dealt with but where the rules changed constantly and arbitrarily," Morgan said. "The household was filled with inappropriate sexual behaviors," Morgan said. Ortis Rogers gave sexualized massages to his daughters and "became sexually aroused by the beatings he inflicted on his children and was seen to masturbate after those beatings," Morgan said. Jasperelle Rogers walked around the house in a slip and "required her children to brush her hair and massage her feet, moaning in pleasure while her feet were rubbed by her son, Dayton," Morgan said. Ortis Rogers would kill family pets in front of his children, bashing in kittens' heads with a shovel or rocks, running over a dog with a car and placing cats in a "kitty gas chamber," an aquarium he would fill with automobile exhaust to asphyxiate the animals, Morgan said. Sex was considered "dirty, nasty and a sin," Morgan said. "Ortis Rogers preached and raged about women, filth and prostitutes and where women who wore jewelry or makeup and got into cars with men were whores who deserved what they got," she said. (source: The Oregonian) USA: see: https://www.themarshallproject.org/next-to-die (source: the marshallproject.org) *********** The Worst Lawyers Death sentences are down across the country - except for where one of these guys is the defense attorney. 20 years ago a law professor wrote that the death penalty in America was handed down not "for the worst crime, but for the worst lawyer." Is that still true? "He looks like a killer, not a retard," Nathaniel Carr, a lawyer in Maricopa County, Arizona, wrote about his client, Israel Naranjo, who is now on death row. Naranjo has a standardized IQ score of 72, but Carr badly botched the introduction of this evidence at trial. The trial judge found that Carr "violated the rules of criminal procedure" and admonished him for both lacking candor and filing "offensive" and "incomprehensible" motions. The Arizona Supreme Court said Carr's behavior could be described as "willful misconduct." Carr has represented 4 of the men who currently occupy Arizona's death row. One of Carr's capital clients, Daniel Garcia-Saenz, sent the trial judge a handwritten letter asking for Carr and his co-counsel to be removed from his case because he had "lost all trust and faith in my attorneys." Saenz explained that his lawyers had visited him only a few times in 15 months and that he became concerned after hearing that Carr had been removed from 2 of his cases for failing to show up in court on his clients' behalf. Defendants get both the deadliest prosecutors in America and some of the country's very worst defense lawyers. Carr might not visit his capital clients very often, but he does seem to be dedicated to his job - his other job as a high school football coach. People who knew Carr at the county courthouse told Paul Rubin of the Phoenix New Times that "coaching seems Carr's true passion." Indeed, Carr "often was unavailable to clients and co-counsel on most weekday afternoons during football season - and always on game days." This dual career did not stop Carr from billing the county an average of $370,000 per year for his services - even though some the hours he billed were for team meetings and prison visits that appear to be fictitious. (Carr did not respond to requests for comment.) Last year marked the lowest number of new death sentences in modern American history. Nationwide, in the five-year period from 2010 through 2014, only 13 counties imposed 5 or more death sentences. Maricopa County is one of those 13. With 24 new death sentences between 2010 and 2014, Maricopa is the nation's 2nd highest producer of death sentences, after Los Angeles County, which is twice as populous. One explanation for why counties like Maricopa hang on to capital punishment is that the prosecutors in these places are outliers who continue to pursue death sentences with abandon, mitigating circumstances and flaws in the system be damned. But prisoners sentenced to death in these counties often suffer a double whammy - they get both the deadliest prosecutors in America and some of the country's worst capital defense lawyers. Nathanial Carr makes that list of awful lawyers, but he is not the only one from Maricopa who deserves to be included. Herman Alcantar has been called, by a lawyer intervening on behalf of 1 of his former clients, "arguably the busiest capital defense attorney in the entire United States." That's not a compliment. Capital cases are notoriously complex and time-consuming. 1 trial-level capital case can be a full caseload for a defense attorney, and almost no one considers it a good idea to handle more than 2 active death penalty cases at a time. During the winter of 2009, Alcantar represented 5 pretrial capital defendants at once. He was so busy, in fact, that 1 month before the trial of Fabio Gomez was set to begin, Alcantar had neither filed a single substantive motion nor visited his client in more than a year. 6 of Alcantar's former clients are on death row. After a person is found guilty of capital murder, he or she has the right to present mitigating circumstances to the jury in an effort to persuade jurors not to impose a death sentence. This 2nd phase of a capital trial often lasts weeks or months. Alcantar has a reputation for efficiency in these proceedings - the mitigation case that he put on for one of his clients, David Anthony, lasted less than a day. In another case, State v. Garcia, Alcantar presented the mitigation case in less than 2 days - 1 morning, 1 afternoon. In a 3rd case, Alcantar's client, Brian Womble, decided not to present any mitigation evidence. Womble's new lawyers allege that Alcantar is the one who pushed Womble to forgo mitigation in the absence of a thorough investigation. In post-conviction proceedings, Womble's new lawyers have discovered that he was born addicted to the heroin that his mother abused while she was pregnant. As a child, he was thrown down flights of stairs, beaten with a broomstick, and had his head slammed into a wooden fence. He stuttered and suffered from head injuries, neuropsychological impairment, and symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome. He also had a difficult time in school despite trying hard. Instead of supporting his efforts, his mother, herself addicted to heroin and mentally ill, called him a "fucking retard" and beat him. Womble developed severe depression, tried to kill himself, and had a paranoid delusion that a religious organization controlled his life. He also had hallucinations that demons were living in his furniture. Hours before the crime that landed him on death row, Womble voluntarily entered a mental health treatment facility, saying that he wanted to kill himself and possibly others, and yet was permitted to leave. He then broke into an apartment and shot 2 people while they were sleeping. Alcantar discovered almost none of this mitigating evidence; therefore, the jury did not know of any reason to spare Brian Womble's life. When 1 of Womble's jurors later heard about the new evidence in the case, he said, "Knowing all of that, I would have voted for life, no doubt about it." Alcantar says he genuinely tried to serve his clients, but he was overwhelmed with the caseload. He blames the state of Arizona for trying so many death penalty cases at once during that period. * * * Like Maricopa, Duval County, Florida, is among the few counties in America that continue to regularly impose death sentences. Since 2010, it is the 2nd highest producer of death sentences per capita, after Caddo Parish, Louisiana. Matt Shirk, the elected public defender for Duval, campaigned on a promise to be "less confrontational when dealing with police in court, ensuring his employees would never call a cop a liar." When Shirk took over, he fired 10 lawyers, including senior capital litigators Ann Finnell and Pat McGuinness, whose stellar representation of a wrongfully arrested 15-year-old, Brenton Butler, was the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary film, Murder on a Sunday Morning. With his experienced capital litigators gone, Shirk hired Refik Eler to be his deputy chief and the head of homicide prosecutions. Since 2008, Eler has been a defense lawyer on at least 8 cases that resulted in a death sentence. That's more than any other lawyer in Florida. (Eler declined to comment.) This month, a Florida judge overturned Raymond Morrison's conviction and death sentence of a man named Raymond Morrison after finding that Eler failed to conduct a basic factual investigation of the circumstances of the crime, failed to secure the testimony of alibi witnesses, and also failed to investigate evidence of Morrison's "organic brain damage and intellectual disability." "It was like he had no attorney," Marty McClain, Morrison's new lawyer, told the Florida Times-Union. In 2013, the Florida Supreme Court reversed death sentence of Michael Shellito on the grounds that he had ineffective assistance of counsel. Eler was his lawyer, too. Eler did not conduct a "true follow-up on the matters indicated in the various reports" of his mental health expert, the court found, and he only "made a marginal attempt to present organic brain damage and other impairment as mitigation." Shellito's new lawyers discovered that he has bipolar disorder, "a mental age of 14 or 15 years, an emotional age of 12 or 13 years, an IQ in the low-average range, the presence of organic brain damage," "a prior head injury," and that he endured "verified physical and sexual abuse." In State v. Douglas, the Florida Supreme Court found that Eler provided a 3rd capital client with ineffective assistance. A 4th claim is pending before the Florida Supreme Court, and pointed questioning from the justices during argument last month suggests that Eler might be found ineffective once again. * * * 20 years ago, law professor Stephen Bright wrote that the death penalty in America was handed down not "for the worst crime, but for the worst lawyer." Nathanial Carr, Herman Alcantar, and Refik Eler make it seem like nothing has changed. But that is not the case. The quality of defense representation in capital cases has substantially improved in many places across the country. Virginia used to lead the nation in per capita executions, but no one has been sentenced to death in the state since 2011. Law professor Brandon Garrett, who authored a study on the decline of the death penalty in Virginia, credits defense lawyers. In 2004, the state Legislature created a system of regional defender offices to handle trial-level capital cases. "The impact of improved lawyering is striking," Garrett said. It "does not take the 'best of the best' or some kind of 'dream team'," but it does require "a team of specialist capital defense lawyers and investigators, preferably working in an office, that understand the very different way that a death penalty case must be litigated from its inception." Louisiana is another example of a state that has improved the quality of its defense lawyering in capital cases. In 2007, the Louisiana Legislature created a statewide public defender board, which included an experienced lawyer to serve as the capital case coordinator. More recently, Louisiana enacted statewide standards - establishing minimum experience and training requirements and governing the performance of defense representation in capital cases - that are worthy of national emulation. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the Virginia study, death sentences have declined throughout Louisiana in recent years. The quality of defense representation in capital cases has substantially improved in many places. But not in Caddo Parish. Like Maricopa and Duval counties, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, is one of the few districts that continue to regularly impose the death penalty. Indeed, Caddo has become the leading per capita death-sentencing machine in America. Of the death sentences imposed in Caddo Parish since 2005, 75 % of the cases involved at least 1 defense lawyer who, under the new case representation standards, is no longer certified to try capital cases in Louisiana. Daryl Gold, who represented nearly 1 in 5 of the people sent to death row in the entire state of Louisiana between 2005 and 2014, is one of those lawyers. He has been suspended from the practice of law 3 times. Additionally, as the Louisiana Supreme Court explained in his latest disciplinary action, Gold has "received 14 private reprimands or admonitions for neglecting legal matters, failing to communicate with clients, failing to refund unearned fees, and failing to cooperate in a disciplinary investigation." Here's what is amazing: Though prohibited from taking on private clients, Gold was allowed to continue his "public service employment at the Capital Assistance Project" representing poor defendants in capital cases. His most recent death sentence came in State v. Rodricus Crawford, which involved a father convicted of murdering his infant son despite the fact that the state's own medical examiner could not be certain that the death was a homicide. This is the case in which the prosecutor, Dale Cox, ignored doubt as to Crawford's guilt and told the jury to return a death sentence because "when it comes to a person who harms a child, Jesus demands his disciples kill the abuser by placing a millstone around his neck and throwing him into the sea." Despite the fact that Caddo juries have returned eight death sentences since 2005, Gold says he expected his client to be acquitted, and he seems not to have adequately prepared for the possibility that his client would be convicted of murder and a penalty phase would ensue. When the case ultimately did move to the penalty phase, Gold put on less than a day's worth of mitigation evidence. Capital defense representation in Louisiana, then, mirrors the national landscape. Mostly, it is vastly improved from the days when tax lawyers with no relevant experience represented people facing the death penalty. As states adopt standards that attempt to protect against wrongful convictions and ensure adequate representation, though, there is resistance to this change - not just from lawyers like Daryl Gold, but also from prosecutors who would prefer to practice against the same old defense lawyers that they have steamrolled over for years. In the counties with the most death sentences, prosecutors and defense lawyers, often abetted by judges and other local officials, fight to maintain the status quo that Stephen Bright wrote about 20 years ago. In these places, the death penalty is still a punishment reserved mostly for the people with the worst lawyers. Disproportionate numbers of death sentences in these few counties do not result from a high number of murders, or even the unique fervor of the residents who reside there, but instead from the operation of death's double whammy - bloodthirsty, overreaching prosecutors and woefully inadequate defense lawyers. (source: Robert J. Smith is a senior fellow at Harvard Law School's Charles Hamilton Houston Institute and a visiting scholar at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law----slate.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Nov 4 15:31:59 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2015 15:31:59 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.J., DEL., N.C., MO., ARK., NEB., USA Message-ID: Nov. 4 TEXAS: Court upholds death penalty for man's killing of 2 sons Texas' highest criminal court has upheld the death sentence of a Dallas man convicted of drowning his 2 young sons in a creek 4 years ago because he was angry with their mother for breaking up with him. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday rejected arguments from attorneys for 36-year-old Naim Rasool Muhammad that there were 54 errors at his 2013 Dallas trial. Among their claims, attorneys contended evidence was insufficient, improper jury selection left Muhammad with a biased jury, and some autopsy photos, testimony and prosecution closing arguments all were improper. Evidence showed Muhammad forced the boys, 5-year-old Naim and 3-year-old Elijah, and their mother into a car. After she managed to flee, he drove to a creek and held their heads under water. (source: Associated Press) NEW JERSEY: Council weighs in with support for death penalty in New Jersey An impassioned plea for the return of the death penalty for certain crimes was delivered by the Jackson Township Council in a recent show of support for 2 bills in the state Legislature. Council members recently passed a resolution in support of bills S-1741 and A- 2429 which call for the restoration of capital punishment for the murder of law enforcement officers. "It is extremely important that we let the brave men and women who protect us 24 hours a day know we stand behind them and support the most significant punishment possible for this heinous crime," council President Barry Calogero said. Council members said the bills have been in limbo in the state Assembly since 2011. "While irresponsible groups promote rhetoric that threatens police officers, it is crucial that we support our peace keepers," said Assemblyman Ronald Dancer (R-Ocean, Burlington, Monmouth and Middlesex), a sponsor of the bill. Councilman Robert Nixon said the use of the death penalty for individuals who kill a police officer would help protect officers. "While you can argue about the legitimacy of the death penalty as a deterrent, you cannot question the heinousness of that crime," Nixon said. "I think it was a mistake that we abolished the death penalty for the murder of police officers back when we did." According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, there have been almost 30 shooting-related deaths of police officers in 2015. Compared to 2014, that number is a decrease of about 16 %. "This is sickening and an appalling lack of respect for the law and the public servants tasked to keep peace in our neighborhoods," Dancer said. "Open season on police officers has to stop. An attack on the police is an attack on law-abiding citizens everywhere." The proposed state legislation also seeks to enact the death penalty on individuals who are convicted of murdering anyone under the age of 18 or during an act of terrorism. Nixon said he believes the bills would help to protect more than just those individuals if they are enacted into law. "When somebody is going to assassinate a police officer while the officer is on duty or because the (perpetrator) knows an individual is a police officer, they will stop at nothing to kill anybody else in our society," Nixon said. (source: Tri-Town News) DELAWARE: Coalition aims to rid Delaware of death penalty Repealing capital punishment is at the forefront of a series of meetings targeting racial disparities in the state's justice system. The campaign is led by the Delaware Repeal Project, a group of organizations and individuals against the death penalty, and the Complexities of Colors Coalition, which tackles issues pertinent to the black community. The campaign includes a series of community meetings meant to educate the public about the death penalty, and to influence legislators to pass Senate Bill 40 repealing the death penalty. Introduced in March 2015, SB 40 barely passed the Senate April 2 by an 11-9 vote. It has since been blocked by the House Judiciary Committee, and it won't move any further until the General Assembly reconvenes. One such community meeting was held Oct. 29 at Whatcoat United Methodist Church in Dover, the 2nd of 3. The next will be held in Wilmington Nov. 17, 7 p.m., at the Tabernacle Full Gospel Baptist Church. The meeting's panel was made up of the Rev. Rita Paige of Star Hill AME Church; the Rev. Michael Rodgers of Central Baptist Church; Samuel Hoff, a professor at Delaware State University, and Mary Batten, a senior political science major at Delaware State University. Rep. Sean Lynn, who is the primary sponsor of the bill, was asked to be the keynote speaker. Donald Morton, executive director of the Complexities of Color Coalition, moderated. "It's important that we mobilize and engage as many members of the community as a whole to address mass incarceration and the criminal justice system at large," Morton said. "In the United States of America we investigate too much in urban spaces, we arrest too much, we incarcerate too much and we kill too many." Each panelist, including Paige, agreed the death penalty wasn't a deterrent and should be abolished. "It will solve some of our problems," said Paige. "It will cut down on our African Americans being executed for wrongful purposes." Toward the end of the evening they asked the audience to reach out to their elected representatives and encourage them to vote in favor of the bill. According to coalition spokesman Daniel T. Walker, hosting these meetings is only the beginning. When the General Assembly reconvenes in January the Delaware NAACP and ACLU will start lobbying to convince legislators to support the bill. Delaware's death penalty Nationwide, 31 states still employ capital punishment, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Delaware's Gov. Caleb Boggs signed into law a bill abolishing the death penalty in 1958, but in 1961 it was reinstated. Delaware's most recent execution, in 2012, was Shannon M. Johnson, a black man sentenced in 2006 for the murder of Cameron Hamlin. His execution proceeded despite attempts by attorneys and his sister to argue he was mentally incompetent and shouldn't have faced the death penalty. In 2013 Sen. Karen Peterson introduced legislation to repeal capital punishment, but that bill failed to pass the House. Since 1992, 17 inmates have been executed in Delaware. 7 were black, 8 were white, and 1 was Native American. While more whites than African Americans have been executed over those 23 years, Morton said the campaign is more focused on the number of African Americans on death row, where, according to the Department of Correction, there are 9 blacks and 6 whites. "We make up a small part of the overall community," Morton said. "But we are largely [over]represented in prisons and on death row and that means there is something that is broken with the system." (soruce: middletowntranscript.com) NORTH CAROLINA: Man tied to missing women appears in court The man charged with murder in a Pisgah View Apartments slaying and tied to the disappearance of two Buncombe County women could face the death penalty. Pierre Lamont Griffin II, 22, appeared in Buncombe County District Court Wednesday morning on charges of 1st-degree murder, robbery with a dangerous weapon and reckless driving and fleeing to elude arrest in connection with the Oct. 27 killing of Uhon Trumanne Johnson, 31. The 1st-degree murder charge carries the possibility of death or life without parole, the county's top prosecutor said. "It's a potential capital case," District Attorney Todd Williams said. "At this early stage, no determination has been made about how the state will proceed." Williams declined to comment on Griffin's connection to the missing women, Alexandra King, 22, and Tatianna Diz, 20, or to say what factors might lead him to seek the death penalty. "We don't have the materials from law enforcement yet to analyze the case effectively," Williams said. Griffin is being represented by attorney Keith Hanson, who declined comment. Griffin kept his head bowed during most of the brief hearing while the judge read his charges. Griffin was transported Tuesday afternoon to Buncombe County from Spartanburg Regional Hospital in South Carolina, where he was recovering from injuries suffered in an alleged three-county police chase following the Pisgah View killing. Griffin was shot by two Henderson County deputies at the end of that chase in Polk County, according to the Henderson County Sheriff's Office. In addition to the charges connected to Johnson's slaying, Griffin on Tuesday was charged with felony larceny and felony obtaining property by false pretense in connection with an incident in July, according to arrest warrants. He's accused of stealing a motorcycle valued at $4,800 from a Candler resident on July 23, according to arrest warrants. Griffin is next to appear in Buncombe District Court on Nov. 24 for a probable cause hearing. Police have not said what ties Griffin to King and Diz, who have not been seen in more than a week after they left their residence at Canterbury Heights Apartments the night of Oct. 27 to give Griffin a ride to nearby Deaverview Apartments, according to search warrants. After their bloodied car was found in a bank of the French Broad River near New Belgium Brewery the next morning, crews have scoured the river for five days but found no clues. (source: Ashville Citizen-Times) MISSOURI: Missouri will not execute Ernest Lee Johnson today The Attorney General's Office has issued a statement saying that the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals will consider Johnson's appeal in the "ordinary course of business." "Consequently," the statement continues, "there will not be an execution before the warrant expires today." The U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay in Johnson's case and sent back to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals his appeal based on his claim that the lethal injection of pentobarbital presents a risk of violent seizures that would violate his rights against cruel and unusual punishment. The 8th Circuit dismissed that appeal for Johnson???s failure to state a claim. The Supreme Court required the 8th Circuit to decide whether that should have been dismissed or whether the case should have been allowed to proceed. The death warrant issued by the Missouri Supreme Court expires at 5:59 tonight. Johnson, 55, was sentenced to death for 3 counts of 1st-degree murder for killing Mary Bratcher, Mable Scruggs, and Fred Jones. He had also shot one victim in the face and stabbed another 10 times in the hand with a screwdriver before the fatal attacks with the hammer. He was linked to the crime by shoes that matched bloody footprints at the scene, money, checks, and a cash register receipt from the store, and bloody clothing. Johnson in recent appeals of his sentence did not dispute his guilt in the murders. Johnson's attorneys argued in recent weeks that he should not be executed using pentobarbital because it would pose a risk of violent and uncontrollable seizures in him, as a result of scar tissue and other conditions that remained after a 2008 surgery to remove a brain tumor. They argued that lethal gas, still a legal method of execution in Missouri but unused since 1965, would pose less risk of pain to Johnson. Alternately his attorneys argued that Johnson suffered from intellectual disability since childhood, and as such his execution would violate the constitution. (source: Missourinet.com) ARKANSAS: Annual Arkansas Poll shows widespread support for death penalty An annual poll conducted last month found widespread support for the death penalty, at a time when state law regarding secrecy of execution drugs is being challenged. The Arkansas Poll, a survey of views from Arkansas voters on a variety of political and lifestyle topics, was conducted between Oct. 19 and Oct. 25 and released by the University of Arkansas on Wednesday. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 %. According to the data, 71 % of respondents supported capital punishment for people convicted of murder, with 19 % opposed. The figure in support is about 10 % higher than the national average seen in Gallup polling. Support was strongest among men, white voters, Republicans and conservatives, state polling showed. Arkansas' annual poll found that 78 % of men were in favor of the death penalty, compared with 67 % of women. It also showed that more whites than members of minority groups supported it, 76 %to 50 %. "What I find interesting is that support for the death penalty seems to be higher across the board in Arkansas; women, minorities, Democrats and even liberals support the death penalty at levels above the national averages for these groups," Rodney Engen, UA associate professor of sociology, said in a statement. The poll also presented data as state voters begin to make early decisions regarding in-state and federal races in the 2016 elections. Approval for U.S. Sen. John Boozman remained consistent with 2014 results at 38 % this year. Boozman is focusing on a re-election campaign against Democratic challenger Conner Eldridge, a former federal prosecutor. Ahead of the coming U.S. presidential election, 42 % of Arkansas survey takers said they would vote for a Republican. 32 % said they favored a Democratic candidate, and 26 % were unsure. Respondents were asked about their views on gun control. Of those surveyed, 39 % supported stricter gun control laws while 18 % believe laws should be less strict on gun ownership. 36 % favored no changes in gun control. On a related topic, 51 % of those surveyed said they support an open carry law, with 40 % in opposition. The poll marked a shift in support for a marijuana ballot measure in the state at 68 % in favor this year, an increase from 44 % in 2012 data. The Arkansas Poll surveyed a random sample of 800 adult voters in the state by telephone, including 200 cellphone users. 44 % of those polled were male while 56 % were female. (source: nwaonline.com) NEBRASKA: 'Daily Show' segment on Nebraska won't air Wednesday A new episode of "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah" won't air Wednesday because the host had an emergency appendectomy earlier in the day. The TV host was forced to pull out of the show while he recovers from the Wednesday morning procedure. Comedy Central announced that a repeat will air Wednesday evening instead of a live show. A producer for the show had suggested earlier this week that the segment on Nebraska's death penalty could air Wednesday evening. It's unclear when it might be rescheduled. In October, the TV show sent one of its new correspondents, Desi Lydic, for an interview and walk around the Capitol with Sen. Colby Coash. The crew also went to The Mill in the Haymarket, and Lydic did a monologue, of sorts, with barista Alison Schuerman. (source: Journal Star) USA: Why Does the Death Penalty Persist? At a campaign stop in Manchester, N.H., Hillary Clinton expressed a desire to reform the application of the death penalty in the United States. She explicitly insisted that she did not want to see it abolished, arguing that in certain rare and egregious cases cases the death penalty is justified. However, in the spirit of a growing movement for criminal justice reform, she acknowledged that the death penalty is overused and applied in a discriminatory way. Jeb Bush (yes, he's still in the race) recently endorsed death penalty reform as well. But contra Clinton, his focus was on how long it takes to carry out death sentences. Apparently, he believes the biggest problem with the death penalty is that we're not killing people fast enough. But securing his nearly across-the-board liberal bona fides, Bernie Sanders took to the Senate floor to oppose the policy root and branch: "I believe the time is now for the United States to end capital punishment. Right now, virtually every Western industrialized country has chosen to end capital punishment. I would rather have our country stand side-by-side with European democracies rather than with countries like China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and others who maintain the death penalty. I know that this is not necessarily a popular point of view, but it is in my view the right point of view." Though I often blog about political lies or misleading statements, I'm happy to report that I have no quarrel with any of the facts the candidates mentioned. The death penalty is applied in a discriminatory way. It takes a very long time to carry out a death sentence. And the United States is far out of step with the other Western countries on this matter. Death sentence implementation is discriminatory in at least 2 ways. First, if you're black and you commit a capital crime, your chance of being be put to death is about double that of a white person who commits a capital crime. Some people have argued that racial minorities are more likely to be targeted with the death penalty because they commit more crimes; however, the research controls for the race of individuals already charged with a capital crime, which rules out this explanation. Additionally, research has shown that capital cases in which the victim is white are around 2.5 times more likely to result in a death sentence. So while the death penalty excessively targets black people accused of crimes, it offers less of its putative protection to black people who are the victims of crimes. As for whether or not the death penalty deter future crimes, the research is decidedly unclear. A survey of criminologists in 2009 found that 88 percent did not believe that the death penalty deterred crime. Many believe that the chances of getting caught, rather than the extent of punishment, is the biggest determinant for whether or not would-be killers refrain from murder. Naturally, there are some who do believe that the death penalty deters crime, though even they tend to admit that the data is inconclusive. What's even more telling, however, is their caveat: long lag times reduce the deterrent effects of the death penalty, as Jeb Bush argued. A more swift death sentence could possibly serve as a deterrent, but it's just as likely to increase the likelihood that we will put falsely accused prisoners to death or rush through important appeal processes. And we know that many people have been falsely or wrongly put to death. As Bryan Stevenson, longtime death penalty attorney, documents in his recent book Just Mercy, many individuals have ended up on death row after being framed, being neglectfully represented by overworked public defenders, or having important extenuating circumstances, like mental health conditions, ignored. Many other civilized countries are able to get along just fine without the death penalty, and they avoid the serious costs associated with it. And if we take up their perspective, we may being to see our policies in different light. Consider a quote from an article in the Guardian in 2014: "When it comes to the death penalty, the United States today is what South Africa was in the 1980s. It is the subject of a targeted boycott of goods based on behavior that the rest of the world views as immoral. That's a mighty strange place to be for the self-declared leader of the free world." We have good reason to believe that we are putting many innocent people to death. But, as Hillary Clinton would ask, what about those rare cases when we're sure we've got the right person? What about, for example, the Boston Marathon bomber? There still seems to me an open question about how culpable they are, but regardless, the death penalty sends the wrong message. It says some people are beyond hope, beyond reason, beyond moral improvement. And we have no need of a justice system that tells us that. (source: Cody Fenwick, care2.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Nov 4 15:33:14 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 4 Nov 2015 15:33:14 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 4 SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi Arabia Is Set to Crucify Pro-democracy Teenage Protester Ali Mohammed Baqir al-Nimr, a 17 year old Saudi Arabian, was arrested in February 2012, and is slated to be executed by crucifixion at the hands of the Saudi Arabian government, who disregarded any form of due process whatsoever to prosecute al-Nimr under the charge of "encouraging pro-democracy protests using a Blackberry." For this alleged crime, al-Nimr will be taken to a public square and have his head chopped off as onlookers watch, leaving his corpse hung there for people to see as a warning. Al-Nimr was tortured into giving a false confession, never had a lawyer, had his appeal done in secret without his knowledge. A criminal justice system as medieval and gruesome as this should not exist in the world today. "Saudi Arabia may so far this year have executed at least 134 people, which already represents 44 more than the total for the whole of last year," United Nations Human Rights Experts wrote in a press release. "Such a surge in executions in the country makes Saudi Arabia a sad exception in a world where States are increasingly moving away from the death penalty." To allow this crucifixion to occur is an inexcusable injustice and contradicts International Law as well as the law of the Saudi Arabian government. Saudi Arabia's recent appointment to the UN's Human Rights Council is a farce when they perpetuate egregious human rights violations and enact barbaric methods of punishment themselves. The European parliament recently passed a resolution urging Saudi Arabia to stop the execution and issue a moratorium on the death penalty. The Prime Minister of France, Francois Hollande, has also spoken out to Saudi Arabia on behalf of Al-Nimr. The leader of the Labour Party in the UK, Jeremy Corbyn, has called upon the UK Prime Minister David Cameron to put pressure on the Saudis as well. As a global leader, the United States cannot be silent when such stark human rights violations occur at the hands of our presumed allies. The Obama administration. Al-Nimr's family is extremely worried that his execution can come at any moment. The last time they spoke with him, he reported being kept in solitary confinement. The boy's fate lies in the hands of 79 year old King Salman, who has already been under intense scrutiny over Saudi Arabian led bombings in Yemen that have killed thousands of civilians, and two tragic incidents in September, a crane collapsing and a stampede, that killed hundreds of people in Mecca. The alleged reason for Al-Nimr's arrest and sentence is surmised to be his relation to his uncle, Nimr al-Nimr, a well-known Shiite cleric. His uncle was a leader of protests against the Saudi government, demanding they treat Shiites, a minority in Saudi Arabia, as equals. The uncle was shot in the back of a police car in 2012. As subsequent protests increased, so did the charges filed against the boy. Saudi Arabia is abusing its power to dissuade any forms of dissent, and has one of the highest execution rates in the World. The country has dismissed criticism as protecting the rights of the killer. The United Nations and global leaders need to put more pressure on Saudi Arabia to curb their human rights violations. Instead, Saudi Arabia was selected as one of the nations to oversee a United Nations panel on human rights. In September, Saudi Arabia's ambassador in Geneva was elected chair of the UN Human Rights Council that appoints independent experts to investigate violation claims. The legitimacy of the council is completely undermined by having a leader presiding over it that perpetuates human rights violations within their own borders on a regular basis. The United Nations should be holding the perpetrators of human rights violations accountable, not rewarding them. Calling on Saudi Arabia to release Ali Mohammed Baqir al-Nimr is an opportunity to reverse lax policies that accept such cruel forms of capital punishment to go without any sort of repercussions. The Death Penalty has no place in the 21st century," said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon in a press release. The words and policies of the United Nations are completely pointless if they refuse to capitalize on the opportunity to call out Saudi Arabia to change their practices. (source: Huffington Post) PAKISTAN: Persecuted Church----Christian Mom Asia Bibi in Good Health as Death Penalty Case Awaits Supreme Court Review in Pakistan Good news has recently been released concerning Pakistani Christian Asia Bibi, a mother of 5 who is on death row for blasphemy. Her only "crime," offering water to her Muslim co-workers from the same cup out of which she, a Christian, had drank. Due to the overall volatility of the situation, rumors of Asia Bibi's declining health began to surface around the internet in October of 2014. These rumors claimed that Asia Bibi was vomiting blood and was having difficulty walking. Similar rumors appeared in June of 2015 claiming that Asia Bibi's health was so terrible that she might not live long enough to be executed. Fortunately, these rumors were recently debunked by her attorney, Saif-ul-Malook, after he visited her in the Multan prison. Malook was contacted by several foreign news agencies claiming that his client's health was worsening. When Malook and Asia Bibi's husband visited her to verify the reports, they said she looked healthy and normal, but asked her if she had suffered from any serious illness. According to the World Watch Monitor report, Malook said that, "Asia has totally denied she ever suffered any serious illness since 2009 in prison." I also spoke with Mr. Malook yesterday, and he confirmed that Asia is in good health. He told me that his visit gave Asia hope. The prison officials were surprised that he was able to make Asia, a prisoner on the death row, smile, Mr. Malook said. This is very encouraging news of her wellbeing as her execution for her Christian faith remains temporarily suspended as the Supreme Court of Pakistan prepares to review her case. In another recent development, the Supreme Court of Pakistan issued a judgment, upholding the conviction of Mumtaz Qadri, the security guard who shot and killed former Governor Salman Taseer. Qadri confessed during the trial that he killed Taseer because Taseer had called for reforming Pakistan's blasphemy laws and had met with Asia Bibi in an effort to seek a presidential pardon for her. Qadri pled not guilty, however, arguing that he was justified in killing Taseer because Taseer had blasphemed by criticizing the blasphemy laws. Although many in Pakistan and around the world are praising the Pakistani Supreme Court's decision upholding the death sentence (and, yes, it is a good decision because it upheld Qadri's conviction under both murder and terrorism charges), the Court's lengthy reasoning in reaching that decision is alarming. The Court dedicated a significant portion of its judgment to discussing Qadri's failure to meet his burden of proving that his defense of justification was valid because he had not verified whether Taseer had in fact committed blasphemy. While framing the issue, the Court said: [T]he issue involved in this case is not . . . whether anybody is allowed to commit blasphemy by defiling the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) or not . . . whether a person committing blasphemy can be killed by another person on his own . . . but the real question [is] . . . whether or not a person can be said to be justified in killing another person on his own on the basis of an unverified impression or an unestablished perception that such other person has committed blasphemy. By framing the issue in such a way, the Court avoided the real issues, i.e., whether Qadri was justified in killing Taseer even if Taseer had blasphemed and whether speech that disparages the Prophet Muhammad's name provides adequate provocation to justify murder. Answering the issue that it framed, the Court reasoned, inter alia, that the appellant (the killer) had not made any effort to ascertain whether Taseer had in fact committed blasphemy. Such reasoning leads to an inference that, had Qadri ascertained that Taseer had blasphemed, Qadri would have been justified in killing Taseer. Based on Qadri's confession and all the available evidence, which Qadri did not deny, the Court could have upheld the conviction based on a simple holding that Pakistani law does not allow a private individual to take the law in his own hands by killing another individual, even if that individual had broken the law. It is the state's job to punish somebody after due process. Perhaps the Court was trying to appease the mullahs and their fundamentalist followers by its reasoning. Such appeasement is in vain, however, because the mullahs would have only been happy if the Court had released the murderer. Perhaps the Court had to go through such an analysis and give due deference to Islamic law because, after all, according to the Constitution of Pakistan, Sharia is part of Pakistan's law. Nevertheless, the Court's reasoning leaves it open for a future vigilante to argue the defense of justification if he does his due diligence to ascertain that the alleged blasphemer had indeed blasphemed before killing him. While it is encouraging that Asia Bibi is in good health, she remains on death row and her attorney will be facing the same Supreme Court. We ask Christians around the globe to continue to pray for her release, for her safety, and for the safety of her supporters within Pakistan. Our work in Pakistan to defend persecuted Christians will continue, vigorously fighting these unjust and inhuman blasphemy laws. We will also continue aggressively advocating across the globe for Asia Bibi's freedom. (source: Shaheryar Gill, aclj.org) ZAMBIA: Court upholds death sentence The Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence slapped on a man of Mpika District for the murder of his wife. Davison Kunda 45 faces the death penalty following the verdict by the Highest Court of Appeal to dismiss his appeal. Mr Kunda appealed to the Supreme Court after the Kabwe High Court handed down the death sentence for the murder of his wife Muma Mulengwa. He was indicted of having murdered his wife on MAY 23, 2004 in Mpika. Upholding Mr. Kunda's death penalty, Supreme Court Judge Gregory Phiri observed that there were no extenuating circumstances to substitute his death sentence. During trial in the Lower Court, Mr Kunda contended that at around 03:00 hours on the fateful day he had inadvertently axed his wife whilst aiming for a wild beast, which was by the door inside his house. He argued that he had earlier dreamt about the wild beast in question and was suspecting his wife's grandfather of being a witch. Meanwhile, Police in Chipata, Eastern province, are holding a 33-year-old man of Moth residential area for allegedly defiling his 8-year-old daughter. Eastern Province Police Commissioner, Eugene Sibote has confirmed this to ZANIS in an interview. The man, who is a security guard, allegedly used to take advantage of the girl, and repeatedly defiled her, whenever she was left in his custody, by his wife. Mr Sibote has explained that the suspect's wife was not aware of the girl's ordeal, because he used to threaten to kill her, if she ever told her mother. However, the matter was only revealed after the couple reported to police that the girl was missing, because she had not returned home, after school. Mr Sibote explained that the girl, who is in Grade 1 was only found, after she narrated to the owner of a nearby shop, that she was being repeatedly defiled by her father. (source: Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation) EGYPT: Egyptian regime that sentenced me to death now the toast of London----'I was forced to live in exile in the UK after being handed a death sentence by the military regime that Cameron is hosting in Britain' Prime Minister David Cameron's invitation to General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to visit Britain this week was a real shock to me. I was forced to live in exile in the UK after being handed a death sentence by the military regime that Cameron is hosting in Britain, the worl'ds oldest democracy that abolished the death penalty decades ago. On 16 June, the military-appointed highest Islamic authority in Egypt ratified a death sentence against me and more than 100 other defendants, including former president Mohamed Morsi, members of his administration and public figures. I had worked in Morsi's presidency as an aide in his liaison team with international media. Dubbed "the Grand Espionage" case, the ludicrous charges against me and other defendants include allegations of espionage with a range of foreign entities with seemingly conflicting interests, including Britain and the US, along with Hamas, Iran and Hezbollah. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International dismissed the trial as a charade, deeply flawed, politically motivated and lacking any evidence. The EU, US and UK have all condemned the verdicts. While I'm encouraged by the UK and other Western governments condemning the verdicts, I'm shocked by the fact that this appears to mean nothing in practice, as Downing Street rolls out the red carpet for Sisi and his henchmen. I received the news of my death sentence while I was studying for a graduate degree in Britain. However, in Egypt, many of my friends and former co-workers are facing the threat of being executed for crimes they have not committed. Most of them are held in solitary confinement, some have already worn the red uniform designated for those on death row and are subjected to forms of psychological and physical torture that no human should endure. At least 7 people have been executed since the 3 July military coup. The regime is likely to carry out more sentences at any moment. And the situation in Egypt is more likely to deteriorate if the Sisi regime is allowed to gain international credibility and acceptance. The human rights record of Egypt since the Sisi coup has become a thing of legends, even in comparison to the darkest and most oppressive regimes the world has ever witnessed. Official reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch make absolutely horrific reading and convey a state that has dispensed with any regard for humanity, let alone human rights. No other regime in the world has handed down more death sentences against its political opponents over such a short period of time as the Sisi regime has done since 3 July 2013. And this is a regime famous, too, for its targeting of female activists: 200 of them are currently behind bars, hundreds more have been subject to sexual harassment as a matter of state policy and dozens have been victims of extrajudicial killings, including many of my friends and co-workers. The British government has sent an extremely dangerous and unfortunate message to the people of Egypt: we value our economic interests way above any consideration for democracy, human rights and freedom. Britain remains the largest investor in Egypt, and maintains strong military ties with the Egyptian army. The chief of staff of the Egyptian army, General Mahmoud Hegazi, has been hosted in London and hailed by British military officials as a partner in counter-terrorism efforts. His leading role in the bloody dispersal of a peaceful sit-in on 14 August 2013 in the aftermath of the coup may amount to crimes against humanity. Embracing a military dictatorship does not serve British interests. History shows that repression fuels extremism. The so-called War on Terror that Sisi claims to be waging is all smoke and mirrors. You only have to read the report published by HRW which clearly highlights that it is the repressive policies of Sisi and his regime that are fanning the flames of terrorism. The UK government's acceptance of Sisi as a partner in the War on Terror is not only deeply flawed, it is counter-productive and extremely dangerous. Democracy is the perfect antidote to terrorism. This is why with oppressive dictators like Sisi in power and the support of Western states, terrorists will always have more and more stories to tell frustrated young Muslims in order to recruit them to their evil ideology. If we trace the timeline of the Islamic State (IS) group coming to prominence, we would find it inextricably linked to the coup in Egypt. Cameron has referred to Syria's Bashar al-Assad as "a recruitment sergeant for ISIS" and accused him of creating the recent immigration crisis. There is every reason to say the same about the Sisi regime in Egypt. The only difference is that Egypt has not collapsed. The world left Syria bleeding for four years until it was caught by surprise with a massive flow of refugees into Europe, fleeing death. How many years are we going to wait until millions of Egyptians flee an impending conflict to European beaches which lie so close to Egypt's shoreline? I can already hear the refrain, "Egypt is not Syria" and it reminds me of the words I heard on my way to Tahrir on 25 January 2011 that "Egypt is not Tunisia". It isn't, but the international community seems intent on not learning any lessons from the past. (source: Sondos Asem is a Master of Public Policy Candidate at the University of Oxford. She previously served as a foreign press coordinator at the Egyptian Presidency----Middle East Eye) ************************ Cameron must urge Sisi to end mass death sentences says Reprieve. David Cameron must use a visit by Egypt's President Sisi to urge an end to mass trials and death sentences for political prisoners, including an Irish teenager held since 2013, human rights organization Reprieve has said. President Sisi is expected to visit London later this week for talks with the Prime Minister. Since seizing power in July 2013, he has overseen the handing down of thousands of death sentences in mass trials of political protestors, journalists, and others. Among them is a teenager from Dublin, Ibrahim Halawa, who is assisted by Reprieve. Ibrahim - whose family are traveling from Dublin to London tomorrow to coincide with President Sisi's visit - was 17 when he was arrested during the military's breakup of protests in 2013. He faces the death penalty in a mass trial alongside 493 other people, and is being tried as an adult, despite having been a juvenile when he was arrested. Ibrahim has been tortured throughout his 2 and a half years of pre-trial detention, and has only been allowed to meet a lawyer once. His trial has been repeatedly postponed, amid chaotic hearings in which the many defendants have been unable to see or hear proceedings. Ibrahim has reported being beaten for complaining about the unfair trial conditions. The UK government has told Reprieve that Mr Sisi's visit will be "an opportunity to discuss at the highest level the values which are important to Britain, as well as our mutual interests in inclusive economic growth, democratic transition, a rules-based international system and security." Reprieve has written to the Prime Minister asking him to request that Sisi: release Ibrahim and other prisoners held on charges relating to protests; review the punitive mass death sentences handed down in the past 2 years; and commit to an end to political detentions, mass trials and torture in Egypt. Commenting, Maya Foa, head of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said: "President Sisi has presided over a brutal wave of repression, including death sentences handed down en masse in shocking trial conditions designed to punish political dissenters. Reports of torture, unacceptably long periods of pre-trial detention, and terrible obstacles to due process are rife - and the scores of victims include juveniles such as Ibrahim Halawa. If the UK is serious about encouraging Egypt to follow a 'rules-based system', David Cameron must use Sisi's visit this week to call strongly for an end to these abuses." (source: ekklesia.co.uk) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Nov 5 08:57:12 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2015 08:57:12 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., KY., TENN., ARK., NEV., CALIF., WASH., USA Message-ID: Nov. 5 GEORGIA----impending execution Clemency hearing set for Georgia death row inmate The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has set a clemency hearing for a death row inmate who's sentenced to die later this month. The clemency hearing for Marcus Ray Johnson is set for 9 a.m. on Nov. 18. Johnson is set for execution at 7 p.m. on Nov. 19. Johnson was convicted in April 1998 in the March 1994 rape and murder of Angela Sizemore. Prosecutors say Johnson met Sizemore at a club and the 2 were spotted kissing and drinking heavily and were seen leaving together. Sizemore's body was found the next day and prosecutors say eyewitnesses placed Johnson near where her body was found. Defense attorneys have argued there are inconsistencies in the evidence presented at Johnson's trial that raise doubts about his guilt. (source: Associated Press) KENTUCKY: Time to abolish Kentucky's death penalty Unjust. Unfair. Costly. Dehumanizing. These concerns reflect the reality of the administration of the death penalty. As such, they lead to the same inevitable conclusion: It is time to abolish capital punishment in Kentucky. It has been 4 years since an American Bar Association-sponsored assessment of the use of the death penalty in Kentucky resulted in a report that revealed serious problems related to fairness and accuracy. These included an error rate of more than 60 %, meaning a majority of death sentences were overturned on appeal; caseloads far exceeding the national average for public defenders handling capital cases; inadequate protections against death sentences for defendants with mental disabilities; and no uniform standards on eyewitness identifications. These and other findings of the review by a team of Kentucky attorneys, former judges and law school professors were so numerous and troubling that the report recommended suspending all executions until the issues were addressed. But that hasn't happened. In fact, there have been no significant changes in the death penalty law since the report was issued. That means the families of murder victims must continue to live with uncertainty and the hardships inherent in our criminal justice system. As an accompanying column by Ben Griffith points out, his brother's murder led to long decades of waiting for the system to work through appeals - forcing his family to relive the horror of their loss. "Is it any wonder that a 2012 study conducted on the well-being of homicide survivors found that those who lived in a state where the ultimate penalty was life without parole fared much better than those with the death penalty?" he writes. The absence of change in Kentucky's death penalty law also means the state continues to incur costs that exceed the resources that would be required if life without parole were the maximum penalty possible. Another article in this series by state Rep. David Floyd provides more detail. "It's counterintuitive, but taxpayers spend far more on our system of capital punishment than we would if the death penalty were not an option. Every study undertaken in the United States concludes that our death penalty system is far more costly than a system in which the maximum sentence is life without the possibility of parole." The additional costs accrue through expenditures by county jails and state prisons and the lengthy appeals process. "The vast majority of those who remain in prison under a death sentence just die in prison," Rep. Floyd writes. "We're spending huge sums of tax dollars on a system of death, but what we are getting is de facto life without parole." These realities of families' anguish and wasted public resources provide strong arguments for abolishing the death penalty - an action that 19 states and the District of Columbia have taken through the years. Nebraska is the most recent with its legislature voting for abolition in May 2015. Opposition to the death penalty also is a point of agreement among people with different, and often contradictory, political points of view on other matters. Marc Hyden of the national group Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty shares information in an accompanying column about the recent inaugural meeting of that organization in northern Kentucky. "For pro-life conservatives who subscribe to the notion that the government shouldn't wrongly execute Americans and innocent lives should be safeguarded, the death penalty has become an untenable program. ... Kentucky's own track record is tainted by mistakes. ... The death penalty in Kentucky and elsewhere poses an undeniable hazard to innocent life." Finally, on a personal note, my opposition to the death penalty developed as a result of my role in administering it 5 times. At the time, I was director of the Georgia Department of Corrections, overseeing the executions in the maximum security prison where I had previously served as warden. I oppose the death penalty for the reasons articulated by my fellow writers and because I believe it is illogical for the state to teach citizens not to kill by killing. I also am acutely aware of the heavy toll capital punishment exacts from the individuals who have to carry out the sanction. As I have written before, corrections officials are expected to commit the most premeditated murder imaginable. Unjust. Unfair. Costly. Dehumanizing. Kentucky must not wait any longer to join 19 other states and abolish the death penalty. (source: Allen Ault recently retired as Dean of the College of Justice & Safety at Eastern Kentucky University. During his career, he served as Director of Corrections for 5 governors in 3 states----The Courier-Journal) TENNESSEE: Poor audio recording causing problems in 2 death penalty cases in Carter County Unlike several other high-profile murder cases in the region in the past several years, 2 unrelated capital murder cases in Carter County appeared to be on schedule and on track, until the audio recordings of the preliminary hearings in Sessions Court were heard. Now, both cases could possibly be sent back to General Sessions Court for another round of preliminary hearings. The recordings of the preliminary hearings were of such poor quality that the court reporter was not able to make transcripts of the proceedings in the preliminary hearings for Anthony Joseph Lacy, accused in the murder of Danny Ray Vance on July 4, 2014, and for Eric James Azotea, accused in the murders of Arthur Gibson Jr. and Amber Terrell on Jan. 7, 2015. Both attorney Steve Finney, lead defense counsel for Azotea, and James Bowman, attorney for Lacy, filed motions calling for the cases to be sent back to Sessions Court for a repeat of the preliminary hearings. Both lawyers cited Rule 5.1 (a)(3) of the Tennessee Rules of Criminal Procedure, which reads in part: "Where the recording is no longer available or is substantially inaudible, the trial court shall order a new preliminary hearing upon motion of the defendant." Assistant District Attorney Dennis Brooks said the discs may be enhanced to amplify the voices and remove some of the background noise on the recordings. Judge Stacy Street took the request for new preliminary hearings under advisement, but ordered that the recordings for both of the defendants should be enhanced before making a final decision. There was 1 other recording made of the Lacy case, but it was made by Special Agent Brian Fraley of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. Fraley had placed his personal hand-held recorder on the rostrum and was able to capture the entire proceeding. During Wednesday's motion hearing, Assistant Public Defender Melanie Sellers said Fraley was encouraged to record the preliminary hearing because the Session Court's "recording system was so bad." Sessions Court Judge Keith Bowers was reached after court and said he was aware that Fraley was recording the hearing as a backup. Sellers also told the court that she had not been notified of the hearing on the court recordings. She said she just happened to be in the courtroom and found out about it by happenstance. Sellers is defending Demetrice Cordell, who is a codefendant with Lacy but is not facing the death penalty. "Nobody intended to keep you away from the party," Street told Sellers. He then added Sellers to the list of parties who are to receive enhanced copies of the Sessions Court recordings and Fraley's backup recording. Bowers said the county is addressing the recording problem in his court. He said the County Commission has designated funds to buy a superior recording system that is identical to the one already being used in Criminal Court. Bowers said the Commission also approved funding to improve the amplification of the testimony in both Sessions and Criminal Courts. Bowers said the purchase of the equipment for Sessions Court is awaiting a decision on whether the recording system must be bid out or whether the price offered to the state can be used to buy the equipment. Bowers said a determination must be made because Sessions Court is operated by the county, while Criminal Court is operated by the state. In the meantime, Bowers has purchased his court's own hand-held recorder as a backup and also purchased more and better microphones. Although he was not present at Wednesday's hearing, attorney Lanny Norris agreed that the Sessions Court's recording system must be improved. Not just an improvement in the sound quality, Norris said, but also in the indexing. Norris said he had requested a recording of a preliminary hearing for a client who is facing a DUI charge. Norris said each disc has multiple days of court proceedings on it without any indexing. He said it will take hours for him to sort through the disc until he finds the testimony of a Highway Patrolman. The only way to find the testimony was to have copies of the court dockets and catch the name when someone was called forward, then determine the day that name appeared on a docket. Norris said defendants "have a fundamental right to review previous testimony in their case." (source: Johnson City Press) ARKANSAS: Death Penalty Debate On University Of Arkansas Campus The Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Studies at the University of Arkansas School of Law is hosting a debate panel on the death penalty on Thursday, November 5, at 12:00 p.m The panel will include Ben Jones, a campaign strategist for Equal Justice USA and the former Executive Director of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty, as a death penalty opponent. Making the case for the death penalty will be Professor William Otis from the Georgetown University Law Center, a former special counsel to President George H.W. Bush. Professor Laurent Sacharoff of the University of Arkansas School of Law will serve as the moderator for the panel. "This issue is particularly relevant in Arkansas in light of a recent legal challenge that has placed 8 scheduled executions on hold, due to concerns over lethal injection drugs and secrecy surrounding them," said Traci Huesing, Federalist Society Chapter President. "It is a timely debate for both the public and policymakers in Arkansas." The debate will take at 12:00 P.M on Thursday, November 5, in Waterman Hall Room 240 at the University of Arkansas's Robert A. Leflar Law Center. The event is open to the public. (source: nwohomepage.com) NEVADA----new death sentence Jury: Death penalty for man guilty in Vegas Strip fireball A jury decided Wednesday that a 29-year-old self-styled pimp should be sentenced to death for killing 3 people by opening fire into a moving vehicle after a dispute at a hip-hop event at a posh Las Vegas Strip resort. Ammar Asim Faruq Harris was not in the courtroom when relatives and friends of the victims sobbed and shouted after the verdict was read Wednesday in Clark County District Court. The jury deliberated 2 hours after a 2-day penalty hearing that Harris chose not to attend. The same jury took less than 20 minutes Oct. 26 to find Harris guilty of 1st-degree murder, attempted murder and weapon charges in the February 2013 vehicle-to-vehicle shooting that sparked a fireball crash. Clark County District Court Judge Kathleen Delaney has set Jan. 4 as the date for a formal sentencing hearing. The death sentence will automatically be appealed to the state Supreme Court. It won't change Harris' housing, because he's already held at Ely State Prison, the state's most secure facility and home of death row. Harris is already housed at Ely State Prison - serving 16 years to life for raping and robbing an 18-year-old woman in Las Vegas in 2010, although the case is being appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court. He is serving an additional 5 years after pleading guilty this year to masterminding a scheme to smuggle items into prison. Harris didn't testify during his trial, which began with jury selection Oct. 12. A psychiatrist testified in his defense in the guilt phase, and a forensic psychologist was the only witness on his behalf in the penalty phase. The psychologist, Shera Bradley, told the jury on Tuesday that Harris grew up fatherless, that his mother didn't enroll him in school, and that he was neglected and sexually abused while living in poverty in the New York area. He was arrested at 17 with a stolen gun in a stolen car in South Carolina and sent to prison after violating probation. Prosecutor David Stanton undercut Bradley's conclusion that Harris might benefit from a controlled prison environment without access to drugs, alcohol or weapons. He presented records detailing Harris' disciplinary trouble in prison in South Carolina, and he pointedly noted that the Nevada smuggling scheme involved cellphones, chicken wings, alcohol and methamphetamine. Stanton also played for the jury a recording of a jail telephone call following his arrest in Los Angeles in which Harris apparently tries to get girlfriend Yenesis Alfonso to hire an armed assault team for $20,000 to spring him from custody when he was transferred to Las Vegas in March 2013. Police reported taking precautions at the time, but never reported an escape attempt. No one disputed during the weeklong trial that Harris was the shooter in the pre-dawn scene Feb. 21, 2013. Prosecutor Pamela Weckerly cast him as so ego-driven that a "sense of insult" exchanging angry words with a man in the valet area at the Aria resort was enough to spark the murderous rampage that left cars spun-out, crashed and burning at the busiest intersection in Las Vegas. Video recorded Harris' black Range Rover driving jockey for position with a Maserati in a tire-squealing chase between stoplights on neon-lit Las Vegas Boulevard, and the sound of gunshots from the SUV before the sports car accelerated through a red light and slammed into a taxi that ignited in flames in front of the Caesars Palace and Flamingo resorts. Aspiring rapper Kenneth Wayne Cherry Jr. was mortally wounded in the Maserati. A passenger, Freddy Walters, was wounded. Cab driver Michael Boldon and passenger Sandra Sutton-Wasmund of Maple Valley, Washington, perished in the flaming taxi. At least 5 other vehicles were damaged in chain-reaction crashes. Separate cameras caught the Range Rover speeding away in the night. Police found no gun in the wrecked Maserati, and no bullet holes in the Range Rover. But Harris' lawyers, Thomas Ericsson and Robert Langford, maintained the shooting was self-defense. The psychiatrist, Dr. Norton Roitman, testified that if Harris was under the influence of alcohol and the club drug ecstasy, he might have also been hyper-vigilant and prone to "fight-or-flight" responses after having been wounded in a shooting in Miami in December 2014. A firm link between Harris and Cherry was not made. But both projected online personas big on bravado and bragging about riches. Harris, who lived in Atlanta and Miami, posted pictures of a Bentley and an Aston Martin, and mug shots from prior arrests. He was shown in a video wearing a red baseball cap and crisp white shirt with flashy sunglasses tucked in the collar, fanning money and bragging that his house was full of women who paid him. He talked about having a $1,000 bikini contest during a birthday party he planned for himself aboard a boat on the Atlantic Ocean. Cherry, 27, who used name Kenny Clutch during a little-noticed music video career, bragged that he paid $120,000 for the Maserati and showed scenes of hotels along the Strip in one online post titled "Stay Schemin." "1 mistake change lives all in 1 night," he rapped. The shooting, crashes and fire happened about a block from a vehicle-to-vehicle shooting in September 1996 that left rapper Tupac Shakur dead in a luxury sedan. That shooting has never been solved. (source: Associated Press) CALIFORNIA: 'Western Bandit' Captured; Accused of Killing 2 and Wounding 6 in Alleged California Spree Los Angeles cops have arrested a man dubbed the "Western Bandit" who is accused of killing two people and robbing or assaulting 33 others in a nearly 4-year alleged crime spree. "He's been terrorizing the streets, putting the public at risk and we're glad that we ... have him in custody," Los Angeles Police Department media relations officer Arreon Jefferson tells PEOPLE. "That way, the citizens of LA can be at peace and rest assured that the community is safer." Police allege that from November 2011 to December 2014, Patrick Watkins, 51, rode up to his victims on his bicycle and either demanded cash or opened fire, according to a statement obtained by PEOPLE. In some cases, he would allegedly approach victims on foot and rob them or shoot them. 2 were killed and 6 were wounded, police say. Watkins is charged with the "special circumstance" murders of Nathan Vickers in 2011 and Larise Smith in 2014, which makes him eligible for the death penalty, police say. He faces a total of 53 charges, including murder and attempted murder along with assault, robbery and shooting, according to court documents obtained by PEOPLE. "We've been looking for this individual ever since the crime spree started in 2011," Jefferson says. Watkins was arrested on Thursday at his home. SWAT officers moved into the 2-story apartment complex and Watkins surrendered, the Los Angeles Times reports. Police said months would pass between the alleged attacks, causing police to question Watkins' whereabouts, the Times reports. But investigators eventually linked the 51-year-old to the alleged series of crimes using DNA evidence collected during a prior arrest as well as the ballistics of the handgun he allegedly used. Neighbors of Watkins described the 51-year-old as a generous man who played the bass and drums, and would often have jam sessions with the other tenants, the Times reports. However, at a press conference on Monday, Mayor Eric Garcetti said, "In some ways just calling him a bandit doesn't begin to capture the fear and the actions of this man who is a cold-blooded killer," per ABC. The case remains under investigation by the LAPD and prosecutors will decide later whether to seek the death penalty. It is unclear whether Watkins has entered a plea. (source: people.com) WASHINGTON: Prosecutor: Accused killer stomped Orting mom to death Charges against a man accused of killing an Orting mother have been upgraded to 1st degree murder after an autopsy found evidence to support the more severe charge. Jonathan Daniel Harris, 29, is accused of killing 28-year-old Nicole White sometime on or after June 6 and dumping her body in a ravine near Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Court documents say Harris killed White after they went on a date. The 2 were seen at the Jeepers Bar and Grill in Spanaway by witnesses. A woman who identified herself as the victim's sister says the two previously had several dates in the company of other people, but the last date was the 1st one White and Harris had by themselves. Harris was arrested after investigators used his cell phone records and an ignition interlock device on his truck that takes a picture. Investigators used a picture the device took when Harris blew into the device to track down the location where White's body was found 2 weeks after the 2 were last seen. Harris was originally charged with 2nd degree murder, but charges were amended Wednesday because an analysis by a forensic anthropologist determined White was brutally beaten to death, Pierce County prosecutor Mark Lindquist said. The forensic anthropologist determined White had severe facial, chest and arm fractures, and the injuries are consistent with being stomped. "What we read today -- he treated her like an insect," Amy Ancira, White's friend, said after Harris' arraignment Wednesday. In the hallway outside the courtroom, White's uncle called the news of the amended charge, "awesome." "He's ain't never getting out; we're finally going to get justice for her," said Tom Jones. "Things we found out today from the medical examiner just makes you sick. (Harris) is just a savage. He does not deserve to live." Jones said he hopes prosecutors will now seek the death penalty. "(But) if we don't get the death penalty, that's OK," Jones said. "He ain't never getting out to hurt somebody else." Harris remains jailed on $2 million bond. His next court appearance is scheduled for Dec. 10 with a jury trial scheduled to begin on April 21. (source: KOMO news) USA: Death penalty inherently lets government kill innocent Americans In my experience, drinking with a nun is not an ordinary occurrence, but, 2 weeks ago, I had the honor of sharing a bit of whiskey on the rocks with an extraordinary woman of fatih, Sister Helen Prejean, as she wound down from another evening of agitating against the death penalty. Sister Helen is widely known for her book "Dead Man Walking," an autobiographical account of her emotionally wrenching work as a spiritual advisor to death row inmates - a story that was made into a movie of the same name starring Susan Sarandon as the justice-seeking nun. As a leading advocate for the abolition of capital punishment in the United States, Prejean was in Los Angeles for the opening of "Windows on Death Row: Art from Inside and Outside the Prison Walls" at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. The works on display include paintings and drawings by death row inmates, as well as cartoons from top editorial cartoonists (including one I drew for The Times). In her remarks at the opening of the exhibit on Oct. 22, she gave a boost to a measure that is likely to be on the ballot next year that would ban the death penalty in California. If Californians choose to do away with executions, she said, it will be a big step toward elimination of capital punishment throughout the country, given that the 746 death row inmates held in California prisons comprise a quarter of all the people sentenced to death in the United States. A key part of Prejean's message is that, contrary to popular belief, the death penalty in America is not reserved only for "the worst of the worst." There is a wide disparity in how the ultimate punishment is applied. Rich murderers who can afford good lawyers rarely, if ever, end up on death row. In some jurisdictions, cops who do shoddy investigations, prosecutors interested only in notching up another victory, callous judges and inferior juries play a decisive role in who gets a death sentence. Those who do are generally poor, undereducated and disproportionately non-white. Most disturbing of all, a shocking number of them are wrongly accused, wrongly convicted and, sometimes, wrongly executed by the state. Joining Prejean onstage was Ndume Olatushani, a soft-spoken, middle-aged man whose lovely painting of African faces is the highlight of the exhibit. Olatushani did not start out as an artist, but he had 28 years to hone his skills with paint and brush - the 28 years he spent on Tennessee's death row waiting to be killed for a murder he did not commit. Prejean calls herself "the storyteller," but Olatushani, she said, is the real "witness" to the recklessness of a justice system that claims the right to say who should live and who should die. Thanks to the advent of DNA testing, the number of exonerations for the wrongly convicted for a variety of crimes, including murder, has skyrocketed. The Innocence Project has freed 325 people who ended up in prison because of eyewitness misidentification, poor forensics, false confessions or false testimony. That is just the tip of a very big and very cold iceberg, though. Informed estimates indicate many more thousands of innocent men and women languish in prison cells because DNA tests are not applicable in every case or because they lack a champion who will battle for them against indifferent government officials. Since 1973, 156 Americans who were condemned to die have been exonerated and freed. Since 1976, 1,419 have been executed. There is no reason to think that there were not at least a few, and more likely many, innocent people among those 1,419. As a Roman Catholic nun, Prejean's activism is fully in line with the church teaching that all lives are sacred and redeemable and that, therefore, no government has the right to put any person to death, regardless of their crime. Though I did not tell Sister Helen, I must confess I have had a hard time reaching that same belief in unlimited mercy. Some murderers are so monstrous that it is hard to feel their obliteration is not justified. If there truly were a guarantee that only the very worst of the worst would end up on death row, I might not object. But our justice system is not built that way. It is deeply, humanly flawed and there is no way to make it perfect. As conservative opponents of the death penalty like to say, why would anyone who thinks government screws up most things think it can get capital punishment right? There are many strong arguments, both liberal and conservative, against executions. The tipping point for me is the fact that innocent people do end up on death row and do end up dead at the hands of the state. Of all the evils in the world, that is among the worst. It should not ever happen in a nation that claims to be the champion of life and liberty. (source: David Horsey, Los Angeles Times) *********** Death Penalty Drugs Teach Us About Scientific Progress and the Free Market----For the pharmaceutical companies that could produce lethal drugs, the ethical and legal hurdles just aren't worth it. In October, confusion about lethal injection drugs bought Richard Glossip 37 more days to live. The accused murderer's execution was postponed on day-of, just hours after Oklahoma's Department of Corrections discovered it had received the wrong chemical. The mix-up was the latest complication in the long, tortured, intravenous trip of death penalty drugs. As pharmaceutical companies increasingly refuse to sell them, scarcity reigns despite demand. Dut drug suppliers are getting out of the death game. In 2011, the pharmaceutical company Hospira announced it was ceasing production of the drug sodium thiopental, a commonly used anesthetic used to knock out condemned inmates before administration of lethal drugs, after months of pressure from activists protesting the death penalty. Though the company was the country's only manufacturer of sodium thiopental, ending production was a wise PR move and didn???t hurt much, at least financially. Sales of the anesthetic only made up 0.25 % of Hospira's total drug revenue. Supply usually rises to meet demand, but, so far, enterprising drugmakers haven't swooped in to meet executione's needs, at least not in the U.S. Not that this is surprising: Doing so presents P.R. challenges and, as Hospir's president pointed out, invites lawsuits against both the facility and its employees. In some states, officials have attempted to buy sodium thiopental from overseas manufacturers only to be thwarted by the FDA, which refuses to approve the drugs. Others have had to make do with what was available. At the time sodium thiopental production ceased, there were 3,261 inmates on death row, leaving little time for death-bent officials to mix up new cocktails. In some cases, they were forced to break with the agreed-upon method of using multiple chemicals, using a single drug instead. Individual doses of pentobarbital - a derivative of a horse-euthanizing drug - have been used successfully, but its use is still being debated. Just today, the Supreme Court delayed the execution of Missouri convict Ernest Lee Johnson after his attorneys argued that pentobarbital caused enough to pain to count as a violation of the Eighth Amendment. The sedative midazolam has also been used as a substitute in lethal drug cocktails, but, like pentobarbital, it has the potential to cause needless suffering. It was blamed for the botched execution of Dennis McGuire in 2014, in which he remained alive for 15 minutes after it was administered with a second drug. Ditto Oklahoma's Clayton Lockett, who, after receiving the drug cocktail, convulsed for 45 minutes before he finally died. A group of Oklahoma inmates brought their concerns about midazolam to the Supreme Court this year, only to be overruled. While dissenting judges like Justice Sonia Sotomayor agreed that the drug was essentially "the chemical equivalent of being burned at the stake," its supporters, like Justice Samuel Alito, didn't think the inmates made a compelling enough case. But a sharp observation that Alito made during that hearing points at the bigger issue. The risk of additional pain, he said, was at least in part due to activists' success in convincing pharmaceutical companies to stop selling lethal injection drugs to executioners. He's not wrong. Most of the approved "ethical" drugs are no longer available, and nobody's making or finding any new ones. Still, pharmacists and scientists simply don't want to get involved. Glossip's execution has been rescheduled for this Friday, though the Oklahoma Department of Corrections hasn't been able to explain what led to the confusion between potassium chloride and a related but unapproved chemical known as potassium acetate. Whether the substitution was actually due to an shortage or to a genuine error ("I still don't know why we had potassium acetate," a DoC spokesperson told Time) remains to be seen. What is clear is that pharmaceutical companies aren't going to budge, forcing the frustrated states that still stand by the death penalty to rethink the lethal injection method altogether. Utah, for one, has brought back the firing squad, and Oklahoma has made asphyxiation with nitrogen gas its official back-up method. In light of the ongoing death penalty drug clusterfuck, 5 states have ushered in bills calling for a repeal of the policy, but 31 still stubbornly stand by tradition. Ultimately - and ironically - it's the ethics of death that make capital punishment so complicated. Taking a life, for better or worse, is the easy part. (source: Yasmin Tayag is a writer and former biologist living in New York City----inverse.com) ******************* This Is How Prosecutors (Still) Keep Black People Off Juries The exclusion of black people from juries is a hot topic this week, as the United States Supreme Court considers the case of Timothy Foster, a black man charged with murdering an elderly white woman in Georgia some 3 decades ago. Foster was convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury after prosecution lawyers used their so-called peremptory strikes to disqualify the blacks in the pool, citing "race-neutral" reasons. Up until this point in the case, the courts had accepted those alternative rationales. But the prosecutors' notes from jury selection, which were finally revealed thanks to a Public Records Act request, suggest a deliberate exclusion strategy. On the list of prospective jurors, the black names were circled, highlighted in green, and marked with a "B." They were also ranked, an investigator for the prosecution noted in an affidavit, in case "it comes down to having to pick one of the black jurors." Ouch. (Yesterday, Mother Jones reporter Stephanie Mencimer tracked down one of those rejected jurors, who recalled prosecutors the treating her "like I was a criminal.") "Isn't this as clear a Batson violation as this court is likely to see?" asked Justice Elena Kagan. "We have an arsenal of smoking guns," Foster's lawyer, the famed capital defender Stephen Bright, told the high court during Monday's oral arguments. Several justices seemed to agree. "Isn't this as clear a Batson violation as this court is likely to see?" asked Justice Elena Kagan. She was referring to the 1986 case of Batson vs. Kentucky, in which the Supreme Court explicitly prohibited the striking of jurors based on ethnicity. But the legal profession has long looked the other way as prosecutors come to court armed with what, in the Foster case, was described as a "laundry list" of alternative explanations for a juror's removal. Things like, "Oh, this juror is about the defendant's age," or "They grew up in the same part of the city." Among other things, Foster's lead prosecutor noted that several of the prospective black jurors he dismissed hadn't made sufficient eye contact when he questioned them. In any case, it's not hard to invent reasonable-sounding explanations for striking a juror, and therein lies the problem. Only when you run the numbers does the racist intent comes into sharp focus. "I knew I would vote for the death penalty because that's what that n----- deserved." For a little context, it's helpful to look at portions of Marc Bookman's recent essay about Kenneth Fults, another Georgia death row inmate. One of the jurors in that case, a white man, later made the following statement under oath: "That nigger got just what should have happened. Once he pled guilty, I knew I would vote for the death penalty because that's what that nigger deserved." The white lawyer assigned to defend Fults also used the N-word with abandon. But none of this was enough to convince skeptical courts to grant Fults a resentencing. In his essay, Bookman explains how the legal system is rigged against black defendants, and why, without an arsenal of smoking guns, arguing racial discrimination is usually a losing game: Consider one of the most famous examples, the 1987 Supreme Court case of McCleskey v. Kemp, in which lawyers for Warren McCleskey, a black man sentenced to death for killing a white police officer, presented statistics from more than 2,000 Georgia murder cases. The data demonstrated a clear bias against black defendants whose victims were white: When both killer and victim were black, only 1 % of the cases resulted in a death sentence. When the killer was black and the victim white, 22 % were sentenced to death - more than 7 times the rate for when the races were reversed. Prosecutors sought execution for black defendants in 70 % of murder cases with a white victim, but only 15 % with a black victim. It wasn't just jurors who were biased. Prosecutors sought the death penalty for black defendants in 70 % of murder cases when the victim was white, but only 15 % when the victim was black. The Supreme Court was less than impressed with all of this. Justice Lewis Powell, in a 5-4 majority opinion he would later call his greatest regret on the bench, wrote that McCleskey could not prove that "the decisionmakers in his case acted with discriminatory purpose." In short, evidence of systemic racial bias had no relevance in individual cases ... Georgia executed McCleskey in 1991, but the McCleskey rationale - which the New York Times labeled the "impossible burden" of proving that racial animus motivated any particular prosecutor, judge, or jury - has been used by dozens of courts to reject statistical claims of discrimination in capital cases, even though today's numbers are not much better. Bookman goes on to detail the sordid history of jury stacking: The phrase "legal lynching" first appeared in the New York Times during the infamous 1931 Scottsboro Boys trials, in which 9 black youths were charged with raping 2 white women in Alabama. Their lack of counsel, coupled with the explicit exclusion of black jurors, led the Supreme Court to intercede twice and reverse convictions. It's hard to read those opinions today without feeling a sense of horror. Within 2 weeks of the alleged crime, 8 of the 9 young men had been sentenced to death in three separate trials by the same jury. Although there was no shortage of black men in Scottsboro County who were legally eligible to serve on juries, there was no record of any of them ever serving on one. Perhaps most remarkably, none of the defendants had a lawyer appointed to represent him until the morning of trial. In 2013, more than 80 years after the arrests, the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles posthumously pardoned the three Scottsboro Boys whose convictions still stood. "Question them at length," said one Philly prosecutor, referring to people of color. "Mark something down that you can articulate at a later time." We have not come nearly as far from these outrages as you might think. People of color are still dramatically underrepresented (PDF) on juries and grand juries, even though excluding people based on race is illegal and undermines "public confidence in our system of justice," as the Supreme Court put it in 1986. Prospective black jurors are routinely dismissed at higher rates than whites. The law simply requires some rationale other than skin color. "Question them at length," a prominent Philadelphia prosecutor suggested to his proteges after the Supreme Court banned race as a reason for striking jurors. "Mark something down that you can articulate at a later time." For instance, a lawyer might say, "Well, the woman had a kid about the same age as the defendant, and I thought she'd be sympathetic to him." In 2005, a former prosecutor in Texas revealed that her superiors had instructed her that if she wanted to strike a black juror, she should falsely claim she'd seen the person sleeping. This was just a dressed-up version of the Dallas prosecution training manual from 1963, which directed assistant district attorneys to "not take Jews, Negroes, Dagos, Mexicans, or a member of any minority race on a jury, no matter how rich or how well educated." The 1969 edition of the manual, used into the 1980s, promoted a more subtle brand of stereotyping, noting that it was "not advisable to select potential jurors with multiple gold chains around their necks." But it hardly mattered: Overt, covert, or in between - the result was the same. A North Carolina court found that prosecutors were striking blacks at twice the rate of other jurors. The probability of that being a fluke, experts testified, was less than 1 in 10 trillion. Virtually every state with a death penalty has dealt with accusations that black jurors have been improperly kept off juries. During the 1992 death penalty trial of a defendant named George Williams, for example, a California prosecutor dismissed the first five black women in the jury box. "Sometimes you get a feel for a person," he explained, "that you just know that they can't impose it based upon the nature of the way that they say something." The judge went even further, noting that "black women are very reluctant to impose the death penalty; they find it very difficult." In 2013, the California Supreme Court ruled that these jury strikes were not race-based, and deemed the judge's statement "isolated." Williams remains on death row. After North Carolina passed its Racial Justice Act, a 2009 law that let inmates challenge death sentences based on racial bias, a state court determined that prosecutors were dismissing black jurors at twice the rate of other jurors. The probability of this being a race-neutral fluke, according to 2 professors from Michigan State University, was less than 1 in 10 trillion; even the state's expert agreed that the disparity was statistically significant. Based on these numbers, the court vacated the death sentences of 3 inmates and resentenced each to life without parole. 6 months later, the state legislature repealed the Racial Justice Act. Finally, in an earlier essay on the case of Andre Thomas, a death row inmate with a long and bizarre history of mental illness, Bookman described yet another ploy to keep black people off Texas juries: It's called the "shuffle." The pool of potential jurors, known as a venire, are seated in a room, and with no information other than what the jurors look like, either side can request that they be shuffled - reseated in a different order. After the 'shuffle" - which proceeded without any objection by the defense - there were no blacks in the first 5 rows. The order of the venire, it turns out, is crucial to the jury's final makeup. That's because each juror is questioned in turn, and if lawyers from either side want to exercise their right to disqualify someone, they have to do it then and there. If it looks like one side is striking a juror based on race - which is not allowed - the other side can mount a challenge. Hence the shuffle: At Andre's trial, there were initially 6 African Americans seated in the first 2 rows. After the shuffle - which proceeded without any objection by the defense - there were no blacks in the first 5 rows. Ultimately, 2 black jurors were questioned and dismissed. When all was said and done, the entire jury - not to mention the judge and all of the lawyers - was white. Smoking guns, people. Smoking guns. (source: Michael Mechanic, Mother Jones) ******************* Bill O'Reilly praised Singapore for hanging drug offenders On Tuesday night, Fox News's Bill O'Reilly revealed that he might be cool with hanging drug traffickers. Seriously. Here is the exchange, from a segment posted by Media Matters about the release of 6,000 federal drug offenders: Bill O'Reilly: I'll remind you, in Singapore they have no [drug] problem. Why? They hang them. They hang them. Jessica Tarlov: Okay, but we're obviously not suggesting that as the answer to - Bill O'Reilly: I don't know. I mean, look, Singapore at one time had the most pernicious opium problem you could possibly have, it destroyed their entire society. So they said, you know what, we're not going to have this anymore. And that's what they did. Bingo, no drug problem. It's the "I don't know" that really sets this apart. O'Reilly had a chance to clarify that he doesn't want the US to hang drug offenders. Instead, he seemed unsure - even supportive - of the idea. Beyond the civil rights implications of having the government execute nonviolent offenders, there's no evidence that a tougher approach to drugs would work in the US. Tough anti-drug policies have already failed Over the past several decades, the US has been fighting an international war on drugs with the explicit goal of going after drug manufacturers and traffickers to eliminate the world's supply of illegal drugs. The idea was that if you eliminate the supply, and bring up drug prices as a result, drugs will become inaccessible to would-be users and abusers. So the country imposed very stringent penalties for drug traffickers, which can sometimes add up to decades in prison. Yet in all that time, the price of illicit drugs has plummeted - with the exception of marijuana, which was never very expensive. That suggests stringent anti-drug efforts aren't working: If they worked at reducing the supply of drugs, we would expect to see an increase in drug prices - but we've actually seen the opposite. Moreover, the death penalty doesn't appear to reduce crime. A February 2015 review of the research by the Brennan Center for Justice found no evidence that the death penalty had an impact on crime in the 1990s and 2000s, and it concluded that the studies that suggested there was a deterrent effect were methodologically weak. And most criminologists said in a 2009 survey that the death penalty doesn't deter murder. So O'Reilly's comment is not just morally questionable; it's also not backed by the evidence we have on the death penalty and war on drugs. (source: vox.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Nov 5 08:58:00 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2015 08:58:00 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 5 INDIA: When India's 'Jack the Ripper' terrorised Mumbai Nearly 50 years after Raman Raghav terrorised Mumbai (then Bombay) by murdering 41 people, there's renewed interest in the serial killer - a film made for television in 1991 had its first public screening a fortnight ago and Raghav is also the subject of a feature film being made by indie director Anurag Kashyap. The BBC's Geeta Pandey travels to Mumbai to piece together the story of the man described as India's "Jack the Ripper". Raman Raghav went on a killing spree over 3 years in the 1960s, casting a spell of fear over the city. His victims were all poor people who either slept on the pavements or lived in ramshackle huts and temporary shanties in the northern suburbs of the city. They included men, women and children - even infants. They were attacked at night while they slept, and all of them died after their heads were smashed with "a hard and blunt instrument", writes Ramakant Kulkarni, the young police officer who took over as the head of the crime branch in 1968 and whose team eventually captured Raghav on 27 August 1968. Mr Kulkarni, who retired in 1990 as the head of Maharashtra police and died in 2005, wrote detailed accounts of the case in two books: "Footprints on the Sands of Crimes" and "Crimes, Criminals and Cops". "The murders were motiveless ... if any petty gain had been achieved in the process, the violence inflicted on the victims was totally disproportionate to any such gain," he wrote. As new murders were reported almost daily, rumours began circulating about "a mysterious assailant... gifted with supernatural powers" who could "assume the shape of a parrot or a cat" and the press dubbed him "India's Jack the Ripper", according to Lily Kulkarni, Mr Kulkarni's wife. More than 2,000 policemen patrolled the streets at the time, but the city was in the grip of panic, especially in the suburban areas, Mrs Kulkarni says. For all his murders, Raghav used an iron rod, shaped like the number 7 Parks and streets emptied out at dusk and in many areas, nervous residents carrying sticks patrolled the streets. There were several incidents in which beggars and homeless men were badly assaulted by panicky crowds. The murders took place in 2 lots - the 1st between 1965 and 1966 when 19 people were attacked. Raghav, who was found loitering in the area, was picked up then as well, but let off because police couldn't find any evidence against him. The 2nd round of killings took place in 1968, and on 27 August, a sub-inspector from Mr Kulkarni's team recognised him from photographs and descriptions given by those who had survived his attacks. Most of his victims lived in ramshackle huts which he could enter easily. "As the news of the arrest spread, a large crowd gathered outside my husband's office. People celebrated," Mrs Kulkarni remembers. There is little known about Raghav's childhood or early life. Reports from the time describe him as a Tamilian, who was tall and well-built, had little school education and was homeless. During interrogation, he proved to be "a tough nut" who refused to say anything for two days, but the police had a breakthrough on day 3. Mr Kulkarni's book describes how one of Raghav's interrogators casually asked him if there was something which he really wanted and "without a moment's thought", he said "murgi" - chicken. After he was fed a dish of chicken, he was asked if he wanted something else. He asked for more chicken. Next, he said he would "like to have a prostitute, but I guess the law does not permit that while one is in custody" - so he settled for hair oil, a comb and a mirror instead. "He massaged his whole body with the coconut oil, appreciating its fragrance, combed his hair and looked admiringly at his own face in the mirror." Then, he asked the police what they wanted from him. "We want to know about the murders," one officer said. "Well I shall tell you all about them," he said, and led the policemen to the bushes in Aarey Colony where he had hidden his tools - an iron crowbar, knives and other weapons. During his confession before the magistrate, Raghav admitted to killing 41 people, though police say they believe the numbers to be higher. In his confession, he said he had done it voluntarily and that he had been instructed by "God" to do so. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Other Indian serial killers 'Auto' Shankar: Convicted of killing 6 people in the late 1980s in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. His real name was Gowri Shankar, but he was called Auto Shankar because he drove an autorickshaw. He and his group were found guilty of transporting illicit liquor, abducting women and running a prostitution racket, besides brutal murders. He was hanged in 1995. 'Cyanide' Mohan: Convicted in the southern state of Karnataka of killing 20 women. Born in 1963, Mohan Kumar preyed on women looking to get married - he would give them cyanide pills claiming they were contraceptives and rob them of their jewellery. He was arrested in 2009 and given the death sentence in December 2013. Surinder Koli: Worked as the servant for businessman Moninder Singh Pandher in Nithari village in the Delhi suburb of Noida. The servant and the master were accused of killing, raping and dismembering at least 19 young women and children. Koli was accused even of cannibalism. The deaths were discovered in December 2006 after body parts and children's clothing were found blocking the sewer running in front of the house. While Mr Pandher was later freed on bail for lack of evidence, Koli has been found guilty of 5 murders. He is on death row. The Stoneman: Nine people were killed in Mumbai in 1989 and each victim was found with their head bludgeoned by a stone or a heavy blunt object. The case remains one of the most famous unsolved murders in India as the killer was never caught. The Beerman: 6 people were killed in Mumbai between October 2006 and January 2007 and in each case, a bottle of beer was found beside the body. Police arrested Ravindra Kantrole and accused him of being the Beerman, but he was freed due to lack of evidence. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- During his trial, Raghav's lawyers pleaded insanity - they said he did not know that killing people "was wrong or contrary to law". But the "police surgeon" certified him as "neither suffering from psychosis nor mentally retarded", and the court gave him the death penalty. In his order, Judge CT Dighe described him as a "psychopath, extremely wicked man with depraved or brutal mentality" and said his crimes were "unparalleled and unsurpassed in brutality". Media reports at the time said a large crowd outside the court greeted Raghav with "shouts, whistles and jeers" - and he "replied with equal energy". Despite the ruthlessness of his crimes, and the fact that Raghav did not appeal, he escaped the gallows. The high court, which had to confirm his death sentence, ordered a re-evaluation of his sanity and put his sentence on hold after a panel of 3 psychiatrists said he was schizophrenic and suffered from delusions and hence was "incurably mentally ill". "We got lots of calls from the public, mostly women, asking my husband why he was not being hanged," Mrs Kulkarni said. Raghav was lodged in Yerwada jail in the city of Pune. In 1987, after he had spent 18 years in solitary confinement, the high court commuted his death sentence to life in jail, and he died from a kidney ailment the same year. Today, nearly 50 years later, not many in Mumbai know about Raman Raghav. Perhaps the 2 films will help revive the interest in the psychopath who once terrorised the city. (source: BBC news) PAKISTAN----execution Double murder convict hanged in Bahawalpur A double murder convict was executed in the New Central Jail Bahawalpur early Wednesday morning. Irshad had shot dead 2 people in 1999. Irshad's dead body was handed over to his heirs after the execution. Nearly 300 death row prisoners have been hanged so far since the government lifted a 6-year moratorium on death penalty on December 17, 2014. (source: Pakistan Today) IRAN----executions 3 Prisoners Hanged in Northern Iran On the morning of Wednesday October 4, 2 prisoners were reportedly hanged to death at Rajai Shahr Prison on murder charges. On the same day another prisoner charged with murder was reportedly hanged at Tabriz Central Prison. On Sunday the 2 prisoners from Rajai Shahr Prison had been transferred to solitary confinement along with 5 other prisoners in preparation for their executions. According to close sources, the 5 other prisoners were returned to their prison cells after the plaintiffs on their case files allowed for the execution orders to be postponded. According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, Biyuk Mohebbi, the prisoner from Tabriz Central, had been detained in prison for 13 years before he was executed. Iranian official sources have not reported or commented on these 3 executions ************** Girl on Death Row Since Age 12 Saved from Execution Somayeh was 12 years old when she was arrested by Iranian authorities for allegedly participating in the murder of her father. She along with her mother, Tahereh, were transferred to prison and sentenced to death. Now, after 7 years of enduring prison, Somayeh is no longer living in the shadow of death. According to reports, the teenager was saved from execution and released from prison after Article 91 of the revised Islamic Penal Code was implemented on her case. The news was announced by Iran state run media outlet, Farheekhtegan. According to the report, Somayeh's mother is still imprisoned and on death row. The report also claims that Somayeh said in one of her court hearings: "I was only 12 years old and was under the influence of my mother." Somayeh was reportedly sentenced to death twice by Branch 74 of Tehran's Criminal Court, the 2nd time her sentence was confirmed by Iran's Supreme Court. Article 91 states: "In the cases of offenses punishable by hadd or qisas, if mature people under 18 years do not realize the nature of the crime committed or its prohibition, or of there is uncertainty about their full mental development, according to their age, they shall be sentenced to the punishments prescribed in this chapter." (source for both: Iran Human Rights) ************ Call to save 7 Sunni political prisoners on verge of execution The Iranian Resistance urges immediate action by the UN Secretary-General, the Security Council, the Human Rights Council, relevant UN Rapporteurs, and all human rights agencies throughout the world to save the lives of seven Sunni political prisoners on the verge of execution. The Iranian Resistance also calls on religious leaders and scholars worldwide, as well as Muslim clerics, Sunni or Shia, to join the campaign against these criminal executions. 6 of these prisoners, Messrs. Kaveh Vaissi, Pouria Mohammadi, Taleb Maleki, Mohammad Yavar Rahimi, Kaveh Sharifi and Bahman Rahimi were transferred on November 1 to Ward 4 of Gohardasht (Rajai Shahr) Prison in Karaj that is controlled by the Revolutionary Guards. All of these prisoners have been sentenced to death on the mullah-fabricated charge of "propaganda against the system, corruption of earth, and Moharebeh (enmity against God)." There is no news on the condition of Mr. Haidar Rashidi, another Sunni prisoner that was transferred to Ward 4 of Gohardasht along with the other six, and there is also concern for his life. Similarly, on March 4, 2015, 6 other Sunni political prisoners Messrs. Hamed Ahmadi, Jahangir and Jamshid Dehghani (2 28 and 29 year old brothers), Kamal Molai, Sediq Mohammadi, and Hadi Hosseini, 31, were hanged while they were on hunger strike and injured because of their battering by the Revolutionary Guards. The Iranian regime, especially following its 1 step involuntary retreat in its nuclear weapons project, is facing increasing domestic and international crises. In order to prevent a widespread popular uprising and an explosion of ire of a fed up population, it has found its only resort in further suppression and massacre of defenseless prisoners, atrocities that more than ever betray the myth of moderation of this oppressive regime. (source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran) GLOBAL: UN: 28 % increase in the number of people condemned to death----In 2014 the number of people sentenced with the death penalty increased by 28 %. According to the UN the penalties were imposed for terrorism and drug charges. In 2014, there had unfortunately been a 28 % increase in the number of people condemned to death, according to data presented by the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic. The increase in death sentences, "represents an overall increase in Member States resorting to death penalty to prevent terrorism or drug related offences," the UN official explained. Simonovic spoke at a press conference in the UN Headquarters in New York, and said that according to the book, Moving Away from the Death Penalty: Arguments, Trends and Perspectives, in 1975, about 97 % of countries were executing criminals, but in 2015, only 27 % of countries resorted to the death penalty. However, the UN official warned that even though there is a drop in the number of documented executions, there is a possibility of several executions being conducted which are not registered or reported accurately. The UN official stressed that while it is instinctive for some people to stand against death penalty, there is a large group of people who need arguments that can convince them that the practice must end. Simonovic said that one of the biggest drawbacks of death penalties is the "wrongful conviction" of suspects. He added that advancement in the field of investigation, such as DNA testing, has shown evidence that wrongful convictions do happen "as there is no perfect justice system." He said that the biggest challenge of death penalty is its finality; as there is no way of rectifying the verdict even after the person is found innocent after execution. Moreover, Simonovic said that according to several studies, there is no convincing evidence of any deterring effect death penalty has on crimes committed. "However, there is conclusive evidence that there is a correlation between death penalty and discrimination and unequal treatment against vulnerable groups," he added. The UN official also said that in most cases, people who end up getting executed are poor, belong to vulnerable groups or socially disadvantaged minority groups or have mental disabilities. Further, he addressed the issue of certain Member States that still sentence people to death for apostasy or homosexuality and questioned the legitimacy of such verdicts. At the same time, Simonovic said that his Office will hold a joint meeting with the Ministers of Justice of the African Union on 12 November, about "moving away from death penalty." He said that out of 54 African Union (AU) countries, 18 have abolished death penalty and nearly 19 are de facto not executing, totalling 2/3 of the AU choosing to end death penalty as a verdict. The UN official expressed hope that the rest of the continent could learn from these countries and put an end to death penalty in judicial systems. (source: neurope.eu) ********** There is no evidence of the deterring effects of the death penalty, Simonovic At a press briefing at the UN the Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights told reporters "there is no convincing evidence of the deterring effects of the death penalty". Ivan Simonovic said some improvements on the issue of the death penalty had been registered globally. "In 2014 there was the same number of executing states as in 2013. However, there was a drop of 22 percent of registered executions," the UN Human Rights official said. However, he also noted a 28 % increase of people condemned to the death penalty, which "reflects an overall increase of member states that are trying to use death penalty to prevent terrorism or drugs-related offences." Simonovic told reporters of the lack of "convincing evidence of the deterring effects of the death penalty. There were many researchers conducted and there is no conclusive evidence. However, there is conclusive evidence that there is a correlation between death penalty and discrimination and unequal treatment against vulnerable groups." Among these groups, Simonovic said there were those who are "socially disadvantaged such as migrant groups, or quite often, in contrary to international law, people with mental disabilities." When asked whether he would like to see the institution of a moratorium on the death penalty, Simonovic said "I would definitely love it even one year moratorium would help. Especially because experience of different member states who introduced moratorium was that there was no increase in violent crimes, in murders or other crimes." (source: cihan.com.tr) PHILIPPINES: House panel OKs bill seeking death for foreign drug traffickers The House of Representatives' committee on dangerous drugs has approved and endorsed the passage of a measure that seeks stiffer penalties, including death, for foreigners convicted of drug offenses. House Bill 1213 "allows the imposition of the death penalty if prescribed under the national laws of the alien offender," the bill's authors, Cagayan de Oro Representative Rufus Rodriguez and his brother, Maximo, representative of Abante Mindanao party-list, said. "This means that the imposition of the penalty for drug offenses as prescribed under the national law of the foreign national or the penalty under Republic Act 9165, whichever is higher, is the rule to follow," they said. The Cagayan de Oro lawmaker originally introduced the bill during the 15th Congress, where "it was approved on 2nd and 3rd reading by the House of Representatives ... but, unfortunately, was not acted upon by the Senate." While acknowledging that the death penalty had been abolished in June 2006, the Rodriguez brothers said "there are some sectors of society who believe that this law is not just and equitable because while foreigners may not be executed in the Philippines for drug trafficking, Filipinos who commit the same are executed in other countries." They added that the abolition of capital punishment has emboldened foreigners to establish drug factories in the country. They cited China, a number of whose citizens have been arrested and jailed for drug trafficking or manufacturing, but which has executed several Filipinos caught transporting drugs. "While there is no reason to question the laws of foreign countries, we must however, ensure that our countrymen do not suffer the short end of the stick," the Rodriguez brothers stressed. (source: Philippine News Agency) INDONESIA: BNN Chief Budi Waseso wants drug traffickers to eat their drugs as punishment As if the death penalty isn't excessive enough, the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) Chief Budi Waseso wants to introduce his own brand of demeaning punishment for convicted drug traffickers. Speaking during a drug incineration event at the BNN headquarters in East Jakarta yesterday, Budi said he thinks there's a better way to get rid of the drugs the BNN confiscates than using an incinerator. "It's better if they (the traffickers) get rid of [the drugs]. They can eat [the drugs] so they'll regret [their actions]. Their actions destroy the young generation," Budi said, as quoted by Warta Kota. "So if [a trafficker] is caught with tens of kilograms [of drugs], make him eat all of it. There'll be no need for the death penalty because he will certainly die from consuming all of his drugs." We can't really tell if Budi is speaking figuratively or if he is actually that psychotic when it comes to drug dealers. At least we can take comfort in the fact that a BNN chief doesn't actually have the power to create laws and punishments for drug convicts. (soure: Coconuts news) SINGAPORE: Sarawakian on death row in Singapore gets stay of execution A Sarawakian, who was to be executed in Singapore for murder on Friday, has been granted a stay of the execution. Kho Jabing, 31, was granted the stay to allow the Court of Appeal to hear a case brought by his lawyer, according to anti-death penalty advocacy group, We Believe in Second Chances, in a Facebook post. Jabing was convicted of killing a Chinese construction worker in 2008 with a tree branch while robbing him and was sentenced to death in 2010. In August 2013, following revisions to Singapore's mandatory death penalty laws, the High Court gave him a life term instead. Last year, the prosecution challenged the decision before the Court of Appeal which sentenced Jabing to the death penalty. In October, Jabing's appeal for clemency was turned down by the Singapore President on the advice of the Cabinet. It is learnt that Jabing's lawyers on Wednesday filed a criminal motion at the Court of Appeal to request a remittance of his case. (source: The Star) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Nov 5 13:30:15 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2015 13:30:15 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CONN. Message-ID: Nov. 5 CONNECTICUT: Public Defender, Prosecutors Continue to Spar Over Conn. Death Penalty Rulings A Connecticut public defender who represents 2 former death row inmates is unhappy with continued efforts by prosecutors to persuade the state Supreme Court to reconsider a recent decision to abolish the death penalty in Connecticut. The matter was seemingly settled by the Aug. 25 decision in State v. Santiago, when the Supreme Court ruled that the legislature's 2012 decision to abolish the death penalty only for future capital cases, but not for death row inmates, was unconstitutional. But to the surprise of many in the appellate and defense bars, the court shortly afterward agreed to review new arguments in another death penalty case, State v. Peeler. The Chief State's Attorney's Office and Public Defender Mark Rademacher now have Nov. 6 deadlines to file 35-page briefs in the Peeler case. Rademacher, who represents both Eduardo Santiago and Russell Peeler, said in an interview: "Everyone thinks the Santiago decision in August was the end of it, but it feels like there's a new round of briefs to write every week, responding to the state's motions." The 35-page Peeler brief is the most recent of five briefs Rademacher has had to write in the wake of Santiago. The state had previously filed motions asking that there be a stay of implementation of the Santiago ruling; the Supreme Court on Oct. 30 rejected that request. "The state's attorneys simply refuse to accept the fact that they've lost," Rademacher said. He called the idea of staying the Santiago ruling until Peeler is decided "desperate" and "an example of judge-shopping at its very worst." The judge-shopping accusation refers to the fact that the Santiago decision was rendered by a court that included Justice Flemming Norcott Jr., who left the court after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70 in October 2013. But under court rules, Norcott, a consistent opponent of the death penalty during his 22 years on the court, was allowed to finish work on the Santiago case, which was argued in April 2013. In December 2013, Norcott was replaced by Justice Richard Robinson. In his 15 years as a Superior Court and Appellate Court judge and Supreme Court justice, Robinson has not written opinions on the death penalty, but he often sides with traditionally conservative Justice Peter Zarella on criminal decisions, court watchers say. The more conservative Robinson heard the oral arguments in the Peeler case in July 2014 and presumably was the deciding vote on whether to accept re-argument of the case. Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane countered Rademacher's accusations, saying that the state has simply been seeking a chance to argue questions that were not certified in Santiago, but were central to the majority decision in that landmark case. "It's simply a matter of fairness," Kane said. "We were not panel shopping. In fact, we submitted our motions to both the Santiago panel and the Peeler panel, and would have been equally happy to have the opportunity to argue to either one." The state says it particularly wants to argue more about Connecticut's fairness in imposing the death penalty, and whether race has been a factor in capital cases. A long-running Superior Court case ultimately found the state was not unconstitutionally discriminatory; that case, In re Racial Disparity, is now on appeal to the Supreme Court. Both Norcott and Robinson are African American. Members of the appellate and defense bars have called the attempts to overturn the Santiago ruling just months after his release "flabbergasting," "troubling," "amazing," and "unheard of," among other things. Jay Ruane, a Shelton lawyer who heads the Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, commented: "It is flabbergasting to me, as a lawyer, to see what has happened with the Santiago decision and with the Peeler decision, and with the change in the composition of the [Supreme Court] panel, and what might happen." He said the twists and turns in the matter are "unprecedented," particularly in light of in the stakes involved. "We're talking about men's lives," Ruane said. "While acknowledging that the crimes they committed were serious, it's amazing to me that in this day and age we could have a situation where, after a case is decided and you're off death row, another case is decided and you're back on." Social Science Data The sequence of events involving the death penalty decisions can be hard to follow. But this is the essence of what's going on: In Santiago, a 4-3 majority held that capital punishment was cruel and unusual under Connecticut's Constitution because it did not comply with the state's evolved standards of decency, and served no legitimate penological purpose, such as deterrence or retribution. The decision affected only the 11 men on death row. They include some of the state's most widely detested people: the 2 perpetrators of the Cheshire home invasion murders and Russell Peeler, who ordered the execution of potential witnesses against him - an 8-year-old Bridgeport boy and his mother. The original Santiago opinions - majority, concurring and dissenting - are a weighty 250 pages. The majority was written by Justice Richard Palmer, joined by Norcott, Andrew McDonald and Dennis Eveleigh. Chief Justice Chase Rogers dissented, joined by Zarella and Carmen Espinosa. Rogers focused her ire on the concurring opinion by Norcott and McDonald. They wrote a summary of Connecticut's history of having the state impose death disproportionately upon members of minority groups and the economically and educationally disadvantaged. Rogers contended that Norcott and McDonald unfairly "cherry picked" the social science data. Encouraged by Rogers and the minority, appellate lawyers in the Chief State's Attorney's Office have been taking unprecedented steps to keep the death penalty alive for those on death row. In early September, senior state's attorneys Harry Weller and Marjorie Dauster moved quickly for permission to re-argue Santiago, and to brief additional issues. In an apparently unprecedented move, they also asked the court to erase portions of the majority opinion; those dealing with the historic racial disparity in imposing death sentences in Connecticut. They also asked the court to completely strike the concurring opinion of Justices Norcott and McDonald. And, in another death penalty case in which oral arguments have already been held, State v. Peeler, the state asked to file supplemental briefs to argue those issues it had not briefed in Santiago. On Oct. 7, the Santiago panel denied three of the state's motions, with Rogers posting her emphatic dissent on the court website. But it did grant the state permission to brief and reargue Santiago issues in the Peeler case. Still, the prosecutors wanted to keep Santiago from becoming final in order to, according to their briefs, "mitigate any risk that this court will see itself compelled to adhere to bad precedent." Twenty days after reargument is denied, a Supreme Court judgment is final. That deadline was Oct. 27. To beat that deadline, the state filed motions on Oct. 19 and 21 for an indefinite "stay of execution of entry of judgment" of Santiago, pending the future decision of Peeler. In response, Rademacher argued that to reinstate Santiago's death penalty would constitute double jeopardy. Nothing in Connecticut's Practice Book allows the high court to do anything but order Santiago's death penalty sentence reduced to life without release, Rademacher wrote in a brief opposing any stay. On the afternoon of Oct. 30, after having extended the deadline three days, the court refused any stay to the implementation of Santiago. 6 of the 7 justices agreed on the ruling, including Chief Justice Rogers and Peter Zarella, both of whom had originally dissented in the original decision to abolish the death penalty. Palmer explained in detail why the court was dismissing the state's motion for a stay. A stay of a judgment may be proper in some cases, Palmer wrote, but not one like this, in which a losing party hopes that the outcome of a different appeal, filed later by a different party and decided by a different panel of justices, "may be more to its liking." Palmer questioned how the state could argue it was not on notice about the central issues of the Santiago case. 6 pages of state briefs argued that Connecticut's standards of decency have not evolved to the point that the death penalty has been rejected. Another 6 pages, Palmer wrote, argued that death was not cruel and unusual under the state Constitution. The state has also argued that the death penalty continues to satisfy the legitimate penological objectives of deterrence and retribution, and not just revenge. In her Oct. 30 concurrence, Rogers explained why she initially voted for reargument of Santiago but then refused the state's extraordinary request to stay a settled decision to make way for a subsequent decision in a separate case. She wrote that she had never heard of the Supreme Court doing this before. The judgment in Santiago is now final under the rules and procedures of the court, Rogers wrote, and not following them would "undermine the public faith in the integrity of this court, which is ultimately the sole basis of its authority." In a final footnote, Rogers added that she would express no opinion whether the Santiago ruling would be binding on the long-pending Peeler decision. That issue, Rogers wrote, "must be decided, not in the present case, but in Peeler." 'Unpalatable Alternatives' Meanwhile, members of the appellate and defense bar has tried, sometimes in vain, to keep up with all the death penalty case decisions. However, they were even more troubled by the bigger-picture issue of the state Supreme Court seemingly flip-flopping on an issue of such importance. Ruane, the CCDLA president, said it is unseemly for a one-judge change in the Supreme Court makeup to potentially overturn a decision as momentous as Santiago. Daniel Klau, an appellate lawyer at McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, said the rule allowing retiring justices to finish any case they have started on was having far-reaching effects. He found it "troubling" that a major Supreme Court case could still be pivotally influenced by a justice who had left the high court bench nearly 2 years before. The chairman of the appellate litigation section at Halloran & Sage, Daniel Krisch, said the court was "between a rock and a hard place," as it sorts out its duties to allow full and fair argument of the issues in the interest of arriving at the correct decision, and to uphold the doctrine of stare decisis, which only disturbs a decision for extraordinary reasons and when it is clearly wrong. "The court has relatively unpalatable alternatives," said Krisch. It can stick with what it decided in Santiago and apply that ruling in Peeler, he said, and "I assume that's what the Santiago majority would like to do. It would serve the interest of stare decisis." On the other hand, said Krisch, "if they reverse Santiago in Peeler, they would reach the result that the dissenters in Santiago think is the correct result, but it could have a negative effect on the court's moral authority.... The prospect of the court deciding such an important issue one way, and then changing its mind in very short order, is something I think could damage the court's standing," Krisch said. (source: Connecticut Law Tribune) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Nov 5 13:31:08 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2015 13:31:08 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 5 BAHAMAS: Death Penalty To Be Sought For Killers Of US Sailor 3 men could be sentenced to death if a Supreme Court judge grants a request for the imposition of that penalty for the May 2013 murder of Kyle Bruner, an American sailor who was shot just feet away from the Paradise Island Bridge in Nassau. After the jury concluded its 7-hour deliberations and returned unanimous guilty verdicts for Craig Johnson, 22, Anton Bastian, 21, and 23-year-old Marcellus Williams on Tuesday evening, trial prosecutor Ambrose Armbrister informed Justice Indra Charles of the Crown???s intent to seek the death penalty. The 2011 amendment to the Penal Code notes that only certain types of aggravated murder are currently punishable by death; murder of a law enforcement officer such as a police officer or a prison guard; murder of a judicial officer, including judges, registrars and prosecutors; murder of a witness or juror; murder of more than one person; murder committed by a defendant who has a prior murder conviction; and murder in exchange for value. The only 2 possible sentences are either death or life without parole. Any other type of murder carries a term of imprisonment of 30 to 60 years. The amendment further provides that any murder committed in the course of/or in furtherance of a robbery, rape, kidnapping, terrorist act, or any other felony is punishable by death, with no explicit requirement of an intent to cause death. A felony is defined as any offence which is punishable by at least 3 years' imprisonment. On Tuesday evening, Johnson, Bastian and Williams were further convicted with 30-year-old Jamaal Dorfevil on 2 counts of armed robbery as they were alleged to have accosted 2 women while armed with a firearm, robbing 1 of $150 cash and her $3,000 handbag and the other of cash, a handbag and an iPhone. A 5th accused, 21-year-old Leo Bethel, had all charges discontinued against him by way of a nolle prosequi within moments of Justice Charles concluding her summation of the evidence. Sentencing for Johnson, Bastian, Williams and Dorfevil has been adjourned to January 27, 2016. All 4 convicts had denied having any involvement in the armed robbery and/or killing of Bruner who was shot in the neck as he tried to help 2 women who were being mugged by 2 armed men during the incident on a Sunday morning. They testified that they were at home on the early morning in question and had been lied on and assaulted by the police, who produced video-taped interviews of Johnson, Williams and Dorfevil taking police through the crime scene. "The jury heard evidence from Sean William Cannon, a first mate aboard the Liberty Chipper sailboat, who witnessed the shooting and later identified Johnson during an identification parade. The Crown also submitted the police statement of another witness, Delano Smith. Justice Charles had allowed prosecutor Armbrister's application for an investigator to read the unavailable witness's statement into the record as an amendment to the Evidence Act in 2012 gave judges the discretion to allow the statements of witnesses who are dead, cannot be found, or are too sick to testify into evidence. Mr Smith told police that around 11pm on May 11, 2013, he and a friend Stephen Lewis went to a party on Harold Road before going to Double D's on East Bay Street for food around 2am. He reportedly left his friend at the bar while he played in a poker game for about 45 minutes. Mr Smith said a man known to him as "Rolly" asked him for some money and he gave him $7 before the latter walked out of the restaurant. He and his friend, Lewis, walked out of the restaurant shortly afterwards and saw "Rolly" standing next to a car across the street. Mr Smith claimed to have recognised the individual in the driver's seat whom he called "Leo", but could not make out the individuals in the back seat. "Rolly" then came over to him and said that someone would have to get robbed because "he was broke". His friend, Stephen, went to check on the food they had ordered while he went around the corner to relieve himself. At this time, he saw "Rolly" get into the car and "Leo" drove off. Mr Smith said on his way back to the restaurant, he heard a loud noise that sounded like gunshots and when he turned the bend, he saw "Rolly" attempting to snatch the bag of a white female and another slim, dark male approach another white female. Mr Smith said "another white man" approached the "slim male" and pushed him. He said the "slim male" pulled out a gun and shot the man before taking off. Mr Smith said after observing the 2 females and another white male standing over the body of the injured man, he went into the bar and told his friend they were leaving. Bethel, Johnson, Bastian, Dorfevil and Williams were defended by attorneys Ian Cargill, Nathan Smith, Roberto Reckley, Sonia Timothy and Walton Bain. (source: Bahamas Tribune) IRAQ: UN Rights Committee Urges Iraq To Reduce Use Of Death Penalty The UN Human Rights Committee has urged Iraq to reduce its use of the death penalty and crack down on widespread abuses, including torture and rape in detention. The committee on November 5 reported on "the great number of cases in which the death penalty is imposed and the frequency of its application" in Iraq. It said Iraq allegedly is handing down death sentences based on confessions obtained through torture. Committee member Yuval Shany says Iraq has executed about 240 people since late 2013 and about 1,700 prisoners remain on death row. He said the UN committee, which oversees global rules on civil and political rights, had not received any estimates of how many executions have been carried out by Islamic State militants in Iraq. The committee is urging Iraq to abolish the death penalty or at least ensure that executions are only for the most serious crimes. (source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Nov 6 10:37:07 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2015 10:37:07 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., FLA., OHIO, NEB., ARIZ., US MIL., USA Message-ID: Nov. 6 NORTH CAROLINA: Gregory brought from NY to face Raleigh murder, rape, kidnap charges Kendrick Keyanti Gregory made his 1st appearance in a Wake County courtroom Thursday, where District Court Judge Jacqueline Brewer told him he could be put to death if he is convicted of the 1st-degree murder of a Capital Boulevard pawn shop owner this summer. Gregory, 21, was brought from New York City back to Raleigh this week to face charges he shot Thomas Durand at his store in Mini City during a daylong string of violent crimes on Aug. 31. That same day, police say, Gregory also raped a 15-year-old girl on a North Raleigh street as well as shot Lenin Alvaringa and stole $780 from him outside a New Bern Avenue hotel. Police also accused Gregory of taking a handgun that friends said Durand always carried when he was in the pawn shop. A Wake County grand jury indicted Gregory on 10 charges, including 1st-degree murder, 1st-degree rape, 3 counts of robbery with a dangerous weapon and possession of a firearm by a felon. Short in stature with a slim build, Gregory walked into a 3rd-floor courtroom in downtown Raleigh on Thursday afternoon clad in red prison garb. He appeared with Jonathan Broun, an attorney with the N.C. Capital Defenders Office who declined to comment after the hearing. Gregory was quiet as Brewer told him he could be put to death or spend the rest of life in prison if convicted of murder. The judge also read the cache of remaining charges against him and explained that regardless of the murder charge he could spend decades in prison if convicted of them. New York City police arrested Gregory on Sept. 1. They said he was driving a car that had been stolen a short time earlier from outside a bank in lower Manhattan, where the owner reportedly had left it running. Prosecutors in Manhattan told a judge last month that they would defer their charges against Gregory so he could be returned to Raleigh. Gregory waived a hearing to fight extradition, and North Carolina corrections officers took custody of him following a Wednesday morning court appearance in Manhattan. In its indictment of Gregory for having a gun illegally, the grand jury cited a black pistol that it said was used to shoot Alvaringa and rob him outside the hotel. The felony cited in the possession charge was from a guilty plea he entered Aug. 26 to a charge of breaking into a motor vehicle on July 31. In addition to the charges related to what happened Aug. 31, Gregory has also been charged with breaking into homes off New Hope Church Road. 1 warrant accuses him breaking into an apartment on Bonneville Court on Aug. 29 and taking a pair of jeans, a wallet and 2 sets of keys, while the 2nd warrant charges that he broke into a 3-family home on Brockton Drive on July 24. After his arrest in New York, Gregory's mother said that he suffered from mental illness and was hearing voices. A woman who encountered Gregory at a fast-food restaurant earlier this year said he asked her to pray with him because he couldn't control his body. Stephen McNair of Raleigh, a friend of Durand, wishes someone had intervened. McNair, 37, said he used to visit the slain man's pawn shop with his father and decided to attend Gregory's court hearing after a friend called him that morning and told him about it. "I wanted to see him. I really didn't have closure, and I wanted to see him," McNair said. "If he was truly mentally ill, why didn't somebody catch it? Why didn't someone put a stop to it?" (source: News & Observer) FLORIDA: Proposed bill would allow death penalty for killing local law enforcement Law enforcement and first responders are asked to serve and protect their communities. Unfortunately, this could cost some their lives. Lawmakers are pushing a bill that would impose the death penalty for the killing of local law enforcement and first responders. There is already a law to help federal law enforcement, but the new bill would extend that to local officials as well. Bay County Sheriff's Office Major Tommy Ford says it's a good step in the right direction. The new bill will amend the federal criminal code to make the killing or attempted killing of a local law enforcement officer or first responder an aggravating factor in death penalty determinations. According to the present law, this is already in effect for federal enforcement officers and prosecutors. The new bill will allow that same rule to apply to juries dealing with local law enforcement and first responders. One local family knows this process all too well. Panama City Beach Police Sergeant Kevin Kight was shot and killed during a traffic stop in 2005. The man who murdered him is now on death row. Kight's Widow, Christina Kight-McVay, says she would be in favor of the proposed law. "I think it's going to be more for the families; its going to give them peace of mind," said McVay. Several local authorities are in favor of the new proposed bill as well. "It is not alright to harm law enforcement officers, and there will be serious consequences. In this case, anyone that kills a law enforcement officer would receive the death penalty," said Ford. Next the bill must be passed by both the House and Senate in identical form and then be signed by the President before it becomes a law. (source: mypanhandle.com) ********** Pushing for life: Death penalty opponents share their opinions at Ave Maria law school George F. Kain is a death penalty convert. A retired corrections officer from Connecticut, he was a staunch believer in capital punishment. He believed it was the right thing to keep communities safe from the biggest and baddest criminals. Now a professor of justice and law administration at Western Connecticut State University and a police commissioner, he travels the nation to speak against the death penalty. "If people knew the truth about the death penalty - the risk of executing the innocent, the discrimination against minorities - they would never be able to support it," Kain said. "The death penalty doesn't keep us safe." Kain was 1 of 3 speakers at a death penalty panel discussion at the Ave Maria School of Law on Tuesday. The panel, which included Sheila Hopkins, board chair of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, and Mark Elliott, executive director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, is involved in a statewide effort to abolish the death penalty in Florida. The panelists argued that a life sentence in prison is enough, that factors like eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, prosecutorial misconduct and evidence flaws contribute to false convictions and executions. Statistics from the Death Penalty Information Center shows that Florida has executed 91 people since 1976 after the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment. 24 innocent people have been freed from Florida's death row, which currently has 391 inmates, according to the Florida Department of Corrections. The cost is another issue. "Taxpayers help pay for executions," Elliott said. "We're all involved in these killings whether we like it or not." A report from the Florida Bar estimates that the state spends $51 million a year to implement the death penalty. It is unclear how much money the state would save by keeping inmates behind bars for life, instead of executing them. Some of the students who attended the panel discussion agreed that the death penalty should be abolished. "Some people argue that the more heinous the crime, the more atrocious the punishment. But there's a remedy for that: life in prison," said Meghan Davis, an Ave Maria law student who has worked with criminal defense lawyers for 7 years. Davis said that working with an attorney who worked on the Florida Innocence Project piqued her interest on the issue. "With capital punishment, we put people's lives in our own hands," she said. "There's little objectivity because the jury doesn't have to be unanimous. I don't agree with it." Florida is the only state to only require a 7-5 jury vote in recommending the death penalty. Delaware and Alabama require 10 votes, and the remaining states require a unanimous vote. In Florida, once the jury recommends the death sentence, the judge can accept or overturn the recommendation. Brian Ashby, president of the law school's Criminal Justice Society, said the discussion made him think, but it didn't change his mind about supporting the death penalty. "I know it has its flaws and can be improved significantly, but I don't think repealing the whole capital punishment system is a good idea," he said. He did, however, agree that a jury should be unanimous in its decision to recommend the death penalty. Ashby also believes capital punishment is fit for those who have committed unspeakable crimes. "It's limited to acts that are the most heinous. People waking up one morning and deciding they were going to kill someone. Not an accident, not something that happened in the heat of passion, but murder. A person who went through the thought process and followed through with it," he said. "The way I see it is that the person's victim didn't have the luxury of being put on a gurney, injected with drugs and being put to sleep." (source: Naples News) OHIO: State closer to reconsidering death penalty I thank The Dispatch for its evolving perspective on Ohio's death penalty ("Worth the trouble?" editorial, Oct. 18). The editorial asked whether the death penalty is worthwhile because it is difficult to impose and trying to make it work uses up too much time, energy and money. In its Tuesday editorial "Shine light on executions," The Dispatch rightly raised a core belief all Ohioans share: The most irrevocable act government undertakes should be transparent. It is admirable to see a newspaper that has long been a staunch supporter of the death penalty begin to rethink this very challenging issue. In doing so, it is not alone. Among those now calling for the repeal of Ohio's death-penalty laws are some who were previously its most ardent enforcers, including the very architects of the law itself. 2 such changed minds belong to Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeiffer and former Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro, who as legislators worked to pass Ohio's death-penalty law in 1981. Terry Collins and Reginald Wilkinson, who between them helped execute more than 40 Ohio prisoners in their roles at the Ohio Department of Correction and Rehabilitation, now call themselves members of Ohioans to Stop Executions. Even former Gov. Bob Taft, who saw 24 executions on his watch, has publicly questioned his continued support for the punishment. While we've not yet seen The Dispatch call for the abolition of capital punishment in Ohio, that day no longer seems impossible or far off. The reason is simple: Once anyone holds up Ohio's death-penalty law for close inspection, the arguments for it fall away among grave errors, inequity of application, secrecy and the failure to accomplish any of its most basic intentions. While we won't all get to that conclusion immediately, at the very least we should be asking ourselves the exact questions The Dispatch is raising. KEVIN WERNER -- Executive director -- Ohioans to Stop Executions -- Columbus (source: Letlter to the Editor, Columbus Dispatch) ****************** Killer spared death penalty A Butler County jury decided Thursday that Daniel French would not be put to death for killing an 87-year-old woman. After deliberating for about 90 minutes, the jury spared his life and recommended a sentence of life in prison without parole. It took the jury about two hours last week to convict French in the brutal 2012 death of Barbara Howe of Middletown. Before jurors went into the room to deliberate his sentence Thursday, French got a chance to address them. "Hello everyone, I'm Daniel French," he said. After nearly 3 weeks, the jury tasked with deciding whether French should be put to death finally got to hear from him. The 57-year-old convicted of aggravated murder spoke for about 2 minutes. Reading from a yellow legal pad, French spoke softly, rarely looking up. He told the jury, seated a few feet from him, he was a man with 3 children who had been married twice. "I destroyed a life. I caused a great pain and suffering by my actions," French said. "I became a monster that I believe was never there." Before the sentence was announced, French's sister, LeeAnn Ifcic, rocked back and forth in her courtroom seat. Then she stood, trembling, before the jury was brought in. One of French's attorneys, Lawrence Hawkins III, had his hand on his client's shoulder the entire time. He patted him on the back as the decision was read. Melynda Cook, French's other attorney, turned to French and smiled. French shook her hand and looked to the back of the courtroom where Ifcic and another sister sat. He smiled, probably for the first time during the trial, and blew her a kiss. French then hugged his sisters, who cried, before he was escorted out. Common Pleas Court Judge Charles Pater will decide whether to proceed with the jury's recommended sentence during a hearing Nov. 16. He cannot upgrade it to death. French told the jury he offered to plead guilty before the trial started if he was granted life in prison without parole because he didn't want to cause anymore pain. Butler County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser, who turned down that offer, said afterward he "wanted the people of Butler County to decide." And they did. "I stand before you, or sit before you, filled with great remorse and sorrow," French said. "If I could change time I would in a heartbeat, but I cannot change time." On Wednesday, French's friends and family testified about decades of abuse he and his siblings suffered at the hands of his mother and father. "Mom and dad weren't very nice people," said Kenneth French, Daniel's brother. That was a focal point the defense counsel focused on throughout the sentencing phase. At times, the details even made Howe's family cringe. On Thursday, a clinical psychologist testified French suffered from a "major depressive disorder, recurrent with psychotic features." He also has anxiety, panic disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from childhood abuse, said Nancy Schmidtgoessling. Schmidtgoessling, who has been a psychologist for 35 years, recently evaluated French. She spoke with him at the Butler County Jail 3 different times for a total of about 5 hours. "He reported being depressed his whole life," said Schmidtgoessling. She testified this did not mean he was insane and told the jury he knew what he did was doing. Prosecutors questioned the way she arrived at her conclusion, specifically with how French's depression related to his childhood. Prosecutor Gmoser argued French's depression could have been because he was the prime suspect for two years in a murder investigation. He also said French tried to minimize his involvement in Howe's brutal death to police and simply did so again to the psychologist. When Judge Pater read the jury's recommendation, Howe's family sat without much of a reaction. Afterward, their comments were brief. Pat Marshall, Howe's sister, consoled French's sisters before leaving. "It's been hard on both families," she said. "Justice was served." (source: cincinnati.com) NEBRASKA: Nebraska corrections director grilled over $54,000 purchase of foreign-made execution drugs Nebraska's corrections director faced blistering criticism Thursday for spending more than $54,000 on foreign-made lethal injection drugs the state hasn't received because the federal government says their import is illegal. Members of a legislative oversight committee grilled Nebraska Department of Correctional Services Director Scott Frakes over the purchase, saying he approved the prepayment without following typical procedures or taking steps to ensure the state could recover the money. Frakes' testimony during a wide-ranging hearing on the troubled state prison system offered new details about Nebraska's efforts to obtain execution drugs amid a nationwide shortage. The corrections director agreed to buy sodium thiopental and pancuronium bromide from Chris Harris, a distributor in India who contacted him in April, as lawmakers were debating whether to abolish the death penalty. Both drugs are required in Nebraska's 3-drug lethal injection protocol. Lawmakers repeatedly questioned Frakes about whom he consulted before making the purchase, and whether he spoke with Gov. Pete Ricketts. Frakes responded by saying he couldn't remember whether the governor or others were in meetings during which the drugs were discussed. The drugs were never delivered because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said their import is illegal. Attempts to ship the drugs in August via FedEx were thwarted because the transport company said it lacked the required paperwork required to travel internationally. Sen. Heath Mello of Omaha said he was concerned that the state had no way to recoup the tax money paid to Harris. "I'm not trying to get you to say that you're never going to get the drugs," Mello told Frakes. "I know you're never going to get those drugs." Frakes told lawmakers that he spoke with Harris last week and was waiting for him to complete the necessary paperwork and registration to try shipping the drugs again. Sen. Paul Schumacher of Columbus said the hearing marked a "sad day" because lawmakers had supported Frakes after Ricketts appointed him in January. 2 previous corrections directors left their positions amid criticism that the department was mismanaged. "We thought you were going to be a breath of fresh air that we could trust," he said, adding later: "I'd bet you that no one in this room believes you." Ricketts, who supports capital punishment, announced the purchase of the drugs shortly before lawmakers abolished the death penalty in May despite his veto. Death penalty supporters responded with a statewide petition drive that successfully suspended the repeal law until voters decide whether to keep the punishment in November 2016. Members of the oversight committee who questioned Frakes all voted to repeal the death penalty. Nebraska officials bought the drugs from Harris, who also sold execution drugs to the state in 2010. The drugs' manufacturer later accused Harris of misrepresenting how he intended to use them, and legal challenges prevented the state from using that batch of drugs before it expired. The latest drug batch was bought without a request for proposals, a standard practice the state uses to buy goods and services. Frakes said one of his deputies consulted with the Department of Administrative Services - which oversees state purchases - and told him the purchase was allowed. He acknowledged under questioning that he allowed Harris to dictate the price and quantity of both drugs. Nebraska spent $26,700 for 1,000 doses of sodium thiopental and $26,000 for 1,000 doses of pancuronium bromide, despite having only 10 men currently on death row. Nebraska's last execution was in 1997, using the electric chair. "The decision was made because the seller, the vendor, said those are the terms," Frakes said in testimony to the committee. Nebraska and other states have been forced to come up new sources for drugs as pharmaceutical companies, many of which are based in Europe, have stopped selling them for executions. (source: Associated Press) ARIZONA: Arizona death row inmate asks for pardon He sits there on death row, never having actually killed anybody. Meanwhile, the murderer - 1 of 2 men he was with that gruesome night - will someday go free. Maybe someday soon. Patrick Bearup says he has faith in the justice system, the one that has marked him for execution. He's asked the state Board of Executive Clemency to recommend that he be pardoned in the 2002 murder of Mark Mathes. "I believe that people will see that this is an act of God versus anything else," Bearup told me. "I know I am in a right-wing state. I'm a right-wing conservative myself. It's an uphill battle but I believe in justice and I believe that Gov. (Doug) Ducey and the board will see that there is some merit to what I'm asking." Bearup, 38, is the 1st death-row inmate in Arizona ever to seek a pardon. It's hard to feel much sympathy for the guy, who insists he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But something's not right here. In February 2002, Bearup was 1 of 3 men who went to Mathes' Phoenix home to confront him about $200 in missing money that belonged to Mathes' roommate, Jessica Nelson. According to prosecutors' theory of the case, the 3 men surrounded Mathes on the patio and Jeremy Johnson proceeded to beat him with an aluminum baseball bat, hitting him in the head and upper body as many as 25 times. Johnson and Bearup then dragged him to a car and stuffed him into the trunk. The men and Nelson drove to a remote spot near Crown King where testimony indicated Bearup cut off Mathes' finger to retrieve a ring for Nelson. Mathes was thrown over the guardrail into a ravine, then shot twice by Gaines. It's not known whether the beating or the shooting killed Mathes, whose body was found a year later by hunters. What is known: this case has a odor to it. Eau de payback, perhaps? All 3 men and Nelson were charged with 1st-degree murder and then-Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas announced his office would seek the death penalty. Then he doled out 3 plea bargains. Johnson along with Nelson, who instigated the confrontation, got deals to 2nd-degree murder and kidnapping and were sentenced to 14 years. Gaines pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree murder and got 25 years. Bearup, meanwhile, was never offered a plea deal. Put another way, prosecutors wanted death for the man who didn???t kill anyone while offering leniency to the men who did and to the woman who set up the attack. It's worth noting that Bearup???s father, Tom, was a major thorn in the side of Thomas' cohort, Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Bearup was Arpaio's top aide until 1997, when they had a falling out. Arpaio has said Bearup was incompetent. Bearup says he refused to help cover up the 1996 death of jail inmate Scott Norberg. Norberg died after being beaten and tied into a restraint chair -- a case that eventually cost the county $8.25 million. Bearup ran against Arpaio in 2000 and again in 2004, while his son was in jail awaiting trial. The elder Bearup believes there's an easy explanation for why his son, who had a prior conviction for aggravated assault, wasn't offered a deal. "It's retaliation against me and that's the most difficult thing that I've had to deal with," Tom Bearup told me. "He's there (on death row) because of me. I had the audacity to stand up against these people in the beginning. Everything I said at that time is coming out with Judge (Murray) Snow now: the cover ups and going after people. Laurie, this is ludicrous in America. But it happened." As a condition of their plea deals, both Johnson and Nelson testified against Bearup. After being found guilty of 1st-degree murder and kidnapping in 2007, Bearup opted not to offer any defense to counter prosecutors' push for a death sentence. Given that, jurors had little choice but to decree that Bearup should die. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Warren Granville, in sentencing Bearup to 12 years for the kidnapping conviction, was disturbed enough to rebuke Thomas. A death sentence, Granville wrote, was "not justified in the context of the relative responsibility of the co-defendants". But there was nothing he could do. "It is County Attorney's motto that 'let justice be done.' This, of course coincides with a prosecutor's unique ethical responsibility," Granville wrote. "This Court finds that justice was not done for Mr. Bearup." The Supreme Court let Bearup's death sentence stand, noting that although he didn't kill Mathes, he was a "major participant" in the crime. Bearup, who was ordained as a minister last year, is appealing to the Board of Executive Clemency for a pardon on the murder conviction. The board has scheduled a Tuesday hearing. If the board agrees, it would be up to Ducey to make the call. "I just pray that God opens that door," Bearup told me. "1 way or another it's in his hands. Even if he calls me to stay in here, I know that I'm going to walk out faithfully what he has for me." It's hard to envision a pardon. Yet I wonder ... Gaines, the man who shot Mathes, could be out by 2025. Nelson and Johnson, the man who beat Mathes to death or nearly so with a baseball bat, will be out in September 2017. ... Are we really willing to execute the man who didn't kill anybody while the actual killer walks free? (source: Arizona Republic) US MILITARY: Fort Hood shooter's lawyer predicts death-penalty escape----Convicted murderer's legal team sees winning appeal John P. Galligan, a defense attorney who represented the former Army Major in civil court, says the convicted murderer is not likely to pay with his life for the mass shooting. "Is the death penalty in this case going to be sustained on appeal? I say, probably not," Galligan told the Killeen Daily Herald on Thursday. Hasan was found guilty on on 13 charges of premeditated murder and 32 of attempted murder Aug. 23, 2013. His execution would be the first for an active-duty soldier in more than 50 years. Galligan said the case will immediately be appealed once the U.S. Army authenticates and approves the transcripts from Hasan's trial. Get the the book that exposed CAIR from the inside out, and the only book ever to provide the real "inside" story of jihadism run amok in the U.S., "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That???s Conspiring to Islamize America." "Several steps of the post-trial process must occur prior to action by the general court-martial convening authority," Fort Hood officials told the newspaper. "These steps include authentication of the record by the military judge, review by the staff judge advocate, and potential submission of clemency matters by the accused. The current General Court-Martial Convening Authority is Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland. The completed record has not been forwarded to the convening authority and may be presented to him or any successor in command without restarting the post-trial process." Galligan will eventually make the case that Hasan was denied the opportunity to effectively testify before the court. The Army also refused to pay a physiologist to evaluate bullet wounds he sustained during the rampage. "He was effectively foreclosed of any meaningful opportunity to testify. The judge told him pretrial he wasn't going to allow him to argue or present evidence on this business about defense of thirds," the attorney said. Hasan planned to say his actions saved the lives of Iraq children jeopardized by the U.S. military. "If a jury had been at least presented with those things, I think there would have at least been a possibility," that Hasan would have only received a life sentence instead of the death penalty, Galligan told the newspaper. "I joke with people who ask me if Hasan got a fair trial at Fort Hood. He couldn't even get a bank account at Fort Hood, much less a fair trial." (source: wnd.com) USA: Democrats' divide on death penalty emerges as major point of difference -- Less than 3 decades ago, calling for an end to the death penalty on the campaign trail could sink a candidate. Now, with public support for executions waning, Democrats are making it a key issue A generation ago, opposition to the death penalty ended political careers. Now, the 3 candidates sparring for the Democratic nomination are questioning the effectiveness and application of the death penalty. Among them, only former secretary of state Hillary Clinton opposes abolishing the practice, and only in certain cases. Former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley signed into law a repeal of the death penalty in his state in 2013 and commuted sentences of the state's remaining death row inmates in 2014. And Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has been a vocal opponent of the practice as matter or principle and policy. As the candidates prepare to square off at a Democratic forum in South Carolina on Friday evening, the issue of the death penalty has emerged on the campaign trail as a point of contention in a race that has swerved to the left. While in New Hampshire last week, Clinton said she did not support abolition and that "there are certain egregious cases" which merit the punishment. She expressed concern that the practice "has been too frequently applied, and too often in a discriminatory way". She added that it is an issue she believes is best left to the states. ----- What the death penalty looks like in the US today Along with the federal government, a majority of US states (32) have the death penalty. Over the past 4 years, governors in 4 states have halted executions, citing questions over the fairness of capital punishment, among other issues. 18 states and the District of Columbia have abolished the death penalty outright. A 10-year, county-wide moratorium on capital punishment was in effect from 1967-1977, but the death penalty was reinstated in January of that year. Nearly 1,500 people have been executed since - more than 1/3 of them in Texas. Years death penalty was abolished by state: Michigan (1846), Wisconsin (1853), Maine (1887), Minnesota (1911), Alaska, Hawaii (1957), Vermont (1964), Iowa, West Virginia (1965), North Dakota (1973), District of Columbia (1981), Massachusetts, Rhode Island (1984), New Jersey, New York (2007), New Mexico (2009), Illinois (2011), Connecticut (2012), Maryland (2013). Moratoria: Oregon (2011), Colorado (2013), Washington (2014), Pennsylvania (2015). Nebraska lawmakers abolished the death penalty in May 2015, but a petition drive to overturn their decision succeeded in October. The issue will be put to voters in 2016. The federal government has put to death 3 people since 1977. [source: Death Penalty Information Center] ----- After the event, Clinton expanded on her remarks in an interview with a New Hampshire news network. "We ought to reserve it for terrorism and related incidents that are, like the Boston Marathon bomber," she told NH1. "So that's why I think we should be really limiting it but not abolishing it when it comes to applying it." O'Malley, who called the capital sentencing of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev "ineffective as a deterrent", immediately responded to Clinton's comments, declaring that as president he would work to ???build consensus to end it nationally". "The death penalty is [a] racially biased, ineffective deterrent to crime, and we must abolish it," O'Malley said in a statement. The following day, Sanders, Clinton's chief rival, took to the US Senate floor to declare that "the time is now for the United States to end capital punishment" and said ending the practice was the "right point of view". "I would rather have our country stand side-by-side with European democracies rather than with countries like China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and others who maintain the death penalty," he told his Senate colleagues. "I think that those of us who want to set an example - who want to say that we have got to end the murders and the violence that we're seeing in our country and all over the world - should, in fact, be on the side of those of us who believe that we must end capital punishment in this country." Several decades ago, views like this are believed to have sunk the White House ambitions of then-Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis. In 1988, 1 presidential aspirants took the stage in Los Angeles for the 2nd debate of the election campaign. "Governor,' began CNN anchor Bernard Shaw's famous question about the governor's wife. "If Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?" Dukakis replied: "No, I don't, Bernard, and I think you know that I've opposed the death penalty during all of my life." The moment scarred the Democratic party, tired of being pilloried by Republicans as "soft on crime". 4 years later, the Democratic presidential candidate, then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton, would stop campaigning in New Hampshire to return home and personally oversee the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a convicted murderer who was so mentally impaired that he requested the pecan pie served as his last meal be saved for "tomorrow". The move, many would speculate, was an attempt to show he was tough enough. Public support for capital punishment peaked in 1994 - the year crime and drugs were top issues for voters, according to Gallup polling. But in the decades since then, as violent crime and murder rates have fallen, so too has support for the death penalty. The most recent Gallup poll on the issue found that 61% of respondents still favored the death penalty for someone convicted of murder. However, Democrats are far less likely to support the death penalty than Republicans, respectively 49% versus 82%. The prospect of executing an innocent person has raised efficacy questions around the practice, while the length and cost of the current appeals process has raised concerns about its economic efficiency. Meanwhile, politicians from both parties are calling for criminal justice reform and an end to the era of mass incarceration. "That's where we are in the United States," said Diann Rust-Tierney, the executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "And it's coming up more in conversation as we try to figure out a nation how to move forward without the death penalty." She said the debate over the death penalty has lost some of its political potency as a preponderance of evidence suggests executions are not an effective deterrent to crime. More frequent media coverage has also helped raise public awareness of the racial disparities in capital sentencing and the number of innocent inmates exonerated from death row, Rust-Tierney said. DNA evidence and other testing methods have helped exonerate 156 condemned prisoners, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Since 2007, 6 states have abolished the death penalty, a sign of the growing backlash against the practice. In May, Nebraska became the 1st conservative state in 40 years to repeal its death penalty law, although the law has since been put on hold by a referendum campaign to reverse it. "We've seen in state after state," Rust-Tierney said. "As Justice Blackmun wrote in Callins v Collins 'I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.' We have tried to get this right and we can't. So the conversation is changing." When marshaling support to end public executions in Maryland, O'Malley framed the debate as a matter of public policy rather than one of moral consequence. The practice doesn't prevent crime and its not cost-efficient, he argued then. At the signing of the bill, O'Malley said: "We have a responsibility to stop doing the things that are wasteful and ineffective." How big an issue the death penalty will become in the primary will likely depend on Clinton's challengers, both of whom are eager to tout their relative progressiveness and shine a light between their platforms and hers. Opposing the death penalty gives O'Malley and Sanders a small comparative advantage against Clinton among progressive voters, said Elizabeth Smith, an associate professor of political science at the University of South Dakota. But, she said, the issue is so inconsequential to voters that it's highly unlikely to make a dent in the primary race. And in fact, should either of them clinch the nomination, their abolitionist view could hurt them in the general election. "In the primary, opposing the death penalty is not a huge risk because it's not a voting issue for a lot of people," Smith said. "When you move into the general election, it can be a huge risk." Still, a question in Friday's forum could reveal just how far the political dynamics have shifted on the issue since Clinton's husband first ran for president. "Being for the death penalty is symbolic of being tough and crime," Smith said. "And politicians have been winning elections for being tough on crime for a very long time." (source: Associated Press) ************* Don't Be Fooled by This 'Religious Liberty' Conference GOP candidates are joining a conference featuring those who want 'religious liberty' to execute gays. Antigay extremists are increasingly arguing that more rights for gay people mean fewer rights for them. They have lifted up cases challenging business owners who have refused service to LGBT people as examples of religious liberty supposedly being infringed by the gay rights movement. A conference taking place in Des Moines this week shows exactly what these claims of "religious persecution" really are - a cover for a political agenda that's about anything but liberty. Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, and Bobby Jindal are expected to speak at the so-called National Religious Liberties Conference alongside what organizers call "targeted men and women of faith," including David and Jason Benham, who claim to have been persecuted after their vitriolic antigay rhetoric caused them to lose a contract for a television program, and Sgt. Phillip Monk, whose claims to have suffered anti-Christian discrimination at the hands of a lesbian superior have been thoroughly debunked. The organizers of this conference are not looking to simply freely practice their religion. Instead, they have made it abundantly clear that they wish to use the power of the government to impose their religious beliefs on others. 3 speakers at this "religious liberties" conference have defended imposing the death penalty on gay people - yes, the death penalty - including the conference's main organizer, Kevin Swanson. Swanson has made very clear that he does not wish to grant anybody else the religious liberty that he claims he is being denied. He praised a Ugandan measure that would have made homosexuality a criminal offense punishable by life in prison or the capital punishment. He continually reminds listeners of his radio program that the Old Testament requires that "homosexuals should be put to death." Swanson is no big fan of rights for women either. He claims that working women "do not love their children" and are destroying society. He has warned that efforts to empower women in developing countries by helping them buy cows will "destroy the nuclear family." He claims that women who are on the birth control pill have "these little tiny fetuses, these little babies, that are embedded" in their wombs, which "effectively have become graveyards for lots and lots of little babies." He once placed partial blame for wildfires in Colorado on "feminist trends" such as women wearing pants. It's not just Swanson. Another speaker at the conference, Phillip Kayser, has argued for the death penalty for gay people, writing, "While many homosexuals would be executed, the threat of capital punishment can be restorative." Yet another speaker, Joel McDermon, has made the same argument, writing that God "revealed that the homosexual act as a civil crime deserves the death penalty" and that "where God says a civil crime deserves the death penalty, I propose that we keep in step with the first greatest commandment and recognize His total sovereignty in heart, soul, strength, and mind." Multiple speakers at Swanson's conference are proponents of "Christian Reconstructionism," the idea that the United States must be governed by a particular interpretation of biblical law. As you can probably imagine, this interpretation is not one that's friendly to LGBT people. Americans of all political stripes cherish our constitutional religious liberty and will fight to preserve it, and we must unite to ensure that our country remains a beacon of freedom to those who face persecution around the world. But Swanson and his allies have something else in mind. They aren't interested in preventing a theocracy that quashes religious dissent. Instead, they want to create one. Anyone, especially candidates for president of the United States should think twice before associating themselves with such an agenda. (source: MICHAEL KEEGAN is president of People for the American Way----advocate.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Nov 6 10:38:18 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2015 10:38:18 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 6 MALAYSIA/SINGAPORE: Death penalty? Allow vigilantes instead Why waste taxpayers' money in executions when citizens can do the job themselves (and take greater pleasure in personally exacting revenge too)? Sarawakian Kho Jabing, 31, was to have been executed in Singapore today for murdering a man. Unfortunately, the labourer's case had very little media attention in Malaysia. Local human rights groups did not seem to mount much of a campaign for Jabing either, with only some writing press statements (a little too late) over the past few days. Singapore's Court of Appeal had sentenced Jabing to death 10 months ago in January. Do Malaysian human rights NGOs not care for an impoverished blue-collar worker from Sarawak? Why was Jabing's campaign spearheaded by a Singaporean group We Believe in Second Chances instead of a Malaysian group? Malaysians should have gone all out in campaigning against his death sentence. Sarawak minister Tan Sri Dr James Masing also said the state government would not intervene in the execution as it was inappropriate for Malaysia to interfere with the justice system in Singapore. The Sarawak government's stand is unsurprising. However, I would argue that there's nothing wrong with interference to protect our own citizens if the law itself is unjust. The verdict by Singapore's Court of Appeal was split 3-2. According to Amnesty International Malaysia, the 2 dissenting judges held that there was no evidence to prove with certainty that Jabing had hit his victim, another labourer, more than twice, which would represent a "blatant disregard for the sanctity of human life" a key factor in deciding whether or not to sentence him to death. The other 3 judges thought Jabing's actions merited the death sentence. Jabing was convicted of beating a China national with a piece of wood; the man later succumbed to his injuries, and Jabing sentenced to death in 2010. Singapore reviewed in 2012 its mandatory death penalty laws. Jabing was resentenced to life imprisonment after the review, but Singapore's Court of Appeal later sentenced him to death in the 3-2 decision when the prosecution appealed. Malaysia has yet to review laws on capital punishment. Oxford University professors Roger Hood and Carolyn Hoyle wrote in their book The Death Penalty: A Worldwide Perspective that it is not "prudent" to accept the belief that capital punishment in the US deters murder significantly more than the threat of life imprisonment. A study, which compared Singapore (that had among the highest execution rates in the world in the mid-1990s) with Hong Kong( that abolished the death penalty in 1993), reportedly found that homicide trends were similar in both countries, with neither an increase in Singapore's executions nor a steep drop after 1997 making any significant impact. Let's put aside the question of imposing the death penalty on drug traffickers. If we are to live by the "an eye for an eye" principle, then any other crime but murder should not be punished with death. On whether the death penalty deters homicide, there is no conclusive research that points to a deterrent effect. So we get to the so-called justice factor in the death penalty. If killing someone for killing another person is right, then in cases of theft, why doesn't the State take equal amounts of money from the accused based on the amount stolen? Why not appoint an official to sexually assault a convicted rapist? Steal a loaf of bread, and the State takes bread as punishment. Beat and rape a woman till she bleeds? The State should do the exact same thing to her rapist. These examples illustrate how ludicrous the death penalty is. Even Singapore's principle in deciding death sentences on whether the accused showed disregard for the sanctity of human life is arbitrary. So, 2 strikes are okay, but 3 strikes are not? What are the criteria for disregarding the "sanctity" of human life? If human life is indeed so sacred, then capital punishment shouldn't be in the picture at all. The sanctity of human life surely doesn't depend on what a person has done, even if she has killed someone. It should be inherent from birth. If we were to judge how sacred one's life is based on their deeds, then not only murderers, but rapists, child abusers and corrupt politicians would rank at the bottom of the scale. Killing someone with a clean gunshot to the head may be more merciful than bludgeoning him to death with a rock, but the fact remains that the victim ends up dead in both scenarios. We shouldn't kill more people in the name of justice. (source: Opinion, Boo Su-Lyn; themalaymailonline.com) PHILIPPINES: Death to alien drug offenders eyed A panel in the House of Representatives that has approved a measure imposing death on foreign nationals found guilty of engaging in drug-related activities in the country now awaits plenary consideration. The House committee on dangerous drugs, chaired by Iligan Rep. Vicente Belmonte Jr., referred for plenary action House Bill 1213 which provides stiffer penalties, including death, against alien offenders in the country. "This means that the imposition of the penalty for drug offenses as prescribed under the national law of the foreign national or the penalty under Republic Act 9165, whichever is higher, is the rule to follow," the bill's author, Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez said. The measure, if passed into law, will amend Republic Act 9165, otherwise known as the "Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002" by "adopting the higher prescribed penalty, including death, of the national law of an alien found guilty of trafficking dangerous drugs and other similar substances." In June 2006, R.A. 9346 was enacted into law prohibiting the imposition of death penalty in the Philippines, said Rodriguez, a former immigration commissioner. "While the rationale for passing the law was very clear and noble, there are some sectors of society who believe that this law is not just and equitable because while foreigners may not be executed in the Philippines for drug trafficking, Filipinos who commit the same are executed in other countries with death penalty," Rodriguez said. Because of the ban on death penalty, an argument against the law states that many foreign nationals are now emboldened to establish their drug factories in the country because once convicted, they only suffer life imprisonment as opposed to the penalty that they may suffer in their own countries which, in some cases, like death in China, he added. He also cited constant reports of foreign nationals, including Chinese nationals, being caught selling drugs and operating drug dens and laboratories in the country. And once caught and convicted, the penalty that our courts may impose is only life imprisonment. "This is a sad, or even unfair situation because when Filipinos are caught drug trafficking abroad, they may be imposed the death penalty, as seen in the most recent execution of the 3 Filipinos in China, namely Elizabeth Batain, 38, Sally Ordinario Villanueva, 32, and Ramon Credo, 42," Rodriguez pointed out. Again, in July 2013, a 35-year-old Filipina was executed despite pleas from the Philippine Government. She was caught in January 2011 with 6.198 kilos of heroin in her luggage at the Hangzhou International Airport and was sentenced to death in 2011. "While there is no reason to question the laws of foreign countries, we must however, ensure that our countrymen do not suffer the short end of the stick," Rodriguez stressed. (source: The Standard) PAKISTAN: Pakistan moves toward death penalty for child sex abuse. Pakistan has taken a step towards punishing the sexual abuse of girls with life imprisonment or even death after an influential parliamentary committee voted to amend current laws. The National Assembly's standing committee approved the proposal by lawmaker Shaista Perveiz Malik yesterday, according to a statement on parliament's website. "After detailed discussions, the committee unanimously passed the bill," it said. The amendment only appears to address the sexual abuse of girls aged under 14, not boys. Under the existing penal code, the punishment for rape ranges from a minimum of 10 years' incarceration to the death penalty, but it does not specify the victim's age or gender. The bill will now come before lawmakers in both parliamentary chambers, who are set to pass it into law. Malik told the committee the state should protect vulnerable women and children. In a report, independent child rights watchdog Sahil said that last year almost 10 children were sexually abused in Pakistan every day on average. Parliamentary records show that some 14,583 rape cases were registered in Pakistan between 2009-2014, while only 1,041 offenders were convicted. Pakistan ended a 6-year moratorium on the death penalty last year, at first just for terror-related charges but later for offences including murder, drug smuggling, blasphemy and treason. (source: The Kashmir Monitor) INDIA: Man gets death penalty for raping, killing minor A local court has handed over death penalty to 1 person on the charge of raping and killing a 7-year-old and imposed a fine of Rs 30,000 on him. According to prosecution, Sooraj Vishwakarma (20) sexually assaulted the victim -- who used to sell garlands at Maa Sharda Mata Temple premises in Maihar -- on May 17. The girl was returning home after selling garlands when he committed the crime. He later killed her. Additional Sessions Judge CD Sharma delivered the verdict yesterday. (source: webindia123.com) GLOBAL: II will never stop calling for an end to the death penalty: Ban Vowing to never stop calling for an end to the death penalty, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday said studies have proven that those who are poor, mentally disabled, and/or are minorities are at higher risk of receiving the death sentence, regardless of guilt or innocence. "That is simply wrong," Ban said in his remarks at the launch of a book, Moving Away from the Death Penalty: Arguments, Trends and Perspectives, by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, at the UN Bookstore in New York. The book documents injustices that are "sickening," Ban noted, "but the arguments for change are compelling" and cited that "more and more countries and States are abolishing the death penalty" in all regions of the world. "But there is also a backlash," he warned, and expressed his deep concern that "some States are sentencing more people to death and others are resuming executions." Attending the launch was Kirk Bloodsworth of the United States, who is the 1st person exonerated from death row by post-conviction DNA evidence. He was introduced by UN Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information Cristina Gallach. The Permanent Representative of Italy to the United Nations, Sebastiano Cardi, also made remarks. "[Mr. Bloodsworth] represents the reason we are here today. He is totally innocent of any crime. But like too many other people, he suffered the unforgiveable injustice of a death sentence...I am conscious that he says he was not exonerated because the system worked but because of a series of miracles," noted the UN chief. In an interview with the UN News Centre, Bloodsworth indeed said he was saved by a series of miracles. He had survived the terrible ordeal - "spending a total of 8 years 10 months and 19 days in prison for a crime I did not commit" - through faith in himself "and my belief that I knew I was an innocent person, and at the end of the day, the truth came out. Asked why he was personally against the death penalty, Bloodworth replied: "[It's very simple: if it can happen to me it can happen to anyone; in America or anywhere. What I'm saying is that an innocent person can be executed and that should never happen. If it can happen to me it can happen to anybody anywhere in the world." Ahead of the launch, the book's editor, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic, said in 1975, about 97 % of countries were executing criminals 2015, but only 27 % of countries that hand down the death penalty. But Simonovic said that in 2014, there had unfortunately been a 28 % increase in the number of people condemned to death and also noted that one of the biggest drawbacks of death penalties is the "wrongful conviction" of suspects. The Secretary-General today seized on the phenomenon today, saying "there will always be wrongful convictions - but when States impose the death penalty in such cases, they also kill any hope for justice." And he also spoke of the "harsh reality" that the death penalty discriminates. "Study after study proves that if you are poor, minority or mentally disabled, you are at higher risk regardless of guilt or innocence." "When we safeguard the human rights of the most vulnerable, we promote more peaceful, just and stable conditions for all," he said. "I will never stop calling for an end to the death penalty," Ban said, noting that "no one has proven that the death penalty even deters crime." "This book contains a great deal of information - but it makes no prediction on when the death penalty will be abolished globally. That is up to us. Let us write a new chapter so that the next edition may treat the death penalty the way we now treat public executions - as an aberration that is shunned in our world," the Secretary-General concluded. (source: indiablooms.com) AFGHANISTAN: Public Stoning Condemned In Afghanistan Afghan lawmakers have condemned and ordered an investigation into the stoning death of a young woman accused of adultery. Lawmakers discussed the killing, which took place in the remote Ghor Province in late October, during a November 4 parliamentary session. "As a representative of the Afghan people, I urge [the government] to hand over to the clutches of the law those behind this incident and the wild criminals who ruthlessly killed or stoned a woman to death," Shukria Paikan, a legislator from the northern province of Kunduz, said during the session. The brutal death of 19-year-old Rukhshana was captured in a 2-minute video obtained from an eyewitness by RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan. The video, an edited version of which was published this week, shows men identified as Taliban militants hurling stones at Rukhshana as she kneels in a hole in the ground, reciting an Islamic creed. The killing reportedly took place in Ghalmin, a village on the outskirts of Firoz Koh, the capital of Ghor Province. Ghor Governor Sima Joyenda told RFE/RL on November 2 that the stoning was carried out by "Taliban, local religious leaders, and armed warlords" after Rukhshana was found guilty of committing adultery. Joyenda said that her family had married her off against her will and that she was caught while eloping with a 23-year-old Mohammad Gul. Gul was lashed for the same crime, according to local police. Stoning 'Un-Islamic' Najia Aimaq, a parliament member from the northern Baghlan Province, told fellow lawmakers that the stoning should have been prevented. "Those individuals who carry out such acts should be handed over to clutches of the law and should be punished," she said. In a November 4 statement, the office of President Ashraf Ghani called the stoning "extra-judicial, un-Islamic, and criminal" and condemned the incident in the "strongest terms." The statement added that the president had assigned a delegation to "seriously investigate" the matter. Rafiullah Bedar, a spokesman for Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission, told Shamshad TV on November 3 that the stoning was "un-Islamic." The Taliban has been widely accused of carrying out the stoning, a punishment rarely seen in Afghanistan since Taliban rule ended. In 2010, Amnesty International reported what it called the "first confirmed stoning in the country since the fall of the Taliban in 2001." In that case, a couple accused of adultery was stoned to death in a public execution in Kunduz Province. Did The Taliban Do It? Local police official Mohammad Zaman Azimi has said the stoning was carried out by the Taliban, as did Masooma Anwari, the head of women's affairs in Ghor. But some, including activist Wazhma Frogh, co-founder of the Research Institute for Women, Peace and Security, are skeptical. "We are told elders did this!" Frogh wrote in a November 3 tweet. "Not defending any atrocities of Ts [the Taliban] but if done by elders then we're covering up a crime." Joyenda -- the female governor of Ghor who has been the target of death threats, protests calling for her ouster, and outside criticism after a young couple was lashed in her province recently -- stressed that the village where the stoning occurred was controlled by the Taliban. The provincial government's power extends little beyond Firoz Koh. Dozens of illegal, armed groups run by former warlords and militia leaders are active in Ghor, a key transit route for arms and drugs, and the resulting clashes are seen to be the source of much of the violence in the province. The war in Afghanistan is often used as cover for a wide range of crimes, including revenge killings, kidnapping for ransom, and extortion. Harsh Justice The Taliban is also not a homogenous group. Afghan officials have used the name to label hostile former warlords, religious leaders, and tribal elders. Capital punishment was widely practiced by the Taliban regime, which ruled much of the country from 1996-2001. Convicted adulterers were routinely shot or stoned in executions conducted in front of large crowds. In rural areas, where Taliban militants exert considerable influence, some Afghans still turn to Taliban courts to settle disputes because they consider government bodies to be corrupt or unreliable. The Taliban courts employ strict interpretations of Shari'a law, which prescribes punishments such as stoning and executions. The Afghan Constitution considers Islam to be the "religion of the state" and says that "no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam." The stoning of convicted adulterers is banned under Afghan law. However, in many areas controlled by the Taliban, it is not uncommon for men or women found guilty of having a relationship outside marriage to be sentenced to death, or publicly flogged. (source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Nov 6 14:27:57 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2015 14:27:57 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CONN., NEB., CALIF. Message-ID: Nov. 6 CONNECTICUT: Cheshire Killer Steven Hayes Wants Death Sentences Vacated After Supreme Court Ruling Attorneys for Cheshire home invasion killer Steven Hayes have filed legal papers asking a judge to vacate his death sentences and to impose a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. The 5-page motion, filed Thursday in Superior Court in New Haven where Hayes was sentenced to death in 2010, says Hayes' 6 death sentences are "unconstitutional and must be corrected" in light of the state Supreme Court's decision in August barring all executions, regardless of when the sentence was imposed. The Hayes' filing is the first of what is expected to be a wave of resentencing motions filed in state court by attorneys for the state's 11 death row inmates. Each case could be handled separately or an administrative judge could consolidate them. Connecticut lawmakers abolished capital punishment in April 2012 but made the law prospective, effectively applying it only to new cases and keeping in place the death sentences already imposed before the bill was passed. The provision was added after the high-profile trials of Hayes and his accomplice, Joshua Komisarjevsky. Hayes, 52, and Komisarjevsky, 33, are on death row for killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, during a July 2007 home invasion. The men tied up and tortured the family as they ransacked the Petit home for cash and valuables. Komisarjevsky sexually assaulted Michaela, and Hayes raped and strangled Hawke-Petit. The house was doused with gasoline and set on fire. Hayley and Michaela died of smoke inhalation. The daughters' father and Hawke-Petit's husband, Dr. William Petit Jr., survived but was severely injured. Komisarjevsky was sentenced to death in January 2012. After the 2012 repeal of the death penalty, attorneys representing those on death row challenged the law, saying it violated the condemned inmates' constitutional rights. The state Supreme Court agreed to take up the prospective issue in the case of Eduardo Santiago, whose death sentence was overturned in June 2012. The case was argued before the state's highest court in April 2013. In a 4-3 decision in August, the state Supreme Court banned capital punishment for all defendants in the case of State v. Santiago, saying in the majority decision that Connecticut's death penalty no longer comported with societal values and served no valid purpose as punishment. Last week, the high court denied a request by the chief state's attorney to postpone the Santiago decision, a ruling that followed a denial by the Supreme Court of a request by prosecutors to reargue Santiago. Hayes' attorneys said in the motion that a sentence is illegal "if it is not within the range of permissible punishment for an offense. Here, the 6 sentences of death are unconstitutional pursuant to [the Santiago decision]. A life sentence is the only available alternative sentence under the statute governing " Hayes' offense." (source: Hartford Courant) NEBRASKA: Nebraska's unseemly death penalty drug deal It doesn't take much imagination to figure out what someone does when they want to score illegal drugs. They search in the shadows for a source - an illicit dealer - and they operate in secrecy. God forbid they get caught. This is precisely the scenario playing out with the state governments of Nebraska, Arizona, Ohio and Texas. They're all desperately trying to import a drug called sodium thiopental to use for lethal injections in executions. However, it's against the law for the chemical to enter the country. Just recently came a report about the feds confiscating drugs headed for Texas and Arizona, while the governors of Ohio and Oklahoma delayed executions until the drug mess is sorted out. But Nebraska's new governor is a special case in point as he becomes an almost quixotic figure in his quest to kill. Gov. Pete Ricketts continues to insist that he is still "working with" federal authorities to obtain the necessary drugs to carry out the death penalty. This is in spite of the federal government repeatedly, and over a period of years, refusing Nebraska's requests. This past spring, on the eve of the overwhelmingly conservative Nebraska legislature casting an historic vote to repeal capital punishment, Mr. Ricketts made a last-ditch attempt to persuade his Republican colleagues to continue killing. In a dramatic 11th-hour announcement, he claimed the state had just bought the drugs needed to proceed with executions after 18 years of failure. Mr. Ricketts boldly proclaimed he had "purchased the drugs that are necessary to carry out the death penalty in Nebraska in the near future." He also insisted the state's inability to get the drugs before he came to office was a "management issue," blaming prior administrations. The governor, brand new to holding a public office, insisted he was the executive who could finally carry out death sentences. Predictably, details of the purchase of the drugs were sketchy. The state paid $54,000 for 1,000 units - to be delivered at a later date - from a company based in India called Harris Pharma. It happened to be the exact same unauthorized supplier the previous Nebraska governor had tried to use in 2011. As Mr. Ricketts continues to wait 5 months later for delivery of the drugs he paid for, it has now come to light that the operator of Harris Pharma, who cashed that $54,000 state check, has no pharmaceutical background. Further, the company apparently has no manufacturing capabilities, and it may have lied about how it acquired the drugs. The origin of the drugs is vital to determine quality and avoid botched executions from tainted sodium thiopental. By any measure, Nebraska's death penalty adventure under Pete Ricketts is a fiasco. Despite the governor's grand attempt to resume executions, his Republican brethren voted to end the state's failed death penalty and they did it based on rock-solid conservative principles of limited government, fiscal conservatism and a respect for life. When the thoughtful lawmakers overrode Mr. Ricketts' veto, the petulant rookie governor pitched a fit. What's evident to even casual observers is that even if his coveted death penalty drugs were to make it to Nebraska, they would merely become the focus of extended and costly litigation, wasting more time and tax dollars. A government that buys drugs from an illegal source and then attempts to skirt the law is not the type of government that can be trusted to have the power to take a life; not when the rule of law is so easily ignored to try and achieve a particular goal. Government in America is supposed to be transparent and our leaders are expected to follow the law, not act like someone in a back alley trying to make a shady drug deal. (source: Washington Times) CALIFORNIA: California proposes new single-drug method for executions California unveiled a new method for executing condemned prisoners Friday, proposing a single-drug lethal injection protocol that could restart capital punishment after a 10-year hiatus. The proposal came as a result of a lawsuit filed against the state by crime victims. A settlement of the suit, brought by the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, required the state to devise a lethal injection method by this month. Executions are not likely to resume immediately, however. Public vetting could take a year, and court challenges may follow. Voters next year also may see one or more ballot measures on the death penalty. The single-drug protocol proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown's administration would replace the former 3-chemical method, struck down by a federal judge in 2006 who said it could cause inhumane suffering if one of the drugs failed to work. The new protocol would require the injection drug to be selected on a "case-by-case basis, taking into account changing factors such as the availability of a supply of chemical." The state would have the option of using 1 of 4 barbiturates: amobarbital, pentobarbital, secobarbital and thiopental. Pro-death penalty forces had called for a single-drug protocol and saw the ability to substitute 1 drug for another as a bonus. Difficulty in obtaining drugs has led to the postponement of executions in other states. The barbiturate is to be administered in a 7.5-gram dose, via 5 syringes, through an intravenous line. As in the past, if the 1st course of the drug does not kill the inmate within 10 minutes, a second course would begin. The inmate's heart would be monitored by an electrocardiograph to determine death. The proposed regulation allows for the warden to order as many as 4 rounds of drug infusions, delivered over 40 minutes. Only if an inmate is alive after that would the execution be stopped and medical assistance summoned. As in the past, inmates may choose death by lethal gas instead of injection. The proposed regulation estimates the cost of a single execution to be just under $187,000, with more than $97,000 of that expected to go to crowd control outside San Quentin State Prison, where executions take place. The proposed protocol creates "a better flexibility, a better system of options," said Michael Rushford, who heads the foundation that filed the suit. Rushford said the state's chosen path will delay implementation by a year or longer, and his group seeks to challenge that. He blamed Brown and Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris, who personally oppose the death penalty but have said they would enforce it, for the delays. "If we had a different governor and a different attorney general, these wouldn't be problems," Rushford said. More than 30 states and the federal government use lethal injection as their primary method of carrying out executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a group that has been critical of the way capital punishment has been administered. 8 states have used a single-drug method for executions, while 6 others have announced plans to do so. At least 16 death row inmates in California have exhausted their appeals and could be executed if the protocol is finally adopted. The inmates range in age from 49 to 78. One was condemned for crimes that took place 36 years ago. Some death row inmates were stoic when told about the impending arrival of a new execution protocol. "In the meantime, I have my life," Clifton Perry, 46, sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of a convenience store owner during a robbery, said in a recent interview. With legal challenges to the new policy highly likely, he said, the bigger problem for him was continuing to find meaning in his current life. The state has not executed anyone since 2006, when the federal judge found California's procedures violated the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation proposed another method and remodeled its execution chamber, but a state appeals court said California had violated an administrative procedures law by failing to vet the new protocol properly. The state agency refused to immediately identify those who helped develop the new policy, seeking more time to respond to a request under California???s public records law. California has 749 inmates on death row, the most in the country. Since 1978, the state has executed 13 inmates, 66 have died from natural causes and 24 have committed suicide. California currently condemns to death an average of 2 people a month. As a result, the mammoth building at San Quentin set aside for condemned men is at capacity and the state is funding an expansion of other parts of the prison. The state's voters narrowly defeated a ballot measure in 2012 that would have abolished the death penalty. 8 states have rescinded capital punishment laws since 2000. Death penalty opponents have proposed an initiative for the November 2016 ballot that would replace capital punishment with life without the possibility of parole. Legislative analysts this week said it would save California some $150 million a year, by reducing the costs of murder trials and death penalty appeals. A competing measure, sponsored by law enforcement and victim groups, also will be circulated for signatures. That measure would propose changes to speed up executions. Executions around the country have declined in recent years as prisons have been unable to obtain lethal injection drugs. Manufacturers, pressed by death penalty opponents, have refused to sell the anesthetics to prisons. Compounding pharmacies are an alternative, but even they would be vulnerable to boycotts if their identities were disclosed. They also could have trouble procuring the necessary chemicals to make the drugs. The corrections department will take public comment on the proposed execution method until Jan. 22, 2016. It plans to hold a 5-hour hearing that day in Sacramento as well. (source: Los Angeles Times) ********************** Death penalty to resume, officials propose plan to use 1 drug in executions California proposed Friday to allow corrections officials to choose 1 of 4 types of barbiturates to execute prisoners on death row depending on what's available, as states deal with a nationwide shortage of execution drugs. The single drug would replace the series of 3 drugs that were last used when Clarence Ray Allen was executed in 2006, strapped to a gurney in what once was the gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison. 8 states already have used a single anesthetic drug for executions, and 5 others have announced plans to switch to the method, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. "What it gets us closer to is litigation over the protocol," the center's executive director, Robert Dunham, said of the proposed regulations. "No matter what drug or drug combination California proposes, there are going to be substantial issues both as to the constitutionality of the drug and the availability of the drug." Executions in California stalled in 2006 when a federal judge ordered an overhaul of the state's lethal injection procedures and said California could resume executions if it began using a single drug. A Marin County judge invalidated the state's subsequent attempt at drafting regulations in 2011, saying the state failed to explain why it chose the 3-drug process over the 1-drug method. That led Gov. Jerry Brown to say in 2012 that California would consider a single-drug lethal injection. However, the process lagged for 3 years in part because of a nationwide shortage of execution drugs, officials said. The process was jump-started this year after a judge sided with the Sacramento-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which sued on behalf of relatives of murder victims who said they are affected by the long delay in executions. The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation agreed to propose the new regulations to settle the lawsuit. "I'm very pleased that we have started this ball rolling. Resumption of executions in California is at least a foreseeable possibility now," said Kent Scheidegger, the foundation's legal director. The 1-drug proposal now faces a 62-day public comment period. (source: Orange County Register) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Nov 6 14:28:56 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2015 14:28:56 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 6 EGYPT: Exiled Morsi aide takes on Egypt diplomat over mass death sentences An Egyptian political activist sentenced to death clashed with a member of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's delegation to London on Thursday during a televised talk show. Sondos Asem, former international media co-ordinator for ousted former president Mohammed Morsi, is the most high-profile woman to be handed down the death penalty in Egypt since 2013. An Egyptian court in May sentenced her to death in absentia for allegedly committing espionage by conspiring with Palestinian movement Hamas as well as the UK, the US, Iran and Hezbollah. During a conversation on the BBC's Newsnight programme, Asem discussed the current situation in Egypt, from where she is exiled, with Mohamed el-Orabi, a Mubarak-era diplomat who accompanied President Sisi on his controversial trip to the UK this week. "I've never found myself in a situation before where one guest has been sentenced to death under a regime of which another studio guest is a member," the show's host, James O'Brien, said. Orabi told O'Brien that "everyone" the Egyptian delegation had met in the House of Commons and the House of Lords had praised the country's progress towards stability. Asked if he was comfortable with the death sentence handed down against Asem, Orabi replied "of course not. She is Egyptian." "If she comes back she will face a fair trial ... [But] I do not know her case." Writing in a column for Middle East Eye this week, Asem highlighted findings by monitors like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that the mass trial in which she was sentenced was "deeply flawed" and politically motivated. "In Egypt, many of my friends and former co-workers are facing the threat of being executed for crimes they have not committed," she wrote. "Most of them are held in solitary confinement, and some have already worn the red uniform designated for those on death row and are subjected to forms of psychological and physical torture that no human should endure." During Thursday night's talk show, Asem questioned Orabi about the "over 1,000 people who have also been handed down the death penalty since the coup in a matter of hours without a single piece of evidence". "We will not discuss that now...We will not indulge in this," Orabi replied. (source: middleeasteye.net) ************** MPs urge Cameron to raise human rights and death penalty with Sisi MPs today urged David Cameron to raise human rights and Egypt's use of the death penalty with President Sisi, including the case of Ibrahim Halawa, an Irish teenager facing a potential death sentence in a mass trial. Speaking to BBC Radio 4 in an interview broadcast this morning, Ibrahim's sister Somaia said that her mother had had a distressing visit to Ibrahim on Tuesday at Wadi Natrun prison, where he has said he suffers regular beatings. Somaia said: "She's a mother - she can't hold her tears when she sees her son in this situation. He kept telling her, please Mama don't cry, because if you do I will cry too." Ibrahim, who was 17 when he was arrested during the Egyptian military's breakup of protests, is facing a potential death sentence in a mass trial of 494 people that has been frequently postponed over the past 2 years. During that time, he has faced torture in prison. His family have written to David Cameron, calling on him to raise Ibrahim's case during the Egyptian President's visit today. Somaia also spoke of the poor trial conditions, saying that Ibrahim had been beaten and tortured as punishment for demanding a fair trial during at least 1 hearing. He had been beaten with metal chains by prison authorities, she said, for no reason other than that he is 'foreign'. "Let's not forget that he is facing the death penalty [...] just for peacefully protesting", she added. The Halawas are trying to "keep strong", she said, adding that they were "very hopeful" that Mr Cameron would intervene with President Sisi. The interview came as MPs raised concerns in Parliament about abuses in Egypt, including Ibrahim's case. This morning, an urgent question tabled by Tom Brake MP asked if the Prime Minister would raise the case. In response, Foreign Office minister Tobias Ellwood confirmed that British officials had raised it with Egypt "this summer". However, he stopped short of confirming that Mr Cameron would press the case during his meeting with Mr Sisi, saying only that "many matters" relating to human rights would be discussed. Other MPs, including Foreign Affairs Committee chair Crispin Blunt MP, raised concerns about the timing of Mr Sisi's visit, amid widespread reports of torture and political repression in Egypt. Human rights organization Reprieve, which is assisting Ibrahim, has urged the Prime Minister to raise Ibrahim's case during Sisi's visit. Commenting, Maya Foa, head of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said: "Ibrahim and his family have been through a heartbreaking ordeal since he was swept up in Sisi's brutal crackdown on dissent. Despite having been just a child when he was arrested for the 'crime' of attending a protest, Ibrahim is facing a death sentence in a manifestly unfair mass trial of 494 people. Cameron must make clear to Sisi that the UK rejects these terrible abuses - the Prime Minister must demand Ibrahim's release, and urge Sisi to end his wave of repression." (source: reprieve.org.uk) IRAN: IMMINENT EXECUTION OF 25-YEAR-OLD IRANIAN MAN A 25-year-old Iranian man, Alireza Shahi, is at imminent risk of execution after he was convicted and sentenced to death for the charge of murder. Amnesty International has concerns about the fairness of the trial that led to Alireza Shahi?s conviction. Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format, including case information, addresses and sample messages. Alireza Shahi is scheduled to be executed on 11 November. He was transferred to solitary confinement in preparation for execution, in Raja?i Shahr Prison in Karaj, near Tehran, on 1 November. His execution had initially been scheduled for 4 November, but was postponed on 2 November, when his family were given seven days to obtain the pardon of the family of the deceased man. He has since been returned to the prison?s general ward. Alireza Shahi was sentenced to death on 23 June 2012 under the Islamic principle of qesas (retribution-in-kind) for involvement in a fatal stabbing which took place during a fight among several young men in December 2008 when he was 18 years old. There are concerns about his treatment and the fairness of the proceedings that led to his conviction. Following his arrest, Alireza Shahi was held in detention for over two weeks without access to a lawyer or his family and was allegedly tortured or otherwise ill-treated. According to the court documents, it was during the primary investigation that Alireza Shahi admitted to stabbing the man, but he later attributed the guilt to another man involved in the fight, who was also accused of stabbing the victim. He had only one hearing, before Branch 71 of the Criminal Court in Tehran. His death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court in May 2013. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Alireza Shahi was taken to a hospital after the fight, on 8 December 2008, with a stab wound received during the fight. He was arrested on the same day and taken to a police station (agahi). Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format. Name: Alireza Shahi Gender m/f: m UA: 254/15 Index: MDE 13/2830/2015 Issue Date: 6 November 2015 Please let us know if you took action so that we can track our impact! EITHER send a short email to uan at aiusa.org with ?UA 254/15? in the subject line, and include in the body of the email the number of letters and/or emails you sent, OR fill out this short online form to let us know how you took action. Thank you for taking action! Please check with the AIUSA Urgent Action Office if taking action after the appeals date. If you receive a response from a government official, please forward it to us at uan at aiusa.org or to the Urgent Action Office address below. HOW YOU CAN HELP Please write immediately in Persian, English, Arabic, Spanish, French or your own language: * Calling on the Iranian authorities to halt Alireza Shahi?s execution immediately and to commute his death sentence; * Calling on them to investigate the allegations that Alireza Shahi was tortured or otherwise ill-treated and reminding them that statements obtained through torture, ill-treatment or coercion must be excluded as evidence in criminal proceedings. PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 18 DECEMBER 2015 TO: Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ayatollah Sayed ?Ali Khamenei The office of the Supreme Leader Islamic Republic Street ? End of Shahid Keshvar Doust Street Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran Email: (via website) http://www.leader.ir/langs/en/index.php? p=letter Twitter: @khamenei_ir (English), @Khamenei_ar (Arabic), @Khamenei_es (Spanish). Salutation: Your Excellency And copies to: President of the Islamic Republic Iran Hassan Rouhani The Presidency Pasteur Street, Pasteur Square Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran Twitter: @HassanRouhani (English), @Rouhani_ir (Persian) Head of the Judiciary Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani c/o Public Relations Office Number 4, Deadend of 1 Azizi Above Pasteur Intersection Vali Asr Street Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran Email: info at humanrights-iran.ir Salutation: Your Excellency Also send copies to: Iran does not presently have an embassy in the United States. Instead, please send copies to: Iranian Interests Section 2209 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington DC 20007 Phone: 202 965 4990 ?I ?Fax: 202 965 1073 ?I ?Email: info at daftar.org Please share widely with your networks: http://bit.ly/1MCQmZ3 We encourage you to share Urgent Actions with your friends and colleagues! When you share with your networks, instead of forwarding the original email, please use the "Forward this email to a friend" link found at the very bottom of this email. Thank you for your activism! UA Network Office AIUSA ?600 Pennsylvania Ave SE, Washington DC 20003 T. 202.509.8193 ? F. 202.509.8193 ?E. uan at aiusa.org ?amnestyusa.org/urgent From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Nov 7 08:16:10 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2015 08:16:10 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., OKLA., ARIZ., CALIF., USA Message-ID: Nov. 7 TEXAS: State To Seek Death Penalty In Shotgun-Slaying Of Local Woman McLennan County prosecutors announced late Friday afternoon that they'll seek the death penalty against James Ray Brossett, 48, of Arlington, who was indicted last month for capital murder and attempted capital murder in connection with an early-morning shooting on July 6 in a home in the China Spring area outside of Waco that left a woman dead and her 18-year-old son injured. Prosecutors made the announcement during a late-afternoon hearing in 54th State District Court during which Brossett pleaded not guilty to capital murder and attempted capital murder charges. His request for a bond reduction from $5 million to $500,000 was denied. Laura Lynn Easter Patschke, 48, was shot several times at close range with a shotgun. Her son was shot in the arm after he heard "the sound of someone forcing entry into the house," grabbed a gun and went to his mother's bedroom "where he was confronted by a subject shining a flashlight in his eyes," an arrest warrant affidavit said. The teenager, who told investigators he recognized Brossett's voice, ran out of the house after he was shot and heard several more shots from inside the home while he was running, the affidavit said. He said he recognized the voice because Brossett "had recently been involved in a dating relationship with his mother." Patschke was shot several times at close range with a 12-gauge shotgun loaded with large 000 buckshot rounds, the affidavit said. Investigators found 12-gauge shotgun shell casings around her body, the affidavit said, but later said just five were recovered. 2 other children, a 13-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy, were inside the home when the shooting happened but neither of them was injured. Patschke was a global deployment, engagement and improvement manager at Shell Oil Company where she had worked almost continuously since 1992, according to her profile on LinkedIn. She was a graduate of Lorena High School and Texas A&M University, which she attended on a track scholarship, earning degrees in safety and industrial engineering. Authorities say Brossett parked his pickup truck a mile or more from the home and made his way through a wooded area along a trail that led to the rear of the house. After the shooting, authorities say, he stole a car that Patschke had rented and fled, driving back to where the pickup was parked. The rental car was found abandoned in a ditch along State Highway 6. Authorities were searching for Brossett at the time of the shooting and had urged Patschke, to leave her home several days before she was killed, McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara said in an interview after the incident. Patschke, however, said she wouldn't leave the house, he said. McLennan County deputies, police in Arlington and the U.S. Marshal's North Texas Fugitive Task Force were all actively looking for Brossett as early as July 3 after the sheriff's office obtained warrants for him on stalking and violation of bond charges, McNamara said. Documents show that Brossett was arrested on a warrant charging harassment on June 30, posted bond and was released. 2 days later Patschke told an investigator that "she was in fear for her safety" after receiving more than 200 texts on July 1 from Brossett that indicated he was coming to her home, and additional texts and more than 10 phone calls from him on July 2. Warrants were issued for violation of bond/protective order and stalking, and those were still active at the time of the shooting. One of the affidavits issued in the case shows Patschke had made a complaint about an assault in which she named Brossett as the attacker, but that case remained under investigation and no warrant had been issued, McNamara said. (source: KWTX news) ************* Judge denies bail in Crawford murder case, DA to seek death penalty Judge Matt Johnson of Waco's 54th State District Court denied a request from James Ray Brossett to lower his $5 million bond after Reyna recounted Brossett's extensive criminal past and his obsession with Laura Patschke that eventually led to her death. The stocky Brossett, 48, a former bodybuilder, wore black-and-white jail garb to the brief hearing. He pleaded not guilty to capital murder and attempted capital murder charges, although Reyna told the court that Brossett has confessed to the crimes. Brossett was free at the time of Patschke's death on 2 bonds related to stalking and violating a protective order involving Patschke. He also is charged with shooting Patschke's 18-year-old son, Trevor, in the arm during the early-morning incident at their home. Reyna told the court it was no accident that Brossett drove from Arlington to Crawford that Sunday night or early Monday morning when Trevor and his younger brother and sister had just returned to their mother's home from a holiday visit with their father. Brossett intended to kill the whole family, Reyna said. Reyna said Brossett, a stone mason, parked his truck about a mile away from Patschke's home on Bosque Ridge Boulevard and walked through the woods. He got lost along the way and it took him more than 2 hours to reach Patschke's house, Reyna said. Knowing of Brossett's violent tendencies toward women and their mother, Patschke's sons slept with loaded weapons near their beds, Reyna said. Brossett kicked open a door and went to Patschke's bedroom and fired a shot at her. The boys came running from their rooms with guns, and Brossett shot Trevor in the arm, Reyna said. As their sister hid in her room, the boys fled the house. Brossett then returned and fired 2 more shots at Patschke, striking the 48-year-old at close range with his .12-gauge shotgun, he said. Brossett, who had taped a flashlight onto his shotgun barrel, then went outside to look for the children to "finish what he had started," the district attorney said. He later found the keys to Patschke's car and drove it to the Fort Worth area, where authorities arrested him. In arguing against the bond reduction, Reyna told the judge that Brossett was free on two bonds when he allegedly committed the murder. Reyna said Brossett sent Patschke more than 200 harassing text messages on the day he was freed from jail the last time. Brossett served 3 years in prison after pleading guilty to assault family violence with bodily injury in 2003 and has a 1997 conviction for violating a protective order. He has 3 other arrests relating to violence against women dating back to 1987, prosecutor Michael Jarrett said. Waco attorney Walter M. Reaves Jr., who represents Brossett with Michelle Tuegel, asked the court to set Brossett's bond at $500,000. Johnson said he will set a status hearing in the case for January. No trial date has been set. (source: Waco Tribune) *************** Juror talks about Gonzalez trial, death penalty decision 1 of 12 jurors in a high profile Bexar County murder trial is giving us an exclusive look into what happened behind the deliberation doors. "It was an obligation we had as citizens," said Tammy Cheatham. "And I think everybody in that room took it very seriously." Cheatham is 1 of 12 jurors in the 1st death penalty conviction for Bexar County in 6 years. Mark Anthony Gonzalez found guilty of murdering Sheriff Sergent Kenneth Vann back in 2011. He was found guilty and a jury sentenced him to death last month. Cheatham said she never expected to be seated on the jury since the mother and wife is also a crime fiction writer. "I knew the very first day there that it must be something big," she said. "Based on the number of jurors in the room." But she was selected, and it was only then that the weight of the jury's task at hand was fully realized. "It's very hard to think you could potentially have someone's ability to live or die in your hands," she said. The state presented their evidence flawlessly, in her opinion, and she wishes more citizens had the chance to see the prosecutor's tireless efforts in action. It took Cheatham and the other 11 just 1 hour to decide guilt. "You just don't know why he did what he did," she said. "But I have no doubt that he did it." The sentencing portion was more exhausting. 1 week later and during deliberations 3 jurors could not determine whether Gonzalez was a threat to society. "I was 1 of those 3 people," she said. The other jurors were able to convince her and she said video of a violent courthouse outburst by Gonzalez helped. 19 hours later and they determined life in prison was not enough. "I can't say I don't still think about it," she said. "Because I do." Going back to her normal life, writing about gruesome crime scenes, she said she never imagined the reality could be so much worse. "Those photos were horrific," she said. "And I don't wish anyone to have to see something like that." (source: foxsanantonio.com) *************** Execution date set for Adam Ward An execution date has been scheduled for a Commerce man, convicted of capital murder for the killing of one of the city's code enforcement officers 10 years ago. Adam Kelly Ward is set to die on the evening of March 22, 2016. Judge Richard A. Beacom scheduled the date during a Monday afternoon hearing in the 354th District Court. Hunt County Sheriff Randy Meeks delivered Ward's death warrant to the Texas Department of Corrections Tuesday, as the death warrant has to be hand-delivered to the agency's director by the sheriff of the county in which the conviction occurred. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of Ward's 2007 conviction and sentence to death by lethal injection for the 2005 death of Michael "Pee Wee" Walker. In January the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also rejected Ward's formal appeal. Ward's attorneys had argued Ward's trial counsel was deficient. The court also denied a writ of habeas corpus filed in Ward's behalf last year. In the writ, Ward contended his conviction and death penalty sentence were unconstitutional because he received ineffective assistance of trial counsel, was not tried by an impartial jury, and is severely mentally ill. The court reviewed the case and in a 63-page opinion denied the writ in a unanimous ruling, also noting Ward failed to make a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right. Ward's defense counsel then filed the formal appeal with the court. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, in February 2010 ruling, also denied an appeal raised by Ward. Walker was working as a code enforcement officer for the City of Commerce and shortly after 10 a.m. on June 13, 2005 he was taking photos of alleged code violations at the home where Ward lived on Caddo Street. The 2 engaged in a verbal altercation, which ended when Ward shot Walker as many as 9 times with a .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol. (source: Commerce Journal) PENNSYLVANIA: DA: Death penalty on the table for suspect in 1984 rape, murder of Bensalem girl A 55-year-old Florida man could face the death penalty if convicted of the 1984 rape and murder of a 14-year-old Bensalem girl due to the severity of the crime, according to Bucks County prosecutors. The Bucks County District Attorney's Office could seek the death penalty for George Shaw Jr., a former Bensalem resident who is accused of raping and murdering Barbara Rowan, said Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Schorn. Her statement came after Shaw's preliminary hearing was continued Friday so he could obtain a lawyer. The next hearing is set for Dec. 4 in front of Bensalem District Judge Joseph Falcone. Schorn did not say how likely a death penalty push would be, saying only that it was "not off the table." During Friday's court appearance, Shaw told Falcone that his family in Montgomery County had recently liquidated his assets to hire a private attorney. He said he would likely choose between defense attorneys Louis Busico, of Newtown, or Robert Mancini, of Doylestown. But Schorn said the DA's office would likely seek Busico's removal if hired due to a potential conflict of interest. Blake Jackman, a defense attorney at Busico's firm, previously worked on the Rowan case while serving as a Bucks County ADA, she said. In a move that is usually reserved for the trial, Schorn told Falcone that the prosecution would agree to disclose some evidence to the defense before Shaw's December preliminary hearing. The evidence includes witnesses the prosecution interviewed more than 30 years after the crime, Schorn said following the hearing. Shaw is facing charges of criminal homicide, two counts of rape and possession of an instrument of crime. He is in Bucks County prison without bail. Shaw's alleged accomplice, Robert Sanders, 51, of Stroudsburg, will stand trial in Bucks County court. He waived his right to a preliminary hearing Friday in front of Falcone in Bensalem. Sanders, formerly of Hatboro, is charged with 2 felony counts of hindering apprehension for allegedly helping Shaw dispose of Barbara's body. He is in the county prison on 10 % of $5 million bail and is prohibited from having contact with anyone involved in the case, prosecutors said. During the hour-long hearing for both men, a small group of Barbara's family, including her mother, Patricia Rowan, sat quietly in the front row of the courtroom. They left the without commenting after the men were taken back to prison. New leads were developed in the investigation in recent years before the 2 suspects were arrested Oct. 2. Police said Sanders was ready to implicate Shaw in the decades-old murder after appearing before a Bucks County grand jury. (source: Bucks County Courier Times) FLORIDA----death row inmate dies Notorious Hernando killer dies while on death row John William Kalisz, one of Hernando County's most notorious killers, died Tuesday while on death row at Florida State Prison. He was 61. Kalisz fatally shot 3 people in 2010, including Donovan's mother and a Dixie County sheriff's captain. He wounded Donovan, causing her to lose the fetus she was carrying. "I don't feel like justice was served, him only being in there for 5 years," she said Friday. "I don't know if it would have given me any satisfaction to see him put to death, but this doesn't feel like good closure." In a statement Friday, the Florida Department of Corrections said its Office of Inspector General is investigating, which is standard whether an inmate dies from natural causes or suspected foul play. The medical examiner will determine the cause of death. No other information was released, but Kalisz's sister, Becky Berarducci, said her brother died of natural causes and was in a hospital at the time of his death. She declined further comment. On Jan. 14, 2010, Kalisz walked into his sister Kathryn "Kitty" Donovan's home on Wilhelm Road west of Brooksville and opened fire with a 9-mm pistol. He killed Kitty and her office manager, Deborah Tillotson, and wounded Manessa and Amy Green, an employee at Kitty's home-based business. Afterward, Kalisz fled north in his van to Cross City. When Dixie County deputies confronted him, he shot Capt. Chad Reed in the mouth. Deputies returned fire, hitting Kalisz at least 6 times. Reed, a married father of 2 boys, later died. Kalisz was convicted of his murder in 2011 and received a life sentence. In 2012, it took a jury about 90 minutes to convict the former roofer for the Brooksville murders and an hour to unanimously recommend the death penalty. After the shootings, Kalisz told investigators that his niece and her mother were liars, and that he had intended to erase his sister's bloodline. Months earlier, Kalisz had exposed himself and masturbated in front of Manessa, then 17, in his sister's home. He was also accused of giving her nude photos and threatening her boyfriend with a knife. He was convicted in 2009 of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He got 6 years of probation. He told friends the accusations and conviction ruined him. Days before the murders, Kalisz lost what little he had when his mobile home burned down. The recovering alcoholic began drinking again. Kalisz's public defenders sought a 2nd-degree murder conviction, arguing that Kalisz was blinded by his need for revenge. Then they asked for a life sentence, citing his difficult childhood, years spent helping other addicts and troubled mental state, among other reasons. The Florida Supreme Court later denied Kalisz's direct appeal. At the time of his death, attorneys with the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel in Tampa were preparing another round of motions, Assistant Public Defender Devon Sharkey said Friday. "I think it's better for all concerned that he met his death sooner as opposed to later, especially for the victims' families that his violent actions traumatized and continues to traumatize," said Assistant State Attorney Pete Magrino, who prosecuted Kalisz's capital case. For Manessa Donovan, now 24, the episode remains fresh, but she's moving on. She's engaged now and the proud mother of 6 dogs and 2 horses. "One thing he said was he wanted to ruin my life like we ruined his," she said. "He never accomplished that." (source: Tampa Bay Times) OKLAHOMA: Journey to Justice: The death penalty in Oklahoma There's been no shortage of drama surrounding executions in Oklahoma this year. A drug mix-up, a slew of lawsuits and a high profile case have put our state once again in the national spotlight. Right now, all executions are on hold while the attorney general's office investigates one of its own agencies - the Department of Corrections. NewsChannel 4's Abby Broyles reports on the death penalty in Oklahoma. On October 15, 1979, a crime left deep scars on 2 young children from Okarche. At the Douglass family farmhouse off Highway 3, 2 drifters terrorized mom, dad, son and daughter for hours. Back then, Brooks Douglass was just 16 years old. ???I heard the front door open up, and I looked around and saw Steven Hatch standing inside the doorway with a double barrel shotgun," Brooks said. "Then, when I turned back around to Ake, he was pulling a 357 magnum out of his boot and pointed it right in my face." The intruders showed no mercy. Hatch and Glen Ake hogtied Brooks and his parents. They took his younger sister, Leslie, around the house to grab the family's valuables. They yanked out every phone in the house and even ate the family's dinner. Then, the real torture began. Ake took 12-year-old Leslie to a bedroom and raped her. Next, it was Hatch's turn. "We could hear her just sobbing from down the hallway," Brooks said. "Of course, my mom - her head was right next to mine, and she was just crying." The nightmare went on for hours before Ake shot each member of the Douglass family. Miraculously, Brooks and Leslie survived. Their parents' killers were captured about a month later. The district attorney sought the death penalty. It was the beginning of a long, emotional road for the Douglass kids. "Most of the time, you're looking at 10-20 years of your life and, in some cases, longer than that are going to be taken up by this whole gauntlet of appeals that you're going through," Brooks said. "You could be called back at any time to relive everything that happened." Brooks and Leslie had to relive that terrible night too often, testifying 9 times over 17 years through multiple trials and appeals. Emotionally, their lives would intertwine with the 2 cold blooded killers for decades. "I remember nightmares of things that he said very clearly in my head," Leslie said. Only 1 of the killers was executed. Ake got his conviction overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. He had originally pleaded insanity, but an Oklahoma court wouldn't let him take a psychiatric evaluation to prove it. So, he got another trial, and this time was sentenced to life in prison. "I found out the hard way that victims' rights really didn't exist," Brooks said. "In my heart, I felt like something had to change." Brooks became a state senator and spear-headed a bill that allowed victims' families to witness executions. Some families choose to go, and some don't. In recent months, controversy surrounding the death penalty and last-minute stays have crushed the possibility of closure for the family of Barry Van Treese. His killer, Richard Glossip, has been spared his life 4 times - most recently, when the Department of Corrections got the wrong execution drug. Some legal experts said the Glossip case is reason to take another look at the death penalty in our state. Is it used too often? Is it worth all the expenses surrounding appeals? Is there a chance we could execute an innocent person? "If I'd been the DA at the time, I wouldn't have filed the death penalty on it, because I don't think it's solid enough in retrospect to be sure beyond any doubt," said legal analyst Andy Coats. "I'm not sure anyone can look at the Glossip case and not have a fragment of doubt." Coats, former DA and dean of OU Law School, is for the death penalty but has concerns over how often it's used. "There have been so many cases in recent times that have made all of us uncomfortable with the death penalty, because there are so many people that have been charged with the death penalty and turned out they didn't commit the crime," Coats said. Former DA and attorney general, Mike Turpen, has also sent offenders to death row. Now, he wants the death penalty abolished in Oklahoma. "The implementation of the death penalty in Oklahoma or anywhere else frankly, it puts too much pressure on the system," Turpen said. "We can't get it right. You can't get it right legally. You can't get it right logistically, and all that is so unfair to the victims' families." It's a fact: Sometimes, juries get it wrong. 12 men have been freed from Oklahoma's death row after their cases fell apart. But, more than 100 offenders have been executed at the state pen in McAlester, including Hatch. He was put to death for the murders of Brooks' parents, Richard and Marilyn Douglass. Leslie and her brother watched it happen. "It was strange, because I was watching what was happening in the room and, at the same time, it was like I was re-watching that night that my parents were murdered," Brooks said. Brooks and Leslie said witnessing Hatch's execution was an important part of their healing process. "I knew I was never going to have to go back and testify again, that it was completely over," Brooks said. "I think there's such an emotional sigh of relief. For us, it was 17 years." It's been nearly 20 years since Hatch was executed. Opinions on the death penalty have changed. Of course, executions in our state are on hold right now. Some legal experts think one day the death penalty may even become an antiquated form of punishment in Oklahoma. "We're one of the last countries in the world that has the death penalty for these kinds of crimes," Coats said. "I think there will be a 'rethink' of the death penalty - Do we want to do that? I think the tendency will be to slow it down." Right now, 49 offenders live on Oklahoma's death row. They'll all stay there until at least spring of next year while the state attorney general investigates Oklahoma's past 2 executions. (source: KFOR news) ARIZONA: Arizona man gets life in prison for killing nephew, 6 A jury sentenced an Arizona man to life in prison Friday for killing his 6-year-old nephew after the child witnessed his father's shooting death. The decision spared Christopher Rey Licon the death penalty and leaves a judge to decide whether he will spend the rest of his life in prison or be eligible for release after 35 years. Jurors deliberated for 2 days before reaching the decision on punishment. Licon was convicted in mid-September in the 2010 shooting deaths of his half brother, Angel Jaquez, and his nephew, Xavier Jaquez. He does not face the death penalty in his brother's killing and will be sentenced to 16 to 25 years on Dec. 16. Authorities say Licon shot his brother in the back of the head over a drug dispute as Jaquez watched TV at their Phoenix town house, then kidnapped the child and shot him 20 miles away in an alley. Licon was accused of killing his nephew out of fear that the child would snitch on him because the boy heard or saw his father die. The boy, surrounded by a pool of blood, was still wearing his school uniform and had a Burger King kid's meal nearby when his body was found by sanitation workers. He also was shot in the back of the head. Licon mounted an unsuccessful insanity defense that would have spared him a prison sentence and sent him to the state mental hospital for the rest of his life. Licon's lawyer said his client was in the throes of a psychotic episode on the day of the deaths. A prosecutor argued that Licon was well-aware of his actions when he carried out the killings and took steps to protect himself, such as breaking into an apartment to stash the handgun used in the crimes. A neighbor witnessed Licon dragging his nephew into a car that would be used to bring the child to the alley where he was killed, authorities said. Licon was in an illegal drug business with Jaquez and acknowledged selling drugs in the months before both deaths, prosecutors said. Licon, then a construction management student at Arizona State University, told investigators that he was studying at a library in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe at the time his brother was killed. He said he came home to find his brother's body in the town house. But authorities say Licon's alibi collapsed quickly after they interviewed neighbors and gathered other evidence. 2 key pieces of evidence were found inside the car used to bring the boy to the alley: a 9 mm bullet casing that matched a casing found at Jaquez's home and a toy from the Burger King kid's meal. (source: Associated Press) CALIFORNIA: Judge sets 2017 trial in Ceres death penalty case A judge has scheduled a trial to start 15 months from now for Mark Edward Mesiti, who is accused of drugging his teenage daughter and sexually abusing her before killing the girl 9 years ago. The defendant is charged with murder in the death of 14-year-old Alycia Mesiti. He also is charged with more than 50 counts of sexual abuse of the teen and 2 other girls. The abuse of a 17-year-old girl and an 8-year-old girl is alleged to have occurred after Alycia Mesiti went missing in August 2006, according to filed court documents. Mark Mesiti, 47, has chosen to represent himself in court, which means he will have to make arguments, cross-examine prosecution witnesses and speak directly to a jury. Because the prosecution is seeking the death penalty, Mesiti will likely be assisted in court by an attorney. The court appoints 2 attorneys for indigent defendants in death penalty cases. Authorities on March 25, 2009, discovered Alycia Mesiti's body buried in the backyard of a home on Alexis Avenue in Ceres, where Mesiti's family lived when the teen disappeared in August 2006. The defendant had since moved to Southern California. Stanislaus Superior Court Judge Dawna Reeves earlier this week scheduled Mesiti's trial to begin Feb. 6, 2017. Reeves will preside over the case through the trial. Mesiti was scheduled to return to court Dec. 16 for a pretrial hearing. The murder case has been mired in numerous postponements, including several requests by Mesiti seeking new court-appointed defense attorneys. Prosecutors obtained a criminal grand jury indictment against Mesiti so the case would skip the preliminary hearing phase and move straight to trial. Nearly 2 years passed before Mesiti was arraigned on the indictment. The defendant remains in custody at the Stanislaus County jail. He is being held without bail. (source: modbee.com) ************* The Weekly Poll: Time for California to end the death penalty? The state of California proposed a new one-drug protocol Friday that could put it back in the business of executions. There are 749 convicts on death row at San Quentin State Prison, the most of any state in the U.S. California courts continue to condemn two death about two individuals a month. There are 16 inmates on death row who have exhausted their appeals and await execution. The last execution was in 2006. Shortly after that, a federal judge found the state's procedures amounted to "cruel and unusual punishment," banned by the Constitution. In the intervening years, the state has remodeled its death chamber, and made other adjustments to its execution policies. The single-drug protocol proposal, prompted by a lawsuit, is another step to resuming executions. Public vetting and legal challenges are expected to take at least a year. A ballot measure to end California's death penalty is heading for the 2016 ballot. Those opposed, who are angered by what they perceive as foot-dragging by the Brown administration in resuming executions, are gathering signatures for an opposing measure. to vote in poll, see: http://blog.sfgate.com/opinionshop/2015/11/06/the-weekly-poll-time-for-california-to-end-the-death-penalty/ (source: sfgate.com) USA: Why the death penalty needs to go On Friday night, South Carolina will host a Democratic presidential forum. And while the field of candidates may now be down to three, there are still many issues confronting this country that need to be discussed. These are critical issues that have not received the attention they deserve, but raise questions that go right to the heart of who we are as a people. It would, of course, be a glaring oversight to ignore the struggles South Carolina has faced over criminal justice reform -- challenges we as a country are all grappling with. However, there is a particular, fundamental flaw in our justice system that other candidates appear to lack the commitment to address -- our failed reliance on the death penalty. This is a tragedy both because it is a racially biased punishment, and also ineffective in deterring crime. Our nation was founded not on fear and retribution. It was born from higher things: freedom, justice, human dignity, and equal rights before the law. And so we must ask ourselves: Are these principles compatible with the "civil" taking of human life? Are these principles compatible with the very real risk of erroneously taking the life of an innocent neighbor? Can we credibly accept any criminal justice plan that does not commit to ending the death penalty for good? I believe the answer is clearly no. It is time that we, as a nation, abolish the death penalty for good. Our nation's legacy of slavery and racial injustice find continued offense in our use of the death penalty. Our death row population is more than 40% black -- nearly 3 times the proportion of the general population. Reforming our criminal justice system to save and redeem more lives is not as simple as changing just one thing. But we should be able to admit that we must do more of what works to save lives, and we should stop doing things that do not work. In study after study, in state after state, we see the same distressing pattern. The death penalty does not deter crime. It does not even save us money. In fact, the death penalty actually costs states more than a life sentence does, because of an endless appeals process that tears at the hearts of victims' surviving family members. The vast majority of executions on this planet take place in just a handful of countries: Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, North Korea, China and the United States of America. Our country does not belong in the company of these nations on matters of criminal justice and equal rights under the law. The longer we continue to support this expensive and failed policy, the more we fall short of our values as a people -- and the more money we waste that could be spent actually saving lives. My own personal and longstanding opposition to the death penalty is shaped by deep belief in the principles of our nation and by my faith. I don't agree with the official Church position on every public issue, but I believe that perpetuating the death penalty strikes at the heart of the nation we should aspire to be -- one that's more just. The reality, though, is that we will not abolish the death penalty in America by following polls. It requires leaders who are willing to call us forward based on the deepest principles we share as a nation. A policy that is as shameful and immoral as the death penalty is not about states' rights -- it is about human rights. Hillary Clinton's failed logic on this issue -- continuing to support the death penalty as a state right -- rings all too familiar to me. My advisers told me, as I took on the death penalty during my 1st year as governor in Maryland, that I was misguided. They encouraged me not to take up this cause, to instead focus on issues that poll better and are more popular. I didn't listen because my faith and my own experience taught me otherwise. As mayor of Baltimore, I understood that every minute and dollar spent on the death penalty could have been used to protect and redeem lives. As a prosecutor, I saw that the death penalty's racial legacy could not be excused or explained away -- and that too many innocent lives were being taken by this profoundly flawed practice. So I decided to fight for the death penalty's repeal. We didn't succeed the 1st time -- or the 2nd. But after 4 years of making our case to the people of Maryland, we finally banned the death penalty on our 3rd try. Now, in this election, our leaders should be honest with themselves -- and with voters. The death penalty is a failed and immoral policy. But while we can admit our mistake and work to become a more perfect nation, we need leaders who have the courage to act. We must repeal the death penalty under federal statutes, including the 1994 crime bill, and every candidate for president should say where they stand on this issue. The choice is really ours. We know what works. We know what does not work. And we know that the way forward is always found through greater respect for the human dignity of all. (source: Martin O'Malley, CNN) *************** 'Death Penalty For Gays' Literature At Right-Wing Conference Phillip Kayser is among the several speakers joining Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal at the National Religious Liberties Conference in Iowa this weekend, and as we've reported, he, along with the conference's chief organizer, Kevin Swanson, has called on the government to execute gay people. Kayser's views are so extreme that back in the 2012 election, Ron Paul's campaign tried to cover up his endorsement. However, it seems that in today's GOP, calling for the execution of gay people isn't beyond the pale. At the conference, where he is giving 2 speeches on how local officials and others can defy the Supreme Court's marriage equality decision, Kayser distributed the very pamphlet calling for the death penalty for gay people that caused a stir back when he endorsed Paul. In the pamphlet, "Is The Death Penalty Just?," Kayser unsurprisingly concludes that the death penalty is in fact just, and lists homosexuality among the offenses deserving of capital punishment. Ironically for a "religious liberties" summit, he also claims that the government should treat "breaking the Sabbath," "blasphemy and cursing God publicly," "publicly sacrificing to other gods" and "apostasy" as death penalty crimes as well. He writes that government officials are "subject to Biblical statutes and judgments," claiming that "Christians should advocate the full implementation of all God's civil penalties in every age.... Every Old Testament statue continues on the books, and without those statutes, we could not have a consistent ethnical standard." Even "pagan" nations are obliged to follow biblical law, he writes, as "God held gentile kings accountable to these civil laws." Kayser believes that the government should execute murderers, among whom he includes abortion providers: "What could be more pro-life than having the state pass laws establishing a certain date after which all doctors who continue to perform abortions will be executed? Certainly, a handful of doctors might be killed [pro-death for killers], but think of the millions of little lives that would be saved!" He writes that the death penalty should also apply to those who commit acts of blasphemy; apostasy; breaking the Sabbath; sorcery and witchcraft; kidnapping; rape; adultery; prostitution; bestiality; and of course, homosexuality. But don't worry, Kayser has good news for the gays who rather not be stoned to death or get "thrown off a cliff," methods he mentions as biblically approved ways to execute someone. While "these crimes are so heinous that they deserve death in God's eyes," he writes, with cases "of sexual sins, people who kept these things to themselves could not be prosecuted because it would require 2 or 3 witnesses (depending on judicial discretion), the pressing of charges by a victim-citizen, the exclusion of government from spying, sting operations, etc., and other checks and balances." Essentially, Kayser says that the government should put gay people to death, but only if they get caught. "Even after a society implemented Biblical law and made homosexuality a crime, execution would be rare," he explains, because "the civil government could not round them up." What a relief! "Only those who were prosecuted by citizen-victims could be punished, and the punishment could take a number of forms, analogous to the flexibility in dealing with adultery - which ranged all the way from forgiveness, to divorce, to death," he continues. "Some people characterize this as a victimless crime since homosexuals cannot get married. But there are plenty of circumstances (homosexual rape, homosexual incest, homosexual death threats against politicians, etc.) where victims might be motivated to bring charges." Kayser writes that "natural knowledge" endorses the view that homosexuality is "worthy of death." "It is not just the sinfulness of homosexuality that is known, but also the justice of the death penalty for homosexuality," he said. "The reason men have an innate sense of justice is because God's law reflects not only His holiness but also His justice and goodness (Rom. 7:12). Romans 13 says that magistrates are subject to all 3." And remember, this is the kind of literature being promoted at a "religious liberty" conference. (s=ource: Brian Tashman, rightwingwatch.org) ************************* Everyday religious questions: Does Christianity condone the death penalty? Q: I read in the Winston-Salem Journal that 72 % of North Carolinians approve of the death penalty. Please comment from the perspective of the Bible. Answer: I also read the article and was surprised by the high percentage. The practice of putting people to death for crimes goes back to the Hammurabi Code in the 18th century BC. The code was based on ancient retributive laws. It listed 25 crimes punishable by death. The first 5 books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch, are called the Books of Law. It is natural that the laws of that time period and culture would be included. One of the crimes about the Sabbath is discussed in Exodus 31:14, "You should keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people." Other capital crimes include homosexuality, disrespect to parents, and adultery. Most countries have eliminated the death penalty. It is still prevalent in Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, and America to name a few. Thirty-one states in the U.S. retain the death penalty; 19 states have abolished it. Supporters of the death penalty argue that it is a deterrent, but studies have shown this is not true. Another hard fact about the death penalty is that it is biased toward race and economic status. The poor and blacks are more likely to face death sentences and executions. Some people argue that it is less expensive to execute rather than to imprison for life, which is untrue. In North Carolina, the cost of trials, appeals, attorneys, judges, and actual execution is around $2.1 million per case. Since the introduction of DNA evidence in the mid-1970's, 150 people on death row have been proven innocent. It is ironic that over 80 % of the executions in America are carried out in the Bible Belt, including North Carolina. The death penalty is supported by the majority of Americans and by the Old Testament. It is a natural human response to want to punish those who commit horrific crimes. Society needs protection from those people who bring harm to others. For the safety of society, we have a judicial system to restrict criminals, and it can and should be done in a humane way. We must accept the fact that the Old Testament deals with retributive justice and that Jesus introduced the concept of living life with mercy and compassion and also warned not to judge unless sinless. When he and the disciples were confronted for gathering grain and breaking the capital law about not working on the Sabbath, He answered by saying "I desire mercy, not sacrifice," it says in Matthew 12:17. Jesus never spoke directly about the death penalty. Therefore, what can Christians learn by reading the New Testament? In John 8:1-12, we are given the story of a woman who had been accused of adultery being brought to Jesus. The scribes and Pharisees challenged Jesus, saying the law of Moses prescribed death. Jesus answered that anyone participating in her death should be sinless. Everyone departed, and Jesus did not condemn her but advised her "to go and sin no more." This passage is taken by some to say that Jesus did not agree with the death penalty. When we look to our churches for guidance, we find that the Roman Catholic Church opposes it except in extreme cases. Most major Protestant Churches oppose the death penalty. Again, we turn to Jesus and acknowledge that he was a victim of the death penalty. Even as a victim, He gave redemptive hope to the thief who was a victim of the death penalty. The death penalty is a denial of the Christian concepts of redemption and nonviolence. It is simply giving up on human beings and killing them. To do so is punitive not redemptive. Redemption is one of the core concepts of Christianity without which we all would be in trouble. Being a Christian means being a follower of Jesus not just in name but in actions. To follow Jesus means one must be nonviolent, merciful, and compassionate. For guidance, Christians need to read carefully Matthew 5:38-43. Based on the life and teachings of Christ, I do not think that capital punishment is right for Christians. (source: Column; Earl Crow taught religion and philosophy at High Point University----Winston-Salem (NC) Journal) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Nov 7 08:17:49 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2015 08:17:49 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 7 SINGAPORE: Murderer granted stay of execution on 11th-hour motion Yesterday, a 5-judge Court of Appeal allowed the 11th-hour motion to give his newly appointed lawyer more time to prepare his case. Kho, a 31-year-old from Sarawak, had been due to go to the gallows today for the brutal murder of a construction worker 7 years ago, after his appeal for clemency was rejected by the President last month. But his new lawyer, Mr Chandra Mohan K Nair - who was briefed by Kho's family only on Tuesday night - filed a criminal motion on Wednesday asking for a stay pending a ruling on arguments to quash his death sentence. He is seeking a partial retrial focused on issues relating to Kho's sentence. At yesterday's hearing, the motion was objected to by the prosecution, which contended that no arguable issues have been raised. Kho's mother, sister and cousin were in court. On Feb 17, 2008, Kho and an accomplice attacked construction workers Cao Ruyin, 40, and Wu Jun, 44, in Geylang Drive while trying to rob the Chinese nationals. Mr Wu received outpatient treatment but Mr Cao, who was bludgeoned with a tree branch, died from head injuries 6 days later. Kho's fate has seen many twists and turns since he and accomplice Galing Kujat were given the death penalty - then mandatory for murder - in 2010. Kujat, who used his belt buckle as a weapon, in 2011 successfully appealed against the murder charge. He was convicted of robbery with hurt and sentenced to 18 1/2 years' jail and 19 strokes of the cane. Kho's appeal failed. But he was re-sentenced to life imprisonment in 2013, after the law was changed to give judges the discretion to opt for a life term for murder with no intention to cause death. The prosecution appealed, arguing that Kho's vicious crime warranted the death penalty. In a landmark ruling in January, the 5-judge court gave a split 3-2 decision in favour of sending Kho to the gallows for the fatal attack. The case has attracted the attention of human rights groups, including Amnesty International and local outfit Second Chances. No date has yet been set for the next court hearing. Significance of the case Jabing Kho's case is a landmark decision in which a rare 5- judge Court of Appeal decided, three to two, that the convicted murderer will hang. It is the 1st murder case to come before the apex court since laws kicked in giving judges the option of imposing life imprisonment on those who commit murder without the intention to cause death. The apex court had to decide when the death penalty was warranted when it is not mandatory. All 5 judges agreed that capital punishment would be appropriate when the offender had "acted in a way which exhibits viciousness or a blatant disregard for human life". But the court was divided on whether Kho deserved to be hanged. Judges of Appeal Chao Hick Tin and Andrew Phang and Justice Chan Seng Onn said the "sheer savagery" Kho displayed in continuing to strike Mr Cao Ruyin even after he was floored, justified the death penalty. However, the dissenting judges, Justices Woo Bih Li and Lee Seiu Kin, said there was not enough evidence to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Kho had struck Mr Cao 3 or more times, or that he had used such force that it caused most of the 14 fractures on the victim's skull. (source: asiaone.com) ENGLAND: Albert Pierrepoint: a 'haunted hangman' and the death penalty today 50 years ago this Sunday, Britain passed a law which brought an end to the death penalty for murder and consigned the noose to history. One executioner, though, did not simply recede into the shadows. Albert Pierrepoint was not the last British hangman, but he was certainly the most famous. His legacy lives on as a symbol of the terrible responsibility of those charged to do the state's killing and a benchmark for our understanding of the job. The 1965 Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act was a trial measure, with abolition finalised in 1969. But parliamentary votes on reintroduction continued into the 1990s, and it was only relatively recently that the last remnants of the death penalty were definitively removed from UK law. Only in 1998 did treason and piracy cease to be capital offences. Bridge to the past Pierrepoint came to embody our strange relationship with the institution. As the son and nephew of hangmen, he seemed to continue some kind of artisan family tradition. His oddly sympathetic public profile was established during the 1940s when he carried out multiple hangings of Nazi war criminals. By the time Pierrepoint had resigned from the executioners' list in 1956 he had hanged around 450 people. After his retirement, he dispensed expertise about hanging for television and radio audiences, acted as a film consultant and, in 1974, published a memoir, Executioner: Pierrepoint. In the post-abolition era, Pierrepoint was an authentic link with the practice of hanging; a bridge to memories of capital punishment. And there are three significant aspects in his cultural persona that have helped build our modern narrative of the executioner. Civilised hanging The 1st was Pierrepoint as an efficient and professional hangman. This was a portrayal that he contributed to in his memoir and media interviews. It stressed the meticulous care he took and emphasised his speed and efficiency. It was in keeping with 20th century understandings of execution. The bodily suffering of the condemned should be minimised or, preferably, non-existent. Whether this could actually be achieved is debatable but it was important that hanging was understood to have been "modern" and civilised. Famously, Pierrepoint also renounced the death penalty in his memoir, stating that it achieved nothing but revenge. My trawl through the archives of the time shows that those who opposed the reintroduction of capital punishment seized on this as compelling support. This "reformed hangman" aspect of Pierrepoint's external cultural persona earned him respect and fascination. But this appears to have been an oversimplification; statements he made in interviews I have read were more equivocal. Pierrepoint does not seem to have been firmly against capital punishment in all circumstances. Regrets The final aspect of Pierrepoint's cultural persona is that of the haunted hangman, traumatised by guilt and regret. It is a noteworthy portrayal because it does not draw on his self-image. In fact, it contradicts his accounts of being untroubled about those he had hanged, even if they were subsequently pardoned. Some press reports about Pierrepoint when he died in 1992 suggested that he was troubled by his past. However, the clearest portrayal of Pierrepoint in this way is found in the eponymous biopic. In this film, the character of Pierrepoint, played by Timothy Spall, is haunted by executing an acquaintance and, eventually, traumatised by the many hangings he has carried out. It is an appealing idea, one perhaps that the public cling to, that life is not easily taken by anyone. Fraught future Maybe Pierrepoint had an easy ride. Now that it is more than half a century since anyone was hanged in Britain, we can use him to understand better how this conflicting cultural persona of the executioner has contemporary relevance in the US, where the death penalty is increasingly beset by scandal. Pierrepoint was able to construct an air of professionalism around the mechanics of the gallows, but that is not a luxury afforded to his modern-day equivalents. The availability of the drugs necessary to perform lethal injections is increasingly restricted, which has forced states that retain the death penalty to "experiment" with alternative drugs, or add other execution methods. High-profile botched executions by lethal injection have raised the problem of how to carry out those "civilised" executions that avoid pain and suffering, and which helped to create the Pierrepoint persona in the UK. This seems almost impossible now for the Americans who try to do the same under intense scrutiny. The prospect of putting people to death in the gas chamber, electric chair or by firing squad feels like a step backwards. In an echo of Pierrepoint's life, some former executioners and prison governors in the US have spoken out against the death penalty. They have detailed their trauma, and campaign groups raise this potential for capital punishment to harm people other than just the condemned prisoner as an argument for abolition. Pierrepoint would have had no truck with that, I suspect. But those somewhat contradictory narratives around his career - the quest for professionalism, his apparent reformation and the biopic tale of a man haunted by his deeds - remain deeply relevant in understanding how today's executioners might think, and how the public might view them. (source: Lizzie Seal, Senior Lecturer in Sociology/Criminology, University of Sussex -- The Conversation) SCOTLAND: The last execution in Scotland: A lookback 50 years after end of death penalty In August 1963, a 21-year-old man called Henry John Burnett was hanged in Craiginches Prison in Aberdeen for the murder of his girlfriend's husband. 2 years later, capital punishment was finally abolished, making Burnett the last man to be executed in Scotland. To mark the 50th anniversary of the abolition, BBC Radio 4 is to broadcast archive material tonight that recalls the debates and events leading up to the end of the death penalty. The programme includes interviews with some of those who were involved in the Burnett case. The programme also reveals that, even though capital punishment was abolished 50 years ago - on November 9, 1965 - support for it in the UK remains remarkably high. The programme, The End of The Rope, has been made by the broadcaster John Forsyth, who interviewed some of the eyewitnesses to the Burnett case, including Bob Middleton, an Aberdeen councillor who watched the hanging, child psychiatrist Dr Ian Lowit, and Robert Henderson, the junior prosecuting counsel in the case. Mr Forsyth says all the witnesses were horrified by what they saw. "They all hated it," he said. "If you had anything to do with it, you never forgot it. "The child psychiatrist was traumatised by it. He said Burnett had a personality disorder that meant he was aware of what he was doing but did not have the responsibility. "It was also shortly before legal aid was available in criminal cases, so he was defended by somebody who had virtually no experience of criminal defence at all." Burnett's was the first execution since 19-year-old Anthony Miller, who was hanged in Glasgow in December 1960 for the murder of John Cremin in Queen's Park. The Burnett case was particularly sad: he had spent much of his childhood in borstals and had tried to kill himself when he was a teenager. He began a relationship with a married woman, Margaret Guyan, but when it looked like she was on the point of leaving him, he shot her husband Thomas. After being sentenced to death, there was an appeal which failed; the family also sent a telegram to the Queen asking her to intervene which went unanswered. Burnett was eventually executed on August 15, 1963. Speaking on the programme, the man who executed him, Harry Allen - 1 of 10 professional executioners in the UK who was was paid 15 pounds per execution - said he had no regrets about Burnett or any of the other people he had executed. "They've all done wrong," he said. "They've murdered somebody, they've taken an innocent life and I think it's the right thing to do." However, even though Burnett was executed, there was a feeling among law-makers and lawyers that the days of capital punishment were numbered and 2 years after Burnett's death, a temporary ban was introduced in the Commons. 4 years later, it was confirmed by a vote of the Commons and the Lords. What struck Forsyth in making the programme was that, despite the change in the law, public support for capital punishment was strong and remains relatively high, which is confirmed by the most recent attitude surveys. The Scottish Attitudes Survey of 2014 showed that 51 % agreed with the statement "for some crimes, the death penalty if the most appropriate punishment" and that figure has been pretty consistent for the last 15 years. Rachel Ormston, co-head of social attitudes at the social research institute ScotCen, pointed out that there has been a decline in support since the 1980s, when there was about 75 % support for the death penalty. "But it has declined over a huge amount of time when you think about when it was abolished," she said. "The whole area of the death penalty is a classic area where public opinion and what parliament repeatedly decides are in conflict." As for any chance of capital punishment ever being reintroduced, Forsyth believes it is close to zero, although that could change if the UK votes to leave the EU. As members, the UK is banned from reintroducing the death penalty but leaving the EU would give the UK the freedom again. That may not happen, said Forsyth, but it is on the radar. (source: heraldscotland.com) SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi Arabia seeks to encourage sectarianism: Activist Press TV has interviewed Massoud Shadjareh, a member of the Islamic Human Rights Commission in London, to discuss the death sentence against Saudi Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. Following is a rough transcription of the interview. Press TV: I do understand that protests ... have taken places well against this verdict against Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. However, do you think that the Saudi King is going to heed the calls of the people? Shadjareh: Well I think what is essential is for us to expose the reasoning behind the arrest of Sheikh Nimr. Sheikh Nimr was arrested originally because what Saudi Arabia tries to do is to show that the opposition to itself is based on sectarianism i.e. it wants to blame the minority Shia community as troublemakers. The reality is that there is a huge unhappiness and dissent by mainstream Saudis. There are 30,000 political prisoners in Saudi Arabia, 80 % of them from the Sunni and Salafi background. So this is not a Shia-Sunni thing but Saudi Arabia ... dismisses this dissent against their oppressive rule, wants to present this as a Shia-Sunni [conflict] and that is why Sheikh Nimr originally was arrested. We need to expose that if we are going to make them stop this sort of behavior because what Saudi Arabia is trying to do - not just in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere - is to ride and encourage sectarianism and try to justify its policy on those bases. And that is why many of us from different backgrounds and indeed Muslims and indeed non-Muslims are upping arms of this sort of abusive policies of using the judicial system for a political end. Press TV: So when Saudi Arabia says that Sheikh Nimr is a threat to the kingdom security, what do they mean? Shadjareh: Well the fact is that Sheikh Nimr originally was arrested because 2, 3 days before that, there was demonstration in some malls in Saudi Arabia by the Sunni dissent against the Saudi rule and the fact that prisoners were being badly treated. And the response of Saudi Arabia was to turn that into sort of [propaganda that] these are troublemaker Shias causing the problem and arrest Sheikh Nimr. These are sort of playing with the judicial system and the due process for political end and creating sectarianism as a justification for behaving so badly against their own people and we need to expose this [at] many levels. The fact is that the judicial system in Saudi Arabia now is totally under control of this abusive dictatorial ruling family and there is no way anyone is going to get justice and we need to stand up against the whole policy that Saudi Arabia wants to unleash and justify by saying that these are the Shia minorities, these are encouraged by Iran. This policy which they insist on is false and the reality is that there are huge numbers of people in Saudi Arabia from all different backgrounds opposing this regime and we need to expose that. (source: PressTv) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Nov 8 12:49:58 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2015 12:49:58 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., ALA., MO., KAN., OKLA., CALIF., USA Message-ID: Nov. 8 FLORIDA: After 29-year wait, mom awaits Bolin's January execution Kathleen Reeves will celebrate her only daughter's birthday Monday the same way she has for the past 29 years. "I'll take flowers to her grave," she said. Teri Lynn Matthews would have been 55, maybe with a family of her own. But her life was taken when she was just 26 by serial killer Oscar Ray Bolin Jr., who is scheduled to atone for her murder on Jan. 7 when he is executed by the state of Florida. Reeves, a 78-year-old Spring Hill resident, said her daughter's homicide in 1986 was the 1st in a series of deaths that have left her alone. Her 2 sons and a stepson have died from diseases and a car wreck since Matthews was murdered. Her husband died in April 2014, the victim of cancer; the same for her brother, who died in June. "My family," she said, "is gone." Reeves plans to attend Bolin's execution, but right now she would rather talk about her daughter, a graduate of Tampa's Robinson High School who was buried long ago in a Hernando County cemetery. "She worked at night and she was learning scuba diving," Reeves said. "She just recently had gotten into a serious romantic relationship with a young man. "He's gone," Reeves wistfully said, "has family of his own now." Her daughter's future was bright. "She had everything; all her ducks in a row, and she was headed in the right direction," Reeves said. "She was a happy young lady. Her life was looking rosy, and she was pretty excited." Those hopes came to a violent end one winter night when Bolin abducted Matthews from a Land O'Lakes Post Office parking lot before stabbing and bludgeoning her on Dec. 5, 1986. He brought the severely injured woman, wrapped in a sheet, to the home of his 13-year-old half-brother, who later told authorities he saw the victim in the sheet on the ground outside the house and heard moaning and gurgling sounds. Bolin then bludgeoned Matthews with a wooden club before loading her into his truck and driving off. Matthews' body was found wrapped in the same blood-stained sheet on the side of a road in rural Pasco County later that day. The case went unsolved for 4 years, until Bolin's ex-wife in Ohio told authorities he confessed to her that he had killed Matthews. When he was charged in 1990, Bolin was serving a 22- to 75-year prison sentence in Ohio for kidnapping and raping a 20-year-old waitress near Toledo. Reeves said she has waited for what seems like a lifetime for justice. In fact, it has been a lifetime. The time between Matthews' murder and now - 29 years - is 3 years longer than her life. On Oct. 30, Gov. Rick Scott signed a death warrant for the 53-year-old Bolin in Matthews' case. He also has been convicted of murdering 2 other females, 1 a 17-year-old girl, in a 1986 murder spree. 3 times, Bolin stood trial in Pasco County in the slaying of Matthews. The first 2 convictions were thrown out by appeals courts. The 3rd conviction withstood appellate challenges, and his death sentence was upheld. The former carnival worker and long-distance truck driver also was sentenced to death for the murder of 17-year-old Stephanie Collins, a Tampa high school student and is serving a life sentence for the murder of Natalie "Blanche" Holley, 25. In January 1986, Holley was abducted after she left work at Church's Chicken in North Tampa. She was stabbed to death and her body was found the next day in a Lutz orange grove. 10 months later, Collins disappeared from a shopping center parking lot in Carrollwood. Her body was found on Dec. 5, 1986, with blunt injuries to the head. The bodies of Collins and Matthews were found on the same day. Collins' mother, Donna Witmer, along with Reeves and Holley's mother, also named Natalie, attended trials together and became close friends. Witmer declined to comment on the signing of the death warrant last week. Natalie Holley died in 2012 and won't get to see her daughter's killer pay the ultimate price for his crimes. Bolin's defense attorney, Bjorn Brunvand, said this case has taken a toll on all parties. "Because of the number of trials and the number of appeals, it has been very draining for everyone involved," he said. "That being said, if it turns out that at some point, (Bolin) is found to be innocent, certainly it's all worth it." Brunvand filed a motion for rehearing Tuesday, hoping to persuade a judge to take another look at what he calls discrepancies in the forensic evidence presented at trial and other issues. The Clearwater attorney said he met with Bolin on Wednesday, 5 days after the death warrant was signed. "How is he taking the death warrant? He's probably taking it better than (his wife) Rosalie and better than his legal team," Brunvand said. Brunvand's opposition to the death penalty has grown stronger while working on this case. "I've always been opposed to the death penalty for a variety of reasons," he said. "I don't think it deters other murders. It's barbaric, and I think that financially it makes absolutely no sense." Reeves hopes Brunvand's last-ditch defense efforts to stay the death sentence fail. She's wants to watch Bolin breathe his last breath. "Absolutely," she said. "I certainly plan on being there. I'm ecstatic about this. I'm not a fan of the governor, but I am today. I'm going to be 78 this month and, certainly, I was beginning to wonder if this ever would take place." She has nothing to say to Bolin. "These people live on a different plane than we do," she said. "There is no explanation for what they do. They just live in a different world." Rosalie Martinez, a death-row inmate advocate working on Bolin's case in the 1990s, did make a connection with the killer. In 1996, she married him in a wedding performed over the telephone. She left her Tampa attorney husband and 4 daughters and has been Bolin's wife for 19 years. Asked to comment on the case this week, she responded with an emailed statement, which said, in part: "I am just beyond heartbroken," she said. "The governor, by signing Oscar's warrant, is creating a whole set of invisible victims that no one wants to talk about. That would include me, my family, the lawyers, department of corrections staff and anyone carrying out the death sentence. "It's barbaric in a civilized society." (source: The Tampa Tribune) ALABAMA: Prosecution to seek death penalty in Maysville murders The prosecution announced Friday evening it will seek the death penalty for Christopher Henderson and Rhonda Carlson, charged with the murders of five members of the Smallwood/Sokolowski family. Over the past 2 months, some of the gruesome details of those murders have come out in pretrial hearings. Carlson appeared in court earlier this week. During that hearing investigators said Henderson left Carlson for Kristen at one point in their relationship, and Carlson told them she wanted Kristen to feel what it was like to be homeless as she had been. Henderson's hearing took place at the end of September. Madison County Sheriff's Office Investigator Eugene Nash revealed that after shooting Jean Smallwood, Henderson allegedly told Carlson that he "took her out." Also revealed in that hearing was the fact that Kristen Henderson, her unborn baby and her son Clayton died from stab wounds, while her nephew Eli Sokolowski died from smoke inhalation. Alabama is one of the only states in which a judge can overrule a jury's decision on the death penalty, so even if the jury decides against it, Henderson and Carlson could still be executed. (source: WAAY TV news) MISSOURI: Missouri Executions Expected to Slow 18 convicted killers have been executed in Missouri in the last 2 years, a pace that is expected to slow significantly with death sentences on the decline and many of the 28 remaining death row inmates still filing appeals. Only Texas, with 24, has performed more executions than Missouri since November 2013. But execution appears to be imminent for just 1 Missouri inmate. "They've basically run out of people to kill, to put it in an undiplomatic way," said Kent Gipson, a Kansas City-based attorney who represents several inmates. Executions across the U.S. were largely on hold for many years due to a de facto moratorium as the Supreme Court grappled with the constitutionality of lethal injection. Once that cleared, execution drugs became hard to obtain because major companies refused to sell drugs for lethal use. Missouri eventually turned to pentobarbital, obtained from a source the state won't disclose, in late 2013. By then, there was a backlog of inmates whose appeals were exhausted. Attorney General Chris Koster asked the state Supreme Court to set execution dates for many of them, and the court obliged, scheduling one a month since November 2013 (some were halted by court action or clemency). At the same time, death sentences have been on the decline for many years. Nationally, the 72 death sentences issued last year were the fewest since 1976, according to Amnesty International. None were issued in Missouri. Death penalty expert Deborah Denno, who teaches at Fordham Law School, cited several factors, including concern over the availability of lethal drugs and worries about executing the innocent. "I think juries aren't sending people to death as much and I think prosecutors aren't bringing them up as often," Denno said. Execution could be near for Earl Forrest, convicted of killing a Dent County sheriff's deputy and two others during a 2002 crime spree. Forrest is out of appeals and Koster has requested an execution date. But 16 of the remaining 26 Missouri inmates have yet to exhaust their appeals. Another two have claimed innocence and their cases are being reviewed, while two others still technically on death row have been ruled mentally incompetent for execution. Medical conditions have cast doubt in 2 cases this year alone. Ernest Lee Johnson was scheduled to die last week for killing 3 convenience store workers in 1994, but the U.S. Supreme Court sent the case back to an appeals court for review because his attorneys argued that the execution drug could cause violent seizures due to a benign brain tumor. And in May, Russell Bucklew, convicted of killing a southeast Missouri man during a 1996 crime spree, was granted a stay over concerns that the execution drug could cause suffering due to his a congenital condition that includes weakened and malformed blood vessels and nose and throat tumors. Courts have ordered new sentencing hearings for 3 inmates over attorney and procedural errors, and the U.S. Supreme Court remanded 1 case to the district court over attorney competence concerns because a federal appeal was not filed on time. William Boliek is likely to live out his life on death row. His execution was stayed by Gov. Mel Carnahan. Carnahan died in a plane crash without acting on it and a ruling determined that only Carnahan could overturn the stay. A spokesman for Gov. Jay Nixon has said William Boliek will not be executed. (source: Associated Press) KANSAS: Future of Kansas death penalty is uncertain The Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty held a meeting Saturday to discuss ways of encouraging legislature to change their minds on the state's death penalty. One of the keynote speakers was Nebraska Senator Colby Coash who helped build a coalition of republican lawmakers who were for repealing the death penalty in Nebraska. He believes his efforts in Nebraska are applicable to Kansas. "Of any place, Nebraska would be a really tough place to abolish the death penalty. But we did it," says Coash. "We did it because we talked about things that were important for Nebraskans like saving money and fixing government." But while Nebraska repealed the penalty, the state is still trying to buy death penalty drugs. Nebraska prison officials unsuccessfully tried to buy the execution drugs from a domestic firm after trying months to get it from a distributor in India. Lethal injection is the sole method of execution in Kansas and is one of the only states where no executions have taken place since it was reinstated in 1976. Its last execution was 1965. Kansas currently has 9 men on death row but Kansas doesn't seem to be in a position to execute anyone, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections. "We do not have any of those execution drugs on hand," says Adam Phannestiel. "At this point we've decided that we are housing those inmates and letting them have their due process." The Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty says keeping them there is 3 to 4 times more expensive than execution. (source: KSNT news) ******** Convicted serial killer's Kansas death sentence upheld The Kansas Supreme Court refused on Friday to remove a serial killer from death row who trolled for victims online, marking the 1st time the court has upheld a death sentence since Kansas reinstated capital punishment in 1994. The 415-page ruling came in the case of John E. Robinson Sr., who was convicted of killing 7 women and a teenage girl in Kansas and Missouri in cases dating back to 1984. Investigators said he lured some victims with promises of work or sex, and stuffed some of their bodies in barrels on his rural property. The court had faced criticism for overturning death sentences, but only 1 of the court's 7 justices dissented in Friday's ruling. District Attorney Steve Howe in Johnson County, where Robinson's case was tried, said the ruling marks a shift in how the court handles death penalty cases. "My expectation is that, as we move forward, these cases will move at a faster pace," he said. Investigators said Robinson used the Internet to lure two victims to Kansas: 27-year-old Suzette Trouten of Newport, Michigan, and Izabela Lewicka, a 21-yaer-old Polish immigrant who attended Purdue University. Their bodies were found in June 2000, in large barrels on Robinson's rural property 60 miles south of Kansas City. 2 days later, 3 more bodies were discovered in barrels in a storage locker Robinson rented in the Kansas City area. Prosecutors described Robinson as a predator who trolled the Internet as "Slavemaster," looking for sadomasochistic sex with women. Robinson is among only 9 inmates on death row in Kansas, which has a checkered history with the death penalty. Although the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, Kansas waited nearly 20 years before reinstating it. And the state's current law is extremely narrow and allows for death sentences in only a handful of circumstances. 5 of the state's current death row inmates had their sentences overturned by the Kansas Supreme Court, but the cases have since been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court or sent to lower courts for resentencing. The other 3 inmates have not had 1st rulings from the Kansas Supreme Court. Between various other court rulings, including some that have overturned groups of cases, it wasn't immediately clear Friday how many other death sentences the state's highest court has overturned since 1994. Robinson was sentenced to death for killing Lewicka and Trouten under a state law allowing capital punishment for multiple, premeditated killings that were part of a "common scheme or course of conduct." The court's lengthy decision - which dealt with dozens of technical issues raised by Robinson's attorneys on appeal - upheld the death sentence that resulted from Robinson's capital murder conviction for Trouten's death in 2000. During the same trial in 2002, Robinson also was convicted of capital murder for the 1999 slaying of Lewicka and of non-capital murder in the 1985 death of Lisa Stasi, a 19-year-old whose body has never been found. The Supreme Court reversed those 2 convictions, saying Kansas' death penalty law allowed for only 1 capital murder charge covering multiple killings in the overall case. But that ruling "in no way" cleared Robinson in the deaths, Justice Caleb Stegall wrote in the majority's opinion. Prosecutors "presented ample evidence that Robinson lured his victims with promises of financial gain, employment or travel; exploited them sexually or financially; used similar methods to murder and dispose of their bodies; and used deception to conceal the crimes," Stegall wrote. "In the end, he's been found guilty of capital murder, and the sentence has been upheld," Howe said during an interview Friday. Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said in a statement that his office was "cautiously encouraged," but that it was still reviewing the court's decision. Paige Nichols, a Lawrence attorney who argued Robinson's case before the Supreme Court, did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment Friday. The court's lone dissenter was Justice Lee Johnson, who criticized the court for linking all of the killings, including ones committed when Kansas had no death penalty. He also argued that the death penalty violates the Kansas Constitution's prohibition against cruel or unusual punishment. On appeal, Robinson's attorneys raised dozens of issues about the selection of the jury and what evidence was allowed, as well as whether Kansas prosecutors could cite the Missouri killings to support their case for the death penalty in Kansas. They also argued that Robinson should be resentenced because 1 juror consulted the Bible after concluding Robinson should receive death. The Supreme Court deemed the action "harmless." ---- Online: The Supreme Court's ruling: http://bit.ly/1XUFpu5. (source: Associated Press) OKLAHOMA: The Death Penalty in Oklahoma: Nitrogen Gas as a Means of Execution Nitrogen is often associated with soils and crop-talk. "If nitrogen taken up early by the crop is sufficient for yield," goes a piece from the Sidney Herald (MT) from May 5, 2012, "then it will get redistributed to help produce grain protein. In high yielding years, the in-season nitrogen addition could be decreased or omitted, resulting in substantial fertilizer cost savings." Riveting stuff. Take-up rates; stem-elongation; crop yields; fertilization. Not, and here, the step becomes a leap, one of execution. Nitrogen, in the customary sense, supposedly encourages yields. But Oklahoma took a rather different pathway in effectively re-introducing the gas chamber. The murderous protagonist here, instead of previously used hydrogen cyanide, is nitrogen. This would involve sealing the victim in an airtight chamber filled with nitrogen gas. In the absence of oxygen, nitrogen goes to work, producing a range of effects. These might, for instance, entail the "raptures of the deep," a term used in the context of deep-sea divers exposed to an excess of nitrogen (Slate, May 22, 2014). There might even be a sensation of euphoria. Proponents for nitrogen's use, in speaking on behalf of the putative condemned prisoner, claim that the person would suffer nothing abnormal, would endure no pain, and would not, strictly speaking, suffocate, given that carbon dioxide build-up, rather than an absence of oxygen, is the culprit at hand. Much of this was put forth when cyanide gas fell foul of the Eight Amendment in 1994. Oakland technology consultant Stuart Creque was the dark knight of the moment, coming to the rescue of head-scratching executioners. Writing in 1995 for the National Review, Creque argued that nitrogen "would cause neither pain nor physical trauma, require no medical procedure (other than pronouncing death), and no hazardous chemicals." The governor of Oklahoma, Mary Fallin, had signed legislation permitting execution by nitrogen gas, provided drugs for lethal injection or the method itself, was deemed illegal. Last month, Fallin stayed the execution of Richard Glossip for 37 days over questions "about Oklahoma's execution protocol and the chemicals used for lethal injection."[1] He was scheduled to be executed on November 6, but this was in turn stayed indefinitely. Humanitarian arguments are often sham ones, standard bearers for the worst form of moral charlatanism. They are attached to missile tips; they are aligned with arguments on how best to kill human beings for broader causes. We might not like the death penalty, but at least we can be assured that convicts are killed humanely. "You can oppose the death penalty and still see the merit in making executions more humane," argues Tom McNichol (Slate, May 22, 2014).Lawrence Gist II, an attorney and professor of business law at Mount St. Mary's College, similarly extols the virtues of more humane methods in the death industry, having become something of a propagandist for nitrogen-based killing. "If we're going to take a life, then we should do so in the most humane, civilized manner as is possible." This is a false choice, bedded on some nasty logic. The oxymoronic dialogue on the death penalty is one of the more insidious ones in the lethal complex that sees states identify how best to dispatch their convicts. Death penalty advocates and those against the death penalty tend to find themselves at one on this. It is a form of tacit collusion: we will accept the death penalty, but we will be kind and strictly professional about it. Absolutists against the death penalty are taken to task by such commentators as Boer Deng and Dahlia Lithwick for inciting officials to actually endorse substandard methods and techniques in killing. This is dangerous nonsense. Either the sanctity of human life, irrespective of how grizzly that human being might be, matters, or it does not. It is hardly preserved by killing the subject with professionally thought through methods. The legal authorities have also been complicit in creating a fantasy of compassion behind killing. In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that Kentucky's 3-drug protocol behind lethal injections abided by the constitution. But such sanitised rationales of lethality ignored human incompetence in the administering process. The death of Clayton Lockett in April 2014 was not merely vicious in its outcome but in its application. (He remained alive for 43 minutes after the injections began.) As Justice Sonia Sotomayor observed during oral arguments, the protocol may have entailed "burning a person alive who's paralysed." Then came the stay offered for Russell Bucklew last year, similarly taking issue with the needle. The court rationale from 2008 was looking unsteady. "Every age," writes Nichol, "seems to feature a new and improved method of capital punishment, billed as more efficient and humane." Killing can, according to such thinking, be progressive. Scientific killings, state sanctioned murder theorised and then applied, has been a central feature of the modern State. The State's monopoly on violence manifests itself as fury in cases when private citizens start appropriating such powers. The death penalty is a statement of sovereign selfishness, jealously guarded. Using nitrogen fittingly embraces the industrial complex, furthermore so given that the gas chamber, as a death delving device, was pioneered in the United States. Nazi Germany would duly take note and kill with even more zeal. The internal inconsistencies of the death penalty arguments were always going to be evident with such constitutionally enshrined terms as "cruel and unusual punishment" as outlined in the Eight Amendment. Such wording has been interpreted by means various and exotic, always allowing for capital punishment. None have proven convincing, with the exception of Justice Stephen Bryer's dissent in Glossip v Grosswhich agued that rather than trying "to patch up the death penalty's legal wounds 1 at a time," we should accept "that the death penalty violates the Eight Amendment."[2] The death penalty remains sadistically expressive, and its cruelty should be emphasised beyond a shadow of doubt. If it is to remain on the books, it should be exemplified, not lulled. Saudi Arabia, China and similar countries admit that suffering is fundamental behind having such a penalty. What, then, would be the point? Bring in US-made beheadings. Bring in firing squads. Let the blood flow. Film it. Stream it. Demonstrate humanity's inhumanity to itself. As the sponsor of the nitrogen execution bill Mike Christian, Republican member of the Oklahoman House of Representatives explained with crude honesty, humanitarianism has nothing to do with it. "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and a former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine, or being fed to the lions."[3] To embrace a supposedly kinder form of killing sanitises murder, encouraging a hypocrisy that salves the bleeding conscience. (source: Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge----globalresearch.ca) CALIFORNIA: New lethal injection protocol isn't the answer to California's death penalty debate The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has finally settled on 4 barbiturates - amobarbital, pentobarbital, secobarbital and thiopental - as the poisons of choice for its proposed new method of executing people. A single dose from any of the 4 would replace the previous 3-drug protocol, which a state judge threw out in 2011 - not because killing someone by lethal injection would be cruel and unusual punishment but because the state failed to follow the proper administrative rules in adopting the old protocol. That doesn't mean the state is about to execute its first prisoners in nearly a decade, however. Friday's posting of the proposed new, simpler protocol is just the start of a fresh review process that will inevitably draw lengthy legal challenges. Meanwhile, the state continues to appeal a ruling by U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney last year that barred executions in California. Carney found the state's system for determining whom to execute unconstitutionally arbitrary and so slow that executions ultimately serve no retributive purpose. State voters may also weigh in on the subject next year; backers of 2 death penalty initiatives are seeking spots on the 2016 ballot. The dueling proposals offer a stark and unambiguous choice: Resume the "machinery of death," as Justice Harry A. Blackmun once called it, by speeding up the appeals process for death sentences, or end the barbaric practice altogether and sentence convicted murderers to life without parole. Given our blanket opposition to capital punishment, it's easy to guess which way we lean. As things stand today, Californians have it both ways, with courts sentencing convicted murderers to death at a pace of about 1 every 3 weeks but with no executions being carried out. In fact, California has executed only 13 people since capital punishment was made legal again nearly 4 decades ago, while 112 condemned prisoners have died, primarily from natural causes or suicide. As Carney pointed out, these days a California death sentence is in practice a sentence of life without parole - except with lengthy, costly appeals. Granting the state the right to execute its citizens is an abhorrent breach of morality and human dignity. There also are grotesque national disparities in who receives a death sentence, as judgments are weighted by race, geography and, occasionally, politics. That's not justice. It's racially skewed vengeance tainted by gamesmanship, which has led to arbitrary death sentences and scores of wrongful convictions. Now that California is taking the 1st steps toward resuming executions, Californians need to take a close look at what we are asking the state to do in our name. Murder is a serious crime, and it demands a serious punishment. But execution is not it. (source: Editorial Board, Los Angeles Times) USA: Hillary Clinton Says Infamous Mass Murderers Keep Her On The Fence About The Death Penalty----She said some states "have gone way too far." Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton defended her support for the death penalty by citing several infamous mass murders during MSNBC's Democratic Presidential Candidates Forum on Friday. Clinton said cases like the June murders of black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, should prompt "a legitimate discussion" about the death penalty. But she argued there are now "too many cases put into the capital offense category." In October, Clinton said she doesn't support abolishing the death penalty, but wants it reserved for "very limited and rare" cases. During the forum on Friday, Clinton said she was commenting on the federal death penalty system. She named Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh -- people who committed what she called "really heinous crimes" -- as those who "should potentially have the death penalty." Clinton also doubled down on her earlier statements that the death penalty is often administered in a discriminatory way, and argued states should "take a really hard look" at their capital punishment laws, because some "have gone way too far." (source: Huffington Post) ************** No Death Penalty For Gays ... Until They Have Time To Repent Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee and Bobby Jindal all spoke this weekend at the National Religious Liberties Conference in Iowa, an event hosted by Kevin Swanson, a Colorado-based pastor and activist who frequently informs his followers that the biblical penalty for homosexuality is death and defended a proposed law in Uganda that would have imposed life imprisonment or capital punishment for homosexuality. 2 other speakers invited to the conference have similarly backed capital punishment for gay people, and one came prepared with a pamphlet he wrote explaining that view. In a closing keynote address to the conference Saturday evening, Swanson clarified that he is not encouraging American officials to implement the death penalty for homosexuality ... yet. Instead, he said, gay people first need time to repent of their sins, as do people who have committed adultery, gotten divorced or looked at porn, all of which he said are inviting God's judgment on America. (source: Kevin Swanson; rightwingwatch.org) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Nov 8 12:50:48 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2015 12:50:48 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 8 GLOBAL: Women Around the World Are Being Stoned to Death; Under Islamic Penal Code Stoning [Rajm in Arabic] to death is a barbaric act from a primitive societies in the world,women have become victims of honor killing in the world. Recently, an Afghan woman, identified as Rokhsana, has been stoned to death in central Afghanistan after being accused of adultery, news agencies stated. Rokhsana had been allegedly forced to marry against her will and fled with another man, Afghan officials said. She, 19-year-old, was allegedly accused of trying to elope with another man but detained, tried and executed in a Taliban-controlled area, confirmed Ghor's governor, Seema Jowenda, to the reporters. A 30-second online video was appearing to show the punishment has been released online. "It shows a woman in a hole in the ground surrounded by turbaned men who hurl stones at her," BBC said. The man she was accused of eloping with was flogged. The sickening event had been happened about a week ago in "Taliban control" area just outside Firozkoh, the capital of central Ghor Province. Officials in Ghor told the medias that "this is the 1st incident in the area [this year] by local religious leaders and armed warlords, but will not be the last. "There is no any legal penalty for Mulla's sodomy, buggers, multiple marriages for men, forced marriage against juvenile girls, selling of unmarried girls to become wives, domestic violence against women, disobeying of the rules, drug smuggling, artefacts trafficking, robbery and embezzlement in my country. However, love is a crime for women which is punishable by stoning; she had not committed to crime as murder or illegal attitudes. Her only crime was love shack and live freely; killing an innocent girl is an honor for men in my country", Sahar Samet an Afghan journalist stated in her Facebook account. In March, another Afghan woman named Farkhunda was savagely beaten and set ablaze in Kabul after being falsely accused of burning a copy of Quran. On July 11, 2013, a young mother of 2 called Arifa Bibi was stoned to death in a village in Dera Ghazi Khan, Pakistan. She was sentenced to death by stoning by a Pakistani tribal court, and was executed at the hands of her family. Her family included uncles, cousins and other relatives threw stones at Arifa until she died, all because she had a cell phone. The Asian Human Rights Commission received news regarding the murder of Ms. Shamim Akhtar, 50, who worked for the social welfare organization in Tando Jam, Sindh Province. She was brutally chopped to death by her husband Mr. Sajid Mahmood and Usman Lodhi, a police constable, on June 4, 2013. Her younger sister Ms. Tasleem Akhtar, 40, also was gunned down by three armed men at 11:30 a.m on 29 June. Shamim was punished by the police because she had raised awareness of the murder of a Hindu young man in the Gulashan Hali police station by brutal tortures. She was always fighting against the police brutality. Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, 23-year-old girl, was killed on Monday, 27 October 2008, by a group of 50 men who stoned her to death in a stadium in the southern port of Kismayu, in front of around 1,000 spectators, Amnesty International declared. She was accused of adultery in breach of the Islamic Laws; Aisha had in fact been raped by three men, and it was this act that eventuated in her being accused of adultery and arrested, her relatives said AI. On 19 October 2015, a woman, who allegedly gave birth out of wedlock, was convicted to death by stoning in the Maldives' top court. However, the verdict was quashed by the Supreme Court, but the island nation had previously carried flogging sentences to those convicted of extramarital sex. In 2013, a 15-year-old girl sentenced to 100 lashes after being guilty of premarital sex; the High Court later overturned the verdict because she had been wrongly convicted. An Iranian woman Sakineh Ashtiani, who was convicted to the capital punishment of conducting an illicit relationship outside marriage in 2006, freed after having about ten years in Tabriz prison. The alleged adultery convicted woman was arrested in 2005 on charges of adultery and conspiracy to commit murder in the death of her husband. She was sentenced to death by stoning [the sentence was to be implemented in July 2010] but the Iranian authorities indicated in December 2011 that they intend to go ahead with her execution by hanging. The picture belongs to the "Stoning of Soraya's" movie. Accordingly, the true story of Soraya, who was stoned to death in Iran nearly 35 years ago, got made as a movie by Iranian stars. "She is drenched in blood and crumpled on the ground, mutilated face partially obscured by a mass of dark hair" Daily Mail described a part of movie [the moment of execution by stoning]. A married Saudi Arabian princess has been given asylum because she had an illegitimate child by a British man, Daily Mail said in 2009. The news agency added that if she returned home she would face being stoned to death for adultery, as she claimed. Women in general have problems all over the countries control by Sharia laws, but in areas control by Taliban and ISIS even more conservative trend overcome. The illegal judicial systems often victimize women in the Islamic countries. Adultery is a capital offense in the countries under the Sharia Laws and punishable by stoning, hanging and flogging which is gaining attention of Human Rights groups and people throughout the world. In Nigeria (in 1/3 of the country's states), Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen and Iran, stoning is a legal penalty [Hudud punishment]. If we want to compare women rights in the countries govern by Islamic rules with that of western women, we can see huge disparities as the Muslim women are still denied their basic fundamental rights. The women are treated as 2nd-class citizens, but authorities chose to ignore it as well. The basic civil rights chosen to reject women accessing rights as entering stadiums, gender barriers in the market, no control on their bodies and leaving the country without their husband permission. Background of the adultery punishment* The Code of Hammurabi (18th-century bc) in Babylonia provided a punishment of death by drowning for adultery. In ancient Greece and in Roman law, an offending female spouse could be killed, but men were not severely punished. The Jewish, Islamic, and Christian traditions are all unequivocal in their condemnation of adultery [Zina]. *Britannica (source: iranian.com) *************** Moving Away from the Death Penalty Statement delivered on November 5, 2015 by the Permanent Representative of Italy to the United Nations, Ambassador Sebastiano Cardi, at the Book Launch "Moving away from death penalty - II edition" Mr. Secretary-General, excellencies, ladies and gentleman, There are at least t2 main reasons why during the last years Italy has been at the side of OHCHR in supporting its work on the death penalty. And why we are today extremely glad to mark the achievement of one of the results of our cooperation. First, because we strongly value the engagement of OHCHR, under the SG's resolute guidance as we all just heard, to move away from capital punishment. The work of OHCHR on the death penalty, articulated in a series of awareness-raising and discussion events on the most crucial aspects of the issue, fully reflects the principles of our "engagement": inclusiveness, respect and motivation. Since the outset of a Campaign (that has seen Italy at the forefront for many years) we have been deeply convinced that, as all global endeavours, this one can be attained only through cooperation, dialogue, mutual respect and understanding among all Members States, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. We will continue to champion this approach. The 2nd reason lies in the fact that we believe in this book; in its power to promote discussion, national debates and exchange of experiences. Our Prime Minister Matteo Renzi accepted to be one of the leaders to contribute to this collection of articles. He was happy to share his experience and convey our approach on this very important issue. Deeply convinced that a frank exchange can benefit from all views, we express sincere appreciation for all and every progress toward moving away from capital punishment, including "narrowing policies" of retentionist Countries. Mr. Secretary-General, excellencies, ladies and gentleman, We must continue our campaign, a campaign for human dignity. If any of the articles of the book provokes national public debates in any Country and contributes to our goal, we will feel rewarded. Thank you (source: EuropaNewswire, Permanent Mission of Italy to the United Nations) SCOTLAND: The demise of the death penalty 50 years after the abolition of the death penalty in Britain, Dani Garavelli asks what brought about its demise and why fewer people now mourn its passing "Of all the House of Commons' personalities, the most irritating is perhaps Mr Sydney Silverman," wrote fellow Labour MP Joseph Mallalieu in the New Statesman in 1956. He went on to catalogue Silverman's many perceived faults: his cockiness, his preoccupation with his own shortness, his outre manner and his habit of arguing the toss over some technical point long after everyone else had got bored, before adding: "But the most irritating thing about him is that, far more often than not, he is proved right." Silverman - the son of a Jewish draper, who was later suspended from the Labour whip for his stance on nuclear weapons - was a paid-up member of "the awkward squad". According to another colleague, Richard Crossman, he was "vain, difficult and uncooperative. All his life he remained an individualist back-bencher." But when Silverman believed in a cause, he wouldn't let go. And he believed in the campaign to end capital punishment. It took him almost 2 decades, but Silverman achieved his goal. On 8 November, 1965, his bill to abolish the death penalty for everything but treason or piracy received Royal Assent, albeit with a sunset clause that said the act would expire in 1970, unless parliament took action in the interim). Parliament did take action, and the decision was cemented by a large majority in 1969. By the time Silverman's Bill became law - 50 years ago today - public opinion had shifted slightly on the death penalty. Several high-profile hangings - Timothy Evans, Derek Bentley and Ruth Ellis - had prompted disquiet over the potential injustice of the system and several high-profile figures, including Arthur Koestler, publisher and humanitarian Victor Gollancz and Anglican canon John Collins, had lent their considerable moral authority to the campaign. Even so, the decision was contentious and remained so for several decades. Most ordinary people continued to see hanging as the most effective deterrent to serious crime. They had no interest in the ethical qualms of intellectuals and the arrest of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, just 4 weeks after the act came into force, simply hardened their position. Now, however, the clamour for the death penalty to be reinstated in the UK has weakened. A poll earlier this year put support at less than 50 per cent for the 1st time, and, in 2011, when right-wing blogger Paul Staines - aka Guido Fawkes - started an e-petition calling for the restoration of hanging for those who kill children or police officers, he fell far short of garnering the 100,000 signatures needed to spark a parliamentary debate. While high-profile cases, such as the murder of the Soham schoolgirls, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, cause a short-term spike in support for capital punishment, there is no sustained appetite for its return. The campaign to abolish the death penalty in the UK didn't really start gaining momentum until after the Second World War, but there were pockets of resistance as far back as the early 19th century. In those days, there were more than 200 separately defined capital crimes and 1,000 people were being sentenced to death every year. Though only a small proportion of the executions were carried out, liberal MPs were concerned people could still hang for offences such as shoplifting and forgery. One of the key campaigners was Sir James Mackintosh, a Scottish polymath and Whig MP. In 1819, he persuaded the government to set up a committee to look at capital punishment and campaigned, with some success, to decrease the number of crimes for which hanging was judged a fitting penalty. Other reformers were more preoccupied with ending the barbaric practice of public executions which were still regarded as great family days out by rich and poor alike. In a letter to the Times in 1849, Charles Dickens issued a literary telling off to the gleeful crowds who poured in to witness the hangings of Frederick and Marie Manning - a married couple convicted of the murder of Marie's lover in a case that became known as the Bermondsey Horror. "I believe that a sight so inconceivably awful as the wickedness and levity of the immense crowd collected at that execution this morning could be imagined by no man, and could be presented in no heathen land under the sun," he wrote, the sparks flying angrily from his pen. The last public execution in the UK took place 19 years later. Michael Barrett, a Fenian, who killed 12 bystanders in a bomb attack, was hanged outside the walls of Newgate Prison in May 1868, as a 2,000-strong crowd booed, jeered and sang Rule Britannia and Champagne Charlie. By then, there was only one crime for which people were put to death in peacetime - murder - and the issue of capital punishment faded from the public eye. In 1925, however, the newly-formed National Council for the Abolition of the Death Penalty put it back on the agenda and, in the mid-1930s, the flamboyant Violet Van der Elst decided to use her wealth and status to keep it there. For years, the rags-to-riches entrepreneur - who made her money from developing a range of cosmetics - would pitch up outside a prison in her Rolls-Royce on the day of an execution, and whip up a great protest. When Leonard Brigstock was hanged at Wandsworth Prison in 1935, vans drove up and down the street playing Abide With Me through a loudhailer, while dozens of men wore sandwich boards and, in the sky above, 3 aeroplanes trailed banners which read: "Stop the Death Sentence." Van der Elst's dedication to the cause, and her unsuccessful attempts to get elected to parliament, ate into her fortune and she died in a nursing home in 1966, 5 months after capital punishment was abolished. After the Second World War, society became less structured and hierarchical; class boundaries began to dissolve, and human rights were being enshrined in national and international constitutions. Enter Sydney Silverman. Silverman - with his distinctive quiff - was a maverick who would go on to form the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament with several other mavericks, including Michael Foot. In 1948, he persuaded the House of Commons to agree to a 5-year suspension of the death penalty; there were 28 reprieves and no executions between March and October, when the Lords overturned it. Silverman's efforts were not entirely wasted though. The government set up a Royal Commission to look at all aspects of capital punishment and, over the next few years, leading cultural figures began to campaign vigorously, with Arthur Koestler's Reflections On Hanging serialised over 5 weeks in the Observer. While their rhetoric influenced the great and the good, court cases had more impact on grassroots views. First, in early 1963, 19-year-old Derek Bentley went to the gallows for the killing of PC Sidney Miles during a thwarted robbery in Croydon. Bentley was unarmed and already under arrest at the time his young accomplice, Christopher Craig, fired the fatal shot. But, at 16, Craig was too young to hang. They were both convicted of murder and Bentley was executed because, according to campaigners, someone had to be seen to pay for the death of a police officer. Months later came the revelation that serial killer John Christie had almost certainly carried out the crime for which Timothy Evans had been hanged in 1950. The execution of this man - falsely accused of murdering his wife and daughter - was one of the gravest miscarriages of the justice the country ever experienced. But it was perhaps the execution of Ruth Ellis - the last woman to be hanged in the UK - that created the greatest backlash. Ellis had shot her abusive lover, David Blakely, several times at close range and the crime was premeditated, so the jury had no choice but to find her guilty of murder. But other murderers convicted around the same time - including a woman who killed her 86-year-old neighbour with a shovel - were granted reprieves and she was not. Ellis was attractive, was the mother of 2 small children and had suffered a miscarriage after Blakely punched her, so the case elicited much sympathy and highlighted the arbitrariness of the system. In 1956, Silverman introduced another private member's bill, which was also passed by the Commons and overturned by the Lords. The Homicide Act 1957 put further restrictions on the death penalty, so the number of executions had already decreased before the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act of 1965 abolished the death penalty for good. The last person to be hanged in Scotland was Henry Burnett, who shot his partner's estranged husband after she threatened to return to him. 300 people gathered outside Craiginches Prison in Aberdeen on the day of the execution, 15 August, 1963. The last people to be hanged in the UK were Gwynne Evans and Peter Allen, who murdered John West while robbing him at his home in Cumberland in 1964. They were executed on 13 August of that year. The arguments put forward by opponents of the death penalty were 2-fold: they believed it ran counter to human rights but also that it was an ineffective means of preventing further killings. After he retired, the famous hangman, Albert Pierrepoint, who executed both Bentley and Ellis, seemed to agree. "I do not now believe that any one of the hundreds of executions I carried out has in any way acted as a deterrent against future murder," he said. After the abolition of the death penalty, the murder rate rose (those who backed the 2011 e-petition said it had doubled) but it is difficult to draw any definitive conclusions from the available figures. After the death penalty was abolished, the statistics for murder, manslaughter and infanticide were all lumped together as homicide, and, in any case, correlation does not imply causation. Though some countries still cleave to it, capital punishment is now on the wane internationally. Of the 193 states recognised by the United Nations, only 37 still execute criminals. The US is 1 of only 2 developed democracies to use the death penalty (the other is Japan). Though 32 states still have it on their statute books - and there are 3,000 prisoners on death row - only 6 states have actually carried out executions this year. Of a total of 25, all by lethal injection, 11 were in Texas. The drop in the number of executions has more to do with the shortage of sodium thiopental - 1 of the 3 drugs required for the lethal injections - than any great cultural change. The shortage has been caused by a Europe-led embargo and has seen the system fall into disarray, with abolitionists striking while the iron is hot. Earlier this year, Justice Stephen Breyer suggested the Supreme Court should be asked to rule on whether the death penalty breached the 8th amendment, but campaigners are split on whether heading to the Supreme Court is the best course of action, given that a ruling in favour of the death penalty could see it entrenched for years. Some would prefer to keep chipping away at public opinion and campaign on a state-by-state basis. 6 states have got rid of the death penalty since 2007. Add to that the fact that 2 of the 3 candidates for the Democrat nomination vocally oppose capital punishment (Hillary Clinton wants to keep it, but only for the most egregious cases) and it seems possible the mood is beginning to soften. Half a century after the UK made its landmark decision on capital punishment, could the US finally be ready to at least consider following suit and scrapping what Pierrepoint referred to as "an antiquated relic of a primitive desire for revenge"? (source: scotsman.com) BANGLADESH: 6 sentenced to death over 2 gruesome child murders in Bangladesh 6 people have been sentenced to death over 2 gruesome child murders in Bangladesh. A court in Bangladesh's northeastern Sylhet city, some 241 km away of capital Dhaka, Sunday sentenced four men to death by hanging over brutal murder of Samiul Alam Rajon, 13, with metal bars in July this year. Of the suspects sentenced on Sunday, four were sentenced to death, 7 were sentenced to 7 years in jail and 2 were set free. The court of Sylhet's Session Judge Akbar Hossain Mridha delivered the verdict. The brutal murder of Rajon beaten with metal bars, which was filmed in a video, had shook the whole Bangladesh. The 28-minute video showed that the attackers were telling the boy to drink his own sweat as he asked for water. In the video Rajon's attackers were seen trying to force him to confess his involvement in a theft. The boy was accused of stealing a bicycle although his family claimed his innocence. The attackers continued to beat the boy though he cried saying repeatedly "I will die if you beat this way." The attackers were found laughing and jeering in the video as the boy sought mercy. There had been a popular demand for death penalty right from the day the court began trial of the attackers including prime suspect Kamrul Islam, who fled to Saudi Arabia after the incident, but later was taken into the custody of the Bangladesh embassy with the help of local police. He was brought back to Dhaka on Oct. 15 and was sent to jail by the court the next day. Weeks after the 13-year-old boy Rajon was murdered, another child Rakib Hawlader was found tortured and murdered in Khulan, some 180 km southwest of Dhaka. The brutality also irked protests from various quarters across the country. The 12-year-old Hawlader's succumbed to his injuries on Aug.3. Also on Sunday, a court in Khulna awarded death sentence to 2 people for the murder of Hawlader. Accused Omar Sharif and Mintu Mia, who were handed death sentences, tortured the Hawlader as he quit his job at their garage to work for another employer. (source: Shanghai Daily) *************** 2 get death penalty in Rakib murder A Khulna court has sentenced 2 people to death for brutally killing teenage boy Rakibul Islam Rakib 3 months ago. The convicts are Sharif Motors owner Sharif and his uncle Mintu. However, the court acquitted Sharif's mother Beauty Begum from the murder charge brought against her in the lawsuit along with the duo. On August 3, 12-year-old boy Md Rakibul Islam was viciously killed by the trio in the city's Tutpara area because he had left employment at their garage and taken up a job elsewhere. Rakib's former employers pumped air through his rectum to kill him. Following the death, outraged locals broke into the garage and beat up the 3 before handing them over to police. On the next day, Rakib's father lodged a murder case with Sadar police station against the 3. (source: Dhaka Tribune) PAKISTAN: Conviction: Murder convicts sentenced to death An additional district and sessions judge on Monday sentenced a man convicted of murder to death and fined him Rs300,000. He acquitted another accused on over lack of substantial evidence. Prosecution said Khanpur Saddar police had arrested Ajmal Lar for killing 3 men over personal enmity with help from Fayaz Ahmed. After hearing witnesses and examining evidence, Sessions Judge Muhammad Zubair Lar to death and fined him Rs300,000. Ahmad was acquitted. Faisalabad conviction Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) Judge Raja Parvaiz Akhtar on Saturday awarded death penalty on 4 counts to a man he convicted of rape and murder. Prosecution said Muhammad Saeed, a labourer, had been working at Muhammad Mukhtar's house in Sir Syed Town. They said he had abducted the latter's 4-year-old daughter and raped her. They said later, he had strangled the child and hid her dead body under cement bags. They said he later called the father of the deceased and demanded a Rs15 million ransom for her release. The girl's father reported the incident to police who had arrested the suspect in a raid. The man confessed to raping and killer the child during interrogation. After hearing witnesses and examining the evidence, Judge Akhtar sentenced Muhammad Saeed to death on 4 counts. The court also fined him Rs1.5 million. (source: The Express Tribune) SINGAPORE: Court sets Nov 23 date to hear appeal by man sentenced to hang The Singapore Court of Appeal has set November 23 to hear an appeal by Sarawakian death row inmate Kho Jabing to have his sentence commuted, according to an anti-death penalty activist. Ms Kirsten Han, the co-founder of Singapore-based We Believe in Second Chances, told Malay Mail Online that the date was set Nov 6. "If we are lucky it will get pushed back a bit, but this is the time we have to work with for now," she said in a brief text message. Jabing who is currently incarcerated in Singapore, was scheduled to hang yesterday but was awarded a temporary reprieve less than 24 hours to his execution after his lawyer filed a criminal motion at the Singaporean Court of Appeal on Wednesday for remittance. The 31-year-old left for Singapore in 2007 searching for better economic opportunities and was hired as a labourer there. He was first convicted and sentenced to death in 2010 for the murder of China national Cao Ruyin, 40. When amendments to the mandatory death penalty came into force in 2013, however, Jabing was deemed eligible to apply for resentencing; his sentenced was later commuted to life imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane by the Singapore High Court. However, a 3-2 decision at the Singapore Court of Appeal last January after the prosecution appealed sent Jabing back on death row. (source: todayonline.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Nov 9 09:49:16 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2015 09:49:16 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 9 CHINA: Chinese state firm boss accused of stashing tonne of stolen gold, silver at his home has death sentence overturned The former head of a state-owned gold and silver refinery in China, who allegedly had more than a tonne of stolen precious metals stashed at his home, has had his death sentence for corruption overturned, according to a newspaper report. The Supreme People's Court ruled there was insufficient evidence to support Song Wendai's convictions, the Beijing Times reported. The court has ordered a retrial, the report said. Song, 53, was sentenced to death 4 years ago for taking bribes and embezzling public funds totalling 85 million yuan (HK$103 million). He was the former chairman of the Qiankun gold and silver refinery in Inner Mongolia. Prosecutors seized 2.7 million yuan in cash, 134 kg of gold, 995.3 kg of silver, 81 grams of platinum, four houses and four vehicles from Song, the news website People.cn reported in 2012. The state-run news agency Xinhua were quoted as saying that Song hid his stolen gold in a car parked in the underground garage of his Beijing home, the report said. He appealed against his sentence 2 years ago, but it was upheld by the Inner Mongolia High People's Court. The Supreme People's Court found that among the charges there was not enough evidence to prove Song had embezzled 10 million yuan as capital to register his own company or that he made a further illegal gain of 17 million yuan in property transactions, the Beijing Times said. His lawyer said Song had literally been hoping for the annulment of his death penalty every morning since he lost his appeal 2 years ago as executions were often announced at 6 am. The report did not say when the retrial would take place. (source: SOuth China Morning Post) PAKISTAN: Human rights organization Reprieve says Islamabad has executed 299 people since ending its moratorium in December. Islamabad has hanged 299 people since ending its moratorium on the death penalty in December and could pass 300 executions any day, claims research by human rights organizations Reprieve and Justice Project Pakistan. In a press release, Reprieve claims that, on average, there has been nearly 1 (0.93) execution every day since the moratorium was lifted. "The total for 2015 so far is 292, with the deadliest month being October, when 47 people were hanged," it added. At the current rate, according to Reprieve, the projected total executions for 2015 would be 347. This would be the highest tally on record, with Pakistan's previous high of 135 in 2007 being less than 1/2 of this year's record. "This grisly milestone should cause Pakistan's government to stop and think," said Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at Reprieve. "The 299 people so far executed have included people sentenced to death as children, and victims of police torture. Yet independent studies show that very few of them have been alleged terrorists, despite the government's claim," she added. "This futile hanging spree has simply piled injustice on top of injustice, while leaving the people of Pakistan no safer than they were before." Executions in Pakistan resumed after a gap of 6 years after the Taliban killed 154 people, mostly children, at the Army Public School in Peshawar. Hangings initially resumed only for terror convicts, but in March they were extended to all capital offences. A Reuters investigation published in July found that, of 180 people hanged since December, "fewer than 1 in 6 were linked to militancy." The European Union, the United Nations and human rights campaigners have urged Pakistan to reinstate the moratorium, with Amnesty International estimating that there are over 8,000 prisoners on death row, most of whom have exhausted their appeals. (source: newsweekpakistan.com) INDONESIA: Indonesian spared Saudi death penalty for murdering baby An Indonesian domestic worker returned home Monday after escaping the death penalty in Saudi Arabia for murdering her own baby. Emi binti Katma Mumu arrived in Soekarno-Hatta airport in Indonesia after f years in prison in Dammam in eastern Saudi Arabia. The 33-year-old will avoid a beheading sentence despite a court ruling that she killed her newborn. "In fact, the Saudi court ordered her release in April," Indonesia's Riyadh embassy spokesman Dede Achmad Rifai said in a statement as quoted by Metrotvnews.com. "However, due to immigration administrative matters, she was only [actually] released... on November 8." Mumu claimed to have already been pregnant when she left Sukabumi, a small city in the foothills south of Jakarta, for Saudi Arabia in 2009. But she did not reveal her pregnancy to her employer for fear of being fired and sent back to Indonesia. After the baby boy was born, she is said to have killed him and put his body in a plastic bag. When her employer found out, he reported it to police. "She was sentenced to death by qisas," said Rifai, in reference to a Koranic verse that calls for murderers to be put to death unless pardoned by the victim's family. The Embassy of Indonesia managed to save Mumu from the death penalty after her husband, Enjang bin Pahrudin, sent a letter forgiving her. "We managed to convince the judge that the child who was killed was the result of a relationship with her husband," Rifai added. "Furthermore, we strived to get her husband to pardon her." "I request that my wife be released or withdrawn from the punishment and immediately sent home," Pahrudin wrote in the letter sent to the judge in 2010, as quoted by Antara News. The statement of pardon was also reinforced by a statement from Pahrudin's parents. Although Mumu escaped the death penalty, the judge sentenced her to 5 years in prison and 500 lashes. At the time, the public prosecutor expressed dissatisfaction with the judge's decision, which it considered too light. "However... we managed to convince the public prosecutor not to file for an additional period of custody," Rifai said. So far in 2015, Indonesia has saved 48 domestic workers from the death penalty, 12 of them in Saudi Arabia. (source: newsfultoncounty.com) *************** Inside Indonesia's death penalty debate During the media storm surrounding the executions of two members of the 'Bali 9' group of Australian convicted drug traffickers in April 2015, the focus of most reporting in the western media was on international relations, human rights and the to-and-froing at the top levels of political leadership. In contrast, there has been little investigation of or reflection on this issue from the perspective of how it is understood and debated within Indonesian society itself. In order to get a deeper understanding of how the death penalty is viewed inside Indonesia, Zacharias Szumer interviewed 4 Indonesian commentators who have each previously spoken publicly about this issue. The interviews were conducted by email. Zacharias Szumer: There is yet to be any systematic and independent survey that could objectively show the percentage of Indonesians who support the death penalty, but President Joko Widodo's (Jokowi's) political decisions seem to suggest it enjoys wide support amongst the Indonesian public. Why does the death penalty for drug dealers enjoy such wide support in Indonesia? What is the history and basis of this support? Andina Dwifatma: Indeed there is yet to be such survey, but some major media have conducted opinion polls about the Bali Nine case. [One] conducted by Kompas, the newspaper with the largest circulation, [found] that 86 % of the people surveyed agreed that Sukumaran and Chan deserved the death penalty. Further, 57.8 per cent did not mind cutting the bilateral relationship with Australia to do so. So it is safe to say that the death penalty does enjoy wide support in Indonesia. I would argue that there are 2 major causative factors: firstly, Indonesia's law enforcement is weak. Before Jokowi, SBY freed many convicted drug dealers like Schapelle Leigh Corby, Michael Loic Blanc, and Meirika Franola, and it created a kind of public distrust of the government; because the government seemed not take the drug issue seriously. Chan and Sukumaran received death penalty sentences long before Jokowi, so when the executions finally happened, they were appreciated. Secondly, Chan and Sukumaran were foreigners. The fact that they were strangers and were trafficking something destructive, caused a relatively stronger resistance. Tobias Basuki: If I am not mistaken, Tempo, and one other survey agency had this question posed (Tempo readers, and one national survey). Possibly between 60 to 70 something % supported the death penalty, probably even higher. Which I think makes sense. I would say, without any caveat added, over 70 % of Indonesians support the death penalty for drug dealers ([with] no discrimination between small-time peddlers etc). It is hard to say why there is this widespread support. But for one, the canvas of Indonesian society in general is not abolitionist. Thus, the death penalty is still within the legal system and also within society's accepted norm for extraordinary crimes. Here is where it gets tricky. Drug offences and their associated problems, are considered as some of the most heinous crimes with undesirable consequences for Indonesians. Why this is so, is hard to say, although the problem is arguably not as widespread as the government claims, but many see it as a problem. There is also a religious element in it. For the 2 main religions, Islam and Christianity, drugs in their various forms are very much vilified in their religious teachings, sometimes even more so than corruption. Mosques and churches possibly have more sermons condemning drugs than corruption. Yohanes Sulaiman: I believe that the death penalty is popular here firstly because people believe that it is the ultimate punishment for those who deserve it, and secondly, there is very little discussion about people wrongly sentenced and put to death. Unlike in Australia, US, or Europe for example, where the media seems to dissect every single case of people wrongly sentenced to death, people here believe that if you are put to death, in general it is clearly because you deserve it. For example, the Bali Nine were really guilty of smuggling drugs. Yes, there is much discussion about an unfair justice system that favours the rich, but interestingly that actually leads people to demand the death penalty for those rich and famous people who are clearly guilty of corruption, for example. ZS: Some analysis during the media storm surrounding the executions suggested that Indonesia's history as a colonised country makes the Indonesian public particularly hostile to foreign governments seen to be intervening in domestic affairs. Do you think this is a major factor? If so, could you explain a little bit about this post-colonial feeling in Indonesia and how it shapes political attitudes? Andina Dwifatma: Yes, I do think that this post-colonial thing plays a major role. The experience as a colonised country gives us an inferiority complex. In the field of media studies, for example, some researchers argue that this post-colonial syndrome explains why Indonesians are so prone to advertisements of whitening products, hair dye, and coloured contact lenses, because looking like a 'bule' (ed. white-skinned foreigner) is cool. But when it comes to political attitudes, this has led to a desire for sovereignty. One of the ways [this is expressed] is through law-enforcement, something that has long been missed. Moreover, the Indonesia-Australia relationship is not exceptionally friendly. There are issues about how Australia turned back asylum seeker boats to Indonesia (which was considered an affront to our sovereignty), the loss of East Timor in 1999 which could not be separated from the role that Australia played, and how Corby was released during the SBY era. So for the majority of the public (as shown in an opinion poll I referred to earlier) Chan and Sukumaran's case was some kind of 'opportunity' to declare that as a nation we are sovereign. Tobias Basuki: Yes, I would agree to some extent with your assessment. But I would say there is also a contemporary sense of nationalism, of saying 'screw the West' if you try to interfere. Australia being considered part of the West, and in particular the various tensions and frictions we had with Australia definitely added to this backlash. Strong and aggressive statements by PM Abbott certainly did not help. I have stated before that these statements Abbott made (like the one about the Tsunami Aid) practically nailed the coffin of Sukumaran and Chan. Instead of lobbying through backchannels and a soft diplomacy, the Australian government made the mistake (maybe intentionally) of triggering a backlash of nationalistic sentiment from Indonesia. This made it impossible for Jokowi to backtrack even if he wanted to. The cost of backtracking has become much more expensive politically than if he were to go ahead with the executions. Shiskha Prabawaningtyas: I think this post-colonial sentiment does not occur only in Indonesia, but in most post-colonial countries. Even, in the Southeast Asia region, under ASEAN, the principle of non-intervention is officially adopted as the core value of its establishment. I personally disagree with the phrase of 'hostile to foreign governments', since it is this hostility [also] toward domestic supporters [of clemency]. The sentiment against 'something foreign' proves to be a powerful weapon for any politician or government to mobilise domestic support for a certain issue. It is an easy strategy to draw a clear borderline between 'us' and the other, 'the enemy'. I don't see it as 'major factor', yet it is a part of the characteristic of post-colonial state politics that needs to be managed. I remember in 1957, when Indonesia faced a crisis in domestic political consolidation, the cabinet frequently received a motion of no-confidence from the parliament. However, when the Djuanda cabinet declared the extension of Indonesian territorial sovereignty to 12 nautical miles, the government received strong public support, including from the parliament. At that time, the government also nationalised all Dutch enterprises and demanded all Dutch citizens go back to the Netherlands. The international community at that time surely saw Indonesia as very hostile to foreign interests, but it received wide domestic support. ZS: The legal system of most countries usually balances competing objectives: deterrence, punishment, a sense of justice for victims, rehabilitation. Do you feel that the balance of these objectives is similar in the Indonesian legal system as it is in other countries? If not, what are the differences? Tobias Basuki: In short, that is where all my criticism against my own government is. In so many ways it is all jumbled up in Indonesia. It is not a deterrence, I believe, and the drug problem is based on shoddy statistics. And compared with other heinous crimes these drug dealers executed in the 2nd batch were definitely 'less deserving' compared to others who butchered people, but only got six months jail. It is a mess of a legal system. Here is an article I wrote for the Jakarta Post in February 2015. Shiskha Prabawaningtyas: I think it is like a 'common secret', rahasia umum, that Indonesian rule of law is extremely problematic. I am not a legal expert, yet I assume that as Indonesian current law is still adopting the colonial Dutch law, especially in criminal law, you might easily locate the problem at the edifice of Indonesian rule of law. The law was established in the context of a colonial rule 'against' the indigenous opposition. So, the assumption of most criminal laws is clearly not to restore 'social justice and order'. You can read Daniel Lev's articles about the problems within Indonesian legal system for more information. The way the law has been articulated and implemented tends to be a rigid interpretation of articles and in favour of the strongest (people with high social and economic status), rather than an institution that restores 'justice' and applies a mechanism of jurisprudence. A famous anecdote to express the application of the law in Indonesia might be 'tajam di bawah, numpul di atas' (sharp against the poor, dull against the rich). For example, I am strongly against the punishment of drug abuse and use by simply sending them to jail and putting them in the same place with other criminal offenders, such as murderers. There is no such clear mechanism of multilayered problem-solving for the drugs issue. Do you think the death penalty is likely to be abolished any time soon? If so, what would the political path towards abolition look like? Andina Dwifatma: Again, as a legal question, I do not have the necessary knowledge to talk about that. But in my personal opinion, the death penalty will not be abolished any time soon. Lately, law makers have been working on the penal code draft and there are no talks (so far) to change the death penalty as a maximum penalty for criminals. Tobias Basuki: There is a slight chance, as our constitution arguably states the 'right to life'. Vice- President Jusuf Kalla has mentioned that the pending executions might be stopped if we abolish the death penalty from our legal system. This has also been part of a discussion in Parliament. So there are glimmers of chances. But unfortunately it is not a sexy issue that will gain political capital for any party or politician. Thus I do not see this happening any time in the near future. Shiskha Prabawaningtyas: I am strongly against the death penalty. I do wish for the abolition of the death penalty, not only in Indonesia, but across the world. But, as you know, many countries still perform it, such as the US, Singapore and Malaysia. If you ask in Indonesia, realistically speaking, the path is still long and hard. If you follow the current Indonesian media exposure on the death of the little girl, Angeline, in Bali over the last month, unfortunately, you can see many supporters of the death penalty for the alleged perpetrator in social media. I am quite pessimistic the advocacy to abolish death penalty will gain wide public support in Indonesia. Yohanes Sulaiman: Nope. Aside from human rights people in Jakarta, very few people care. This is not a major issue that would rile people up because they don't see this as very important. (source: Inside Indonesia) IRAN/SAUDI ARABIA: Iran Slams Saudi Arabia For Executing Its Citizens Iran has summoned the Saudi charge d'affaires in Tehran to protest the execution of 3 Iranians in Saudi Arabia for drug trafficking. According to Iranian state media, the death sentences of the 3 men, who had been convicted of smuggling large amounts of hashish to the kingdom, were carried out in the city of Dammam earlier on November 8. "Countries refrain from executing such sentences by respecting bilateral relations and keeping in mind that implementing such sentences will not bear a positive effect on ties," Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Hassan Qashqavi was quoted as saying by Press TV. Iran and Saudi Arabia, regional rivals, are at odds over crises in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, as well as the disaster at the hajj in September in which 465 Iranians died in a crush of pilgrims near Mecca. Last year, Saudi Arabia executed more people than any country except China and Iran. Most executions in Saudi Arabia are by public beheading. (source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) **************** Shahram Ahmadi At The Imminent Risk Of Execution The death sentence for Shahram Ahmadi, Sunni prisoner in Rajai Shahr prison, once again has been confirmed by the Supreme Court and the decision has been sent to the executive authorities. According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA), the death penalty for Shahram Ahmadi, Sunni prisoner in Rajai Shahr prison, which had been broken by the Supreme Court, was issued again by Branch 28 of Tehran's Revolutionary Court, and this time was upheld by the Supreme Court and the Law-enforcement office has been notified. According to this report and considering that this decision has been referred to law enforcement office, with the permission of the head of the judiciary, this Sunni prisoner of conscience may be executed anytime. Earlier, there were some news released regarding this prisoner of conscience hearing loss due to medical condition and the lack of adequate medical care in prison. Shahram Ahmadi was shot and arrested by the security forces in May 2009 and was headed to the hospital. Ahmadi underwent the surgery in a hospital and while he was unconscious, lost 1 kidney and part of his intestine. This political prisoner, after 43 months detention and interrogation in the solitary confinement of intelligence office in Sanandaj, in October 2012, was tried in the Branch 12 of the Revolutionary Court, presided by judge Moghiseh, in a short trial and in the presence of a public lawyer, was sentenced to death on charge of combat. The same year that Shahram Ahmadi was arrested, his younger brother Bahram Ahmadi was arrested in Sanandaj, too. His brother, who was less than 18 years old, at the time of arrest, was executed with 5 other Sunni prisoners on 27th December 2011 in Ghezelhesar prison, in Karaj. Shahram Ahmadi's sentence was sent to the Supreme Court in August 2014, and then by the Supreme Court was broken and referred to the Branch of issuing the verdict. But, judge Moghiseh issued the death sentence again and this time the Supreme Court confirmed the verdict. Shahram Ahmadi is imprisoned in Rajai Shahr prison and in exile, and in all the years of being imprisoned, he has been limited to communicate with his family. Shahram Ahmadi is currently suffering from intestinal disease and kidney infection. The security and judicial institutions accused Shahram Ahmadi of Salafism and connection with extremist armed groups, however, he wrote several letters from prison and called these accusations "false" and said that his only crime was proselytizing. (source: HRANA News Agency) BANGLADESH: Executions for men who lynched Bangladesh boy on video----13-year-old was filmed tied to a stake, tortured and beaten to death in Sylhet, prompting nationwide protests. 4 men have been sentenced to death in Bangladesh for lynching a 13-year-old boy and placing a video of the brutal attack on the internet in a case which sparked outrage across the country. A court in the northeastern city of Sylhet handed down the sentences on Sunday, four months after the killing of Sheikh Mohammad Samiul Alam Rajon. Among the 4 to be executed is the prime suspect, Kamrul Islam, who was deported from Saudi Arabia - where he fled in the immediate aftermath of the murder. The man who filmed the incident, Nur Ahmed, was handed a life sentence on Sunday, while a number of others received jail sentences for being involved in the attack. On July 8, Rajon was lashed to a stake, tortured and beaten to death by a number of men in Sylhet, who had accused him of stealing a bike. Police said an autopsy revealed scores of injuries all over his body, including on the head and chest. He died due to internal bleeding. A 28-minute video of the attack, in which the boy is seen begging for water as he lays dying in the street, sparked huge protests in Bangladesh after going viral on social media. Rajon's attackers can be heard on the footage trying to force him to confess his involvement in the burglary. At one stage, he is told to walk away. But as he tries to get to his feet, one of the attackers shouts: "His bones are OK. Beat him some more." When the youngster begs for water, his attackers mock him and tell him to "drink your sweat". On Sunday, Rajon's father Sheikh Azizur Rahman and public prosecutor Misbah Uddin Siraj told Al Jazeera that they were satisfied that the boy's attackers had been brought to justice. "The killing of Rajon is a tragic incident. The verdict in the Rajon murder case was delivered after 4 months and one day, which sets an example for protecting the rights of children," Siraj said. Defence lawyer Habibur Rahman Habib, however, said he would immediately appeal the ruling on behalf of his clients. (source: Aljazeera) GLOBAL: see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HezsgUs8eM&feature=em-uploademail (source: Sant'Egidio) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Nov 9 15:28:47 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2015 15:28:47 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., N.C., FLA., KY., CALIF., USA Message-ID: Nov. 9 TEXAS: Man who killed wife returns to court for retrial of punishment William "Billy the Kid" Mason was convicted of beating his wife to death for playing her radio too loudly. Mason hogtied 33-year-old Deborah Ann Mason, put her in the trunk of a car and drove her to Humble where he bludgeoned her with a piece of concrete. Her body, bound and gagged, was found Jan. 27, 1991, near the San Jacinto River. Mason, who became a member of the Aryan Brotherhood gang while in prison, had been paroled on a murder conviction 3 weeks before his wife's death. He is scheduled to go trial later this year. William "Billy the Kid" Mason is a like a wrecking ball, prosecutors said Monday during opening statements of the 2nd death penalty trial in Harris County this year. "Everything he touches, he destroys," Assistant Harris County District Attorney Katherine McDaniel told jurors hearing testimony in the re-trial on the punishment phase of Mason's capital murder case. "The choices William Mason has made continue to wreck the lives of everyone around him." Mason was convicted of kidnapping and bludgeoning 33-year-old Deborah Ann Mason in 1991 under the Hwy. 59 bridge over the San Jacinto river in Humble. He faces the possibility of death or prison time with a chance at parole in as little as 15 years. On Monday, the 61-year-old sat quietly in a powder blue button-down shirt and round black glasses and listened as prosecutors laid out their case. His defense team did not make an opening statement. Attorney Terry Gaiser has said the case should have been tried as a murder, but because Mason tied up his wife, put her in the trunk of a car, the underlying felony of kidnapping made it a death penalty case. Gaiser has said Mason would agree to a plea deal that ensures he will spend the rest of his life in prison, if offered. That offer has apparently not come, as prosecutors prepared for at least a week of testimony to detail the crime and Mason's behavior before and after the slaying, including another murder conviction during a crime spree more than a decade earlier. McDaniel said Mason is a high-ranking member of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, a violent white supremacist prison gang. She said he robbed and killed a black man in 1977 after spending hours seeking out a black victim. "Don't you know he went through that man's pockets and then shot him dead?" McDaniel said. She said Mason also committed an armed robbery of a Mexican food restaurant later that year, then fled to California, where he was arrested. After spending 13 years in prison for murder, McDaniel said, he was paroled. It was only 18 days after getting out that he beat his wife to death by smashing her head with concrete blocks, then weighing down her body in the San Jacinto river. Her body was found days later by passersby after storm waters receded. The case, in state District Judge Marc Carter's court, is the 2nd death penalty trial in Harris County this year. (source: Houston Chronicle) PENNSYLVANIA: Delco ex-cop, awaiting murder trial, guilty of stalking A former Delaware County police officer awaiting trial for the slaying of an ex-girlfriend pleaded guilty Monday to stalking another woman. Stephen Rozniakowski, 33, of Norwood, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court to 23 months in prison as part of a plea deal under which 75 counts of stalking and harassment were reduced to one court of stalking. His attorney said the plea would allows Rozniakowski to focus on the murder charges he faces in Delaware County, where prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Rozniakowski, a former Colwyn Borough police officer, was charged in Montgomery County in April 2014 with stalking an ex-fiancee. Prosecutors said 6 months of harassment began after the woman broke off her engagement with Rozniakowski in September 2013. "He would not let her have peace," said Assistant District Attorney Brianna Ringwood. "He called repeatedly at all hours of the day and night. He called her cell phone, he called her at work, he called family and friends. He texted her incessantly." While out on bail, Rozniakowski began dating Valerie Morrow, whom he is now charged with killing. He began stalking Morrow when she ended their relationship months later, police said, and in December broke into her Glendolden, Delaware County, house, killed her, and shot her daughter. The 2 cases are "totally unrelated," said defense attorney Martin Mullaney. But prosecutors in Delaware County could choose to use the stalking case as evidence in the murder trial, Ringwood said. "My client made a prudent decision today to enter a guilty plea in this case so he can focus his attention on his much more serious charges in Delaware County," said Mullaney, who is not representing Rozniakowski in the murder case. (source: philly.com) NORTH CAROLINA: Suspect in North Hills murder looks to escape death penalty A man accused in the brutal 2013 slaying of a woman in her North Hills apartment was in court Monday morning as his attorneys asked a judge to take the death penalty off the table. Travion Devonte Smith, 22, of Raleigh, is 1 of 3 people charged in the beating and stabbing death of Melissa Huggins-Jones. Huggins-Jones, 30, had recently divorced and moved from Tennessee to the apartment complex off Six Forks Road in Raleigh, where she started a new job and a new life caring for her 8-year-old daughter, Hannah Olivia Jones. Her son had stayed behind with his father in Tennessee to finish the school year. The morning of May 14, 2013, Hannah wandered out of the apartment and approached a nearby construction crew, asking for help. A construction worker followed the girl back into the apartment and found Huggins-Jones dead in her bed, covered in blood. An autopsy determined she died from repeated blows to her head and neck. A laptop stolen from the apartment directly below Huggins-Jones' turned up in Wake Forest, and investigators were able to use DNA evidence to link the computer to 3 suspects. Smith, Ronald Lee Anthony, 25, and Sarah Rene Redden, 20, of Wake Forest, were charged in the case. Smith is set to go on trial the 1st week of January, but his attorneys said the state withheld critical information in his case. Redden, the getaway driver, originally said both Smith and Anthony were involved, but later recanted, saying Anthony was primarily responsible and not Smith. Melvin Brown, an inmate who was housed with Smith, also shared similar information, but defense attorneys said the state did not disclose the details until recently. "She is now saying it is Ronald Anthony, and that Ronald Anthony alone killed Ms. Huggins-Jones," said Jonathan Broun, a defense attorney. "Ronald told her he stabbed (Huggins-Jones) to death. (Smith) did not personally hit, stab or hurt Ms. Huggins-Jones. She also said she has no indication that Travion went into Ms. Huggins-Jones' bedroom or was present when (Anthony) killed her." In September, Anthony pleaded guilty to 1st-degree murder and received a life sentence. Redden has agreed to testify against her 2 co-defendants. (source: WRAL news) FLORIDA----female may face death penalty Woman who drowned 2-year-old has death penalty case postponed Kimberly Lucas, the woman who says an alternate personality led her to kill the 2-year-old girl she shared with her partner, won't return to a Palm Beach County courtroom until sometimes next year. A judge Monday morning granted a delay of Lucas' case until February as Assistant Public Defender Elizabeth Ramsey continues to work on the case she recently inherited from private attorneys Marc Shiner and Heidi Perlet. s stepped down from the case after they said Lucas' family was overwhelmed by the cost to retain experts to argue her insanity defense and could no longer afford to pay them. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Lucas on 1st-degree murder charges in the May 2014 death of Elliana Lucas-Jamason. She also faces charges connected to the attempted murder of her son, Ethan, then 10. Lucas, 41, of Jupiter, at the time of the killing was estranged from Jacquelyn Jamason, the children's biological mother and her former partner. (source: palm Beach Post) KENTUCKY: The Death Penalty in Kentucky: A Timeline --June 29, 1972: U.S. Supreme Court holds that the death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. July 2, 1976: U.S. Supreme Court rules that the death penalty for the crime of murder does not, under all circumstances, violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. -December 22, 1976: Gov. Julian Carroll signs into law a bill that establishes death, life or a term of years as punishment for capital crimes. -August 1977: Larry Bendingfield becomes the 1st defendant sentenced to death after passage of the new law. His death sentence was overturned, and he was retried and sentenced to serve 75 years. -July 13, 1984: The penalty of life without parole for 25 years is added to the statute as another possible punishment for capital murder. -December 1988: The Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty is incorporated. -July 13, 1990: The law is amended to exclude certain mentally disabled persons from execution. (This does not include persons considered mentally ill.) -June 1997: Public Advocate Ernie Lewis calls for a moratorium on executions. -July 1,1997: Harold McQueen Jr. is executed in the electric chair. -March 31, 1998: Lethal injection becomes the usual means of execution, with exceptions for those sentenced to death prior to the effective date of the legislation who are allowed to choose method of execution. -March 31, 1998: Life without parole as a possible penalty for a capital crime is added to state law. -July 15, 1998: The Kentucky Racial Justice Act, which allows a defendant to use statistical evidence to show racial bias in capital trials, is added to state law. -May 25, 1999: Edward Lee Harper Jr. waives any further appeals and becomes the 1st person executed by lethal injection in Kentucky. -November 21, 2008: Marco Allen Chapman waives any further appeals and is executed by lethal injection. -August 1, 2002: Larry Osborne is acquitted and freed from a sentence of death imposed in a trial in 1999. The Kentucky Supreme Court unanimously vacates his conviction and sentence and grants a new trial. -December 7, 2011: A team of leading Kentucky legal professionals issues a report detailing nearly 100 areas in which the Kentucky system of capital sentencing fails to meet a set of protocols of the American Bar Association to ensure fairness and just outcomes. Recommendations include a suspension of executions until problems with the system are addressed. -January 2015: Bills to repeal the death penalty are filed in both chambers of the General Assembly by Republican and Democratic lawmakers. Bills calling for a study of the costs of the system to Kentucky taxpayers are also filed. No hearings are held on any of these measures. (source: The Courier-Journal) CALIFORNIA: Ex-NFL player Lawrence Phillips now eligible for death penalty in death of his prison cellmate Ex-NFL player Lawrence Phillips could face the death penalty for allegedly killing his cellmate at Kern Valley State Prison, according to his defense attorney Jesse Whitten. A new prosecution motion in the case stated that Phillips should now be eligible for the death penalty after new evidence shows he was lying in wait for his cellmate, Whitten said. The "lying in wait" addition qualifies as a special circumstance and, under California law, makes Phillips eligible for the death penalty, according to the defense attorney. Whitten argued the motion was improper and questioned its timing. Judge Michael Bush granted the motion Monday, Whitten said. District Attorney Lisa Green has not yet decided if she will seek the death penalty, according to Whitten. Phillips has pleaded not guilty to 1st- degree murder in the death of his cellmate, convicted murderer, 37-year-old Damion Dewayne Soward on April 11. Phillips is due back in court Nov. 17. (source: The Kern Golden Empire) USA: Support for death penalty is lagging across the country According to opinion polls, the death penalty is in a long, slow decline nationally. Robert Dunham with the Death Penalty Information Center says there is also an "innocence revolution" - death row inmates proven innocent. Death penalty supporters argue harsh justice is a deterrent to crime. Dunham says juries are also told that a life sentence really means life behind bars. Some juries were under the misguided notion that a if a capital convict was not executed they could eventually released on parol. Dunham says F-B-I figures show the death penalty doesn't deter crime in any measurable way. In South Dakota, 3 men are on death row. (source: kelo.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Nov 9 15:29:56 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2015 15:29:56 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 9 BAHAMAS: DNA: A Tragic National Milestone With less than 2 months left in the year, the Bahamas has surpassed the highest number of murders ever recorded in our nation's history. As the country marks this tragic milestone we are reminded of the hundreds of young men and women whose lives were abruptly ended as a result of violent crime. Over the course of this year, media reports have detailed the many instances of violent crime; newspapers have recounted the stories of fathers snatched away from their sons and mothers from their daughters. So far this year, we have learned that none of us are safe from the ever increasing levels of crime and criminality facing our nation. All of us, be we preacher, politician, child, or senior citizen, cannot escape the impact of crime. Whether we ourselves have fallen victim to the criminal element or have had family members taken from us as a result, one truth is certain: we are all in this together. Crime is everybody's business and everyone must play their respective roles in eradicating it. As the saying goes it takes a village to raise a child, unfortunately our collective village has not done enough to raise an entire generation of young Bahamians. Our village, including parents, teachers, church leaders and mentors have an important role to play in teaching our children fundamental life lessons such as discipline, respect and conflict resolution. For failures in that regard we must all accept a modicum of responsibility. Perhaps the most important role of all however, belongs to the government. I have long said that it is the chief responsibility of any government to keep its citizens safe. On that front, this Christie led government has failed us. Even after claiming to have the answers this Christie administration has failed to carry out the laws on the books with respect to capital punishment; failed to effectively address the inefficiencies within the judiciary; failed to balance the need for rehabilitative and punitive elements of our justice system and FAILED to stamp out criminality and corruption within their own party and governmental structures. A DNA Government WILL NOT FAIL YOU. As the next government we commit to rooting out the systemic corruption which has all but crippled our still developing nation. We commit to sweating the small stuff. Full scale enforcement of all our countries laws, even the smallest infractions will send a message that we are SERIOUS about ensuring that the Rule of Law is followed at all cost. No man or woman, regardless of the socio-economic or political position should be allowed to flout the country's laws without consequence. A DNA government will ensure that laws are in place so that the Privy Council is duty bound to carry out the death penalty. A DNA government will implement the necessary victim resources to help families HEAL and the necessary rehabilitative resources to reduce recidivism. The DNA's 1st and foremost duty will be to protect its citizens. Branville McCartney DNA Leader (source: The Bahamas Weekly) BANGLADESH: Done to death -- Violence begets violence, and we already have an excess of it Let us now rejoice at the sentencing of Rajon's infamous killers, who have been handed down the death penalty for torturing the boy on camera. The convicts were Kamrul, Moina, Tajuddin, and Zakir. Zakir, so far, is in hiding. They were also slapped with a fine of Tk10,000 each. Let us now also rejoice at the awarding of the death penalty to Rakib???s killers: Sharif and Mintu. These blokes were owners of a certain Sharif Motors, with Mintu being Sharif's uncle. Beauty Begum, Sharif's mother, who had held him back while Sharif and Mintu tortured him and, eventually, brought about his death, was acquitted. Woe is us. Word of mouth and the Internet reek of pleasure. Justice has been served, they say; these inhumane humans will receive, finally, what's coming to them. The Hand of God, via these uncapitalised hands of ours, will strike them down with Divine Justice. I see words of jubilant celebration echoed in the intonations of my friends, colleagues, acquaintances. The death knell rings for these insipid souls; their impending death is merely a fraction of the pain and suffering they had wielded at their hands, against children no less, against minors who had done little to deserve to be at the end of such unwarranted violence. Yay. Indeed. In this narrative of subjectivity, one finds it difficult to be objective, to be rational, unbiased. But one can try. And if the "one" sounds too inclusive, like too much of an attempt to bring you into the fold of an unwilling attempt, then I shall use the singular first person henceforth. But yes, it has become increasingly difficult to say the right thing for the wrong people. With so much death, violence, rape, harassment, corruption, traffic jams, heat, et cetera, et cetera, infinite et cetera, why would someone wish to try and puncture this happy, jubilant balloon and let the public not have its one, singular moment of joy? Death penalties are a complex issue. But fact: No developed nation in the world has the death penalty, except for the United States and Japan. Fact: There is no evidence that supports the claim that the death penalty prevents future crimes. Fact: Innocent people get killed due to insufficient evidence, incompetent lawyers, ineffectual trials, inadequate technology, with the number being a whopping one out of 25 in the US. Fact: Death penalty trials are longer and hence, more expensive for us, the citizens, the tax-payers. Opinion: Murder for murder cannot be a civilised reaction in the 21st century. Not to go around touting an old Gandhian proverb, but a blind world cannot be on our agenda for the future. Violence has always begotten violence, and when the world, and especially our nation, is so bogged down by such excesses of it, continuing that culture of taking life away when it need not be, is redundant, morose, ugly. One was witness to the same kind of fervour during the Shahbagh protests. If I'm not mistaken, most of the protesters were composed of a liberal mindset, constituting the more progressive nook of the Bangladeshi middle and upper-middle classes. It was surprising to see the same crowd call for death, the same crowd who are so intent on valuing life in the now. But perhaps that is a false dichotomy perpetrated by Western media: Republicans vs Democrats, pro-lifers vs pro-choice, pro-capital punishment vs the opposite. What we "need," however, is a relative matter, unless one is citing food and air. Do we need capital punishment? Opinion: We don't. If one were to take God out of the equation, just for a moment, then death seems almost merciful. Spending life inside the confines of a disgusting prison cell (the quality of prisons is another issue, for another time) seems more fitting for child torturers and murderers, where they may be exposed to all sorts of other, similarly heinous individuals and politics, who treat them with cruelty that is "befitting" their crime. Opinion: Even if one were to reinsert God back into the equation, and believes in the idea of life after death and divine justice, God will take care of the person when his time comes, while he watches a flashback made-for-TV movie on the big screen of judgement day. There is, of course, the paradoxical argument which claims that God oftentimes works through us, and we are left wondering who wields the hand that ties the noose and brings down the sword: God or us? Opinion: It makes us the better person, the bigger individual, to not respond to violence with violence, to murder with murder. The right to take life away has not been bestowed upon most of us, then why the government? If we are not allowed to kill someone who has killed someone we love, why should the state? Having never lost a dear member at someone else's hands, my claim to objectivity is definitely easier. Opinion: We should strive for objectivity in our viewpoints when we are fighting for a cause that affects more than just us, and think about the long term ramifications of not just having an archaic system such as the death penalty, but other similar concepts leftover from bygone days. Fact: Taking major decisions while angry, hurt, sad, basically under the influence of emotions has almost never resulted in picking the more effective long-term choice. Opinion: A future of violence is as little palatable to the taste-buds as a history of one. (source: Op-Ed; SN Rasul----Dhaka Tribune) *************** 6 to die for killing 8yr-old boy in Mymensingh A Mymensingh court today awarded death sentence to 6 persons in connection with killing an 8-year-old boy in Muktagacha upazila of Mymensingh in 2010. The court handed down life-term imprisonment to a woman in this connection, said Court Inspector Nowjesh Ali Miah. Farhad, son of Ayub Ali, was killed after abduction on May 4, 2010 following a land dispute in Kheruajani village. Police recovered the body 3 days into the abduction, our Mymensingh correspondent reports quoting the court inspector. Judge Mohammad Johirul Kabir of the Additional District and Sessions Judge's Court-2 delivered the death penalty against Abdul Quddus, 60, his son Saheb Ali, 35, Ibrahim alias Ibra, 55, his son Md Jewel, 35, Abdul Mazid Madhu, 70, and Montaz Ali Monta, 60. Of the death convicts, Saheb Ali was tried in absentia. The court also handed down life-term imprisonment to Kamola Khatun, 50, wife of death convict Quddus. Farhad's father Ayub Ali had a long standing land dispute with the convicts. Following the feud, the convicts abducted Farhad and killed the body, court sources said. Ayub Ali lodged a murder case with Muktagacha Police Station on May 7. After investigation, Sub-Inspector Omar Ali, the investigation officer of the case, pressed a charge-sheet against the 7. (source: The Daily Star) SAUDI ARABIA: 151 executed this year in highest recorded toll in nearly 2 decades At least 151 people have been put to death in Saudi Arabia so far this year - the highest recorded figure since 1995 - in an unprecedented wave of executions marking a grim new milestone in the Saudi Arabian authorities' use of the death penalty, said Amnesty International. So far in 2015, on average, one person has been executed every other day. Annual execution tolls for Saudi Arabia in recent years have rarely exceeded 90 for the entire year. The latest execution took place on 9 November. "The Saudi Arabian authorities appear intent on continuing a bloody execution spree which has seen at least 151 people put to death so far this year - an average of 1 person every 2 days," said James Lynch, Deputy Director at Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme. According to Amnesty International's records, the last time Saudi Arabia executed more than 150 people in a single year was in 1995, when 192 executions were recorded. In 2014 the total number of executions carried out was 90 - meaning that so far there has been a 68% increase in executions over the whole of last year. Death sentences in Saudi Arabia are frequently imposed for non-lethal offences, such as drug-related ones, and after unfair trials which lack basic safeguards for fair trial provided for under international human rights law and standards. This was documented in Amnesty International's August 2015 report Killing in the Name of Justice: The death penalty in Saudi Arabia . Almost 1/2 of the 151 executions carried out this year were for offences that do not meet the threshold of "most serious crimes" for which the death penalty can be imposed under international human rights law. This blatantly contradicts the Saudi Arabian authorities' claims to apply the death penalty with the strictest safeguards in place. Under international human rights standards "most serious crimes" are crimes that involve intentional killing. Of the 63 people executed this year for drug-related charges, the vast majority, 45 people, were foreign nationals. The total number of foreign nationals executed so far this year is 71. The death penalty is disproportionately used against foreigners in Saudi Arabia. Foreign nationals, mostly migrant workers from developing countries, are particularly vulnerable as they typically lack knowledge of Arabic and are denied adequate translation during their trials. "The use of the death penalty is abhorrent in any circumstance but it is especially alarming that the Saudi Arabian authorities continue to use it in violation of international human rights law and standards, on such a wide scale, and after trials which are grossly unfair and sometimes politically motivated," said James Lynch. Concerns over the increase in executions have been further compounded by the apparent use of the death penalty as a political tool to clamp down on Saudi Arabian Shi'a Muslim dissidents. Last month the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr, a prominent Shi'a Muslim cleric from the Kingdom's Eastern Province, after a politicized and grossly unfair trial at Saudi Arabia's notorious counter-terror court (the Specialized Criminal Court). This followed news that Sheikh al-Nimr's nephew Ali Mohammed Baqir al-Nimr, and 2 other young Shi'a activists, Dawood Hussein al-Marhoon and Abdullah Hasan al-Zaher, who were arrested as juveniles after participating in anti-government rallies, also had their death sentences upheld. All 3 have said they were tortured and denied access to a lawyer during their trials. The 3 young men have recently been transferred to solitary confinement heightening fears that their executions could be imminent. Saudi Arabia also continues to impose death sentences on and execute people below 18 years of age, in violation of the country's obligations under international customary law and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. "Using the death penalty against juvenile offenders is an egregious violation of international human rights law. The use of the threat of executions as a tool to punish and intimidate political dissidents by the Saudi Arabian authorities is an appalling abuse of power," said James Lynch. "Instead of intimidating people with the threat of state sanctioned killing, the Saudi Arabian authorities should halt all impending executions and urgently establish a moratorium on executions as well as overhaul the Kingdom's deeply flawed justice system." (source: Amnesty International) ****************** Iranians executed in S Arabia 'deprived of lawyer' Deputy FM for Parliamentary and Consular Affairs has said Saudi Arabia denied having lawyers for 3 Iranians tried and executed in a Saudi court. Hassan Ghashghavi who was speaking to the press on the sidelines of joint meeting of ambassadors and provincial governors on Monday, said that the court trial traced back to 2011 when Saudi government had announced that it had hauled a ship carrying 500kg of narcotics, arresting 11 onboard, 6 of whom were Pakistani and 5 others were Iranian by nationality; "2 of Iranians got a verdict of no guilty by the court; however, the remaining 3 others got a death penalty, which has recently been confirmed by royal edict and all 3 were beheaded," he told reporters. "Many Iranians are still subject to death in prisons of foreign countries; we have in our prisons foreign nationals who have received death penalty. Beheading a foreign national had drawbacks in foreign policy terms; however, Saudi Arabia and Saudi court failed to observe the principle of good neighborliness," Ghashghavi said. "On Sunday, Foreign Ministry's Social Affairs office summoned Saudi charge d'affaires to voice strong protest over execution of 3 Iranians, to which Saudi official promised communicating the protest to Riyadh," he added. "Saudi Arabia had refused to cooperate with Iranian side in coordinating for choosing a lawyer for 3 Iranians during trial on the grounds that narcotics crime in Saudi Arabia are dealt as among serious crimes," he told reporters. (source: Mehr News Agency) SCOTLAND: Radio 4 programme focuses on last hanging in Scotland SLN contributor John Forsyth has produced an hour long radio programme for Radio 4 to mark the 50th anniversary of the abolition of the death penalty. The programme part of the Archive on 4 series includes a lengthy discussion of the last hanging in Scotland with a contribution by the late Robert Henderson QC who recalled Lord Wheatleyinspecting the Gordon Highlanders as part of the opening ceremony and describes who jurors were in a state of shock to find themselves part of capital proceedings. Fifty years since the abolition of the death penalty in the UK, the debate about its possible return has not gone away. In the programme John Tusa looks back at how abolition was achieved and considers the continuing arguments with Labour politician Roy Hattersley, philosopher Roger Scruton, lawyers, criminologists and other experts. Capital punishment was effectively abolished in the UK on the 8th November 1965. It was one of the succession of changes in the law - along with legalisation of abortion and decriminalisation of homosexuality - during the Harold Wilson governments of 1964 -70 that transformed British society. What did the abolition of capital punishment do for our society? And how do the prophecies of disaster and the assurances of a more moral society of the time look through the prism of current homicide statistics? The public story of abolition has largely been told by the abolitionists, focusing on notorious cases of blatant mistakes, such as Timothy Evans, or apparent state brutality such as Ruth Ellis or Derek Bentley. For the 1st time, John Tusa investigates, through case papers, the resistance to abolition that took place below the radar from within the legal establishment. While the arguments were expressed in and out of Parliament in high-flown language of morality and the obligations of the state to protect its citizens, the archive reveals the minutiae of the last days of the condemned men and women. John Tusa considers how far the three main issues that were debated at the time - deterrence, protection from wrongful execution, and the national morality - would have been affected by present day evidence-gathering such as DNA profiling and current victim-oriented politics. The programme can be heard here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06nhr7r#play (source: scottishlegal.com) ENGLAND: Niece of hanged man describes battle to clear his name 50 years ago, an Act of Parliament led to the abolition of the death penalty in the UK. It followed a series of high profile cases in the 1950s, including that of Derek Bentley. He was just 19 years old when he was hanged for the murder of a policeman during a burglary. His conviction was quashed by the Appeal Court in 1998. Derek's niece Maria Bentley-Dingwall told the Victoria Derbyshire programme how the battle to clear his name led her to become a human rights activist. (source: BBC news) **************** London's 11 most notorious public execution sites----50 years after the death penalty was abolished in Britain, we track down the places in the capital where the condemned were killed The death penalty was abolished in Britain exactly 50 years ago. To mark the anniversary, we've tracked down the capital's most notorious public execution sites. 1. Tyburn Tyburn was synonymous with public executions for almost 600 years. A mere village in 1196, when the first took place there, the site is now close to Marble Arch, one of central London's busiest corners. A stone memorial can be seen on the pavement marking the spot where the Tyburn Tree, its distinctive 3-sided gallows, once stood. Oliver Cromwell's exhumed body was, symbolically, hung at Tyburn in 1661. 2. Newgate Prison In use for more than 700 years - from 1188 to 1902 - and the site of London's gallows after Tyburn was retired from duty in 1783. The executions took place in public - with the gallows set up on Newgate Street - until 1868. The prison, whose former inmates include Casanova, William Kidd and Daniel Defoe - was demolished in 1904. The Old Bailey occupies the main site, but head to the church of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate to see the old jail's execution bell, Amen Court, which is home to a surviving wall, or The Viaduct Tavern, where 5 former cells of a neighbouring lock-up are visible in the basement. 3. The Tower and Tower Hill Just a handful of prisoners were actually executed inside the grounds of the Tower. They include Anne Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey and Robert Devereux, all of whom were given the chop on Tower Green - a memorial marks the spot (though there is now doubt that this is actually the exact site of the executions). Far more met their demise on Tower Hill, in full gaze of the public, including Thomas Cromwell and Sir Thomas More. Today, the site of the scaffold is laid out as a memorial garden. The Hung Drawn & Quartered pub, on Great Tower St, would make a suitable spot for last orders. 4. Lincoln's Inn Fields London's largest public square has played host to a clutch of gruesome endings. Among them was Lord William Russell, convicted of plotting to kill Charles II. Jack Ketch, somewhat notorious for his lack of skill with the executioner's axe, was given the job. The 1st blow led Russell to cry: "You dog, did I give you 10 guineas to use me so inhumanely?" - 3 further swipes were needed to dismember him. Ketch repeated the trick with the beheading of James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth (at Tower Hill), when it took him five chops to remove the head. Another grisly execution at Lincoln's Inn Fields was that of Anthony Babington for conspiring with Mary, Queen of Scots. The full sentence was as follows: "From (the Tower of London) you shall be drawn on a hurdle through the open streets to the place of execution, there to be hanged and cut down alive, and your body shall be opened, your heart and bowels plucked out, and your privy members cut off and thrown into the fire before your eyes. Then your head to be stricken off from your body, and your body shall be divided into 4 quarters, to be disposed of at (the Queen's) pleasure." Legend has it Babington was still conscious when his "privy members" were being toasted. A bandstand occupies the site of the executions. Afterwards, head to Sir John Soane's museum, filled with curiosities. It holds candlelit evening openings each month. 5. Execution Dock For more than 400 years pirates, smugglers and mutineers sentenced to death by Admiralty courts swung at this scaffold on the banks of the Thames at Wapping. Most were brought from Marshalsea, a prison in Southwark (on what is now Borough High Street - look out for a plaque on the prison's last remaining wall). The execution procession took them over London Bridge and past the Tower, with a stop at a public house, for a final quart of ale, customary. Until the end of the 18th century, the bodies of pirates were often left on the noose until at least three tides has washed over their heads. Others were displayed at Cuckold's Point, on the Rotherhithe peninsula, or Blackwall Point, on the Greenwich peninsula, as a warning to others. Perhaps the most famous execution here was that of Captain Kidd in 1701. A riverside pub is now named in his honour, while a replica of the gallows can be seen outside a 2nd (The Prospect of Whitby). 6. Smithfield A predecessor to Tyburn, the Elms at Smithfield was the site of William Wallace's execution. It happened much like in the movie, Braveheart (hung, drawn and quartered), though there is no evidence to support the blood curdling cry of "Freedom!" Wallace's head was tarred and put on display atop London Bridge; his limbs placed (separately) in Perth, Stirling, Berwick and Newcastle, and a left quarter sent to Aberdeen (it's said to be entombed in the walls of St Machar's Cathedral). A memorial to the Scot can be seen outside St Bartholomew's Hospital. The building also features a plaque to commemorate the death of several Marian Martyrs: protestants executed under Queen Mary. Others killed at Smithfield include Wat Tyler (cut down by the Mayor of London), John Badby (burned in a barrel) and Richard Rouse (boiled to death). 7. St Paul's Churchyard Just a handful have been executed in the shadow of London's finest cathedral, including Henry Garnet, convicted of complicity in the Gunpowder Plot. Though sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered, sympathetic onlookers reportedly pulled on the priest's legs to end the ordeal early. The exact spot of the execution is not known. Get your fix of the macabre by inspecting the final resting places of Nelson, Wellington, Wren et al in the cathedral and its crypt. 8. Banqueting House Charles I lost his head on a temporary gallows erected outside Banqueting House on Whitehall. A bust of the former king marks the spot. Banqueting House, the only surviving part of the Palace of Whitehall, can be visited for a shade more than a fiver. 9. Charing Cross Site of the final Eleanor Cross, inexplicably torn down in the 17th century (before the Victorians built the replica), this spot traditionally marks the centre of London and was once the location for all manner of public brutality. Alongside the statue of Charles I once stood a pillory, where ne'er-do-wells were flogged. Executions also took place, including those of several of the regicides of the beheaded king. Samuel Pepys, the diarist, recalls the carnival atmosphere that the square once had, with street entertainers and numerous taverns (such as the Golden Cross, with features in David Copperfield and The Pickwick Papers) attracting a boisterous crowd. 10. Old Palace Yard The grounds in front of the Palace of Westminster was where Guy Fawkes met his end in 1606 - symbolically, opposite the building he had tried to destroy. Sir Walter Raleigh joined him 12 years later, and took it with aplomb, his final words being a somewhat impatient: "Strike, man, strike!" 11. Kennington Common South London's equivalent to Tyburn were the Surrey Gallows, which stood on the site of St Mark's Church, close to Oval underground station. Records suggest at least 129 men and 12 women were sent to meet their maker here, including a number of Jacobites and highway robbers. For a remarkably detailed record of public executions in Britain, see www.capitalpunishmentuk.org (source: The Telegraph) ******************* Tightening noose? British views on the death penalty 50 yrs since abolition Despite its abolition in Britain five decades ago, opinion remains divided over the ethics and viability of the death penalty. Peter Anthony Allen and Gwynne Owen Evans were the last Britons to be executed, hanged in 1964 for the murder of John Alan West. In 1965, Labour MP Sydney Silverman, who was determined to abolish the penalty, introduced a Private Member's Bill to suspend death sentences. While no executions took place since, the death penalty was finally abolished in all circumstances in 1998. At the time, the majority of the population was in favor of abolition. However, recent opinion polls on capital punishment show views may be hardening once again. According to a YouGov poll published in 2014, British people "still tend to support" the reintroduction of the death penalty, by 45-39 %. "The Commons vote which ended capital punishment was a milestone for British justice, yet YouGov research finds it to be one of those issues where the views of the British public go against the political consensus," it said. "By 45-39 % people tend to support the reintroduction of the death penalty for murder," it added. However, research published in the NatCen British Social Report in March found 48 % of the 2,878 people surveyed are in favor of the punishment - the lowest figure since the survey began in 1983, when around 75 % ruled in favor. Marking the 50th anniversary, Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron called for the penalty to be abolished globally. "50 years ago today the death penalty was abolished for murder in the UK. We must keep campaigning to end it throughout the world," he said on Twitter. Human rights charity Reprieve is opposed to reconsidering the death penalty. "50 years of abolition is something to be proud of - but we must not let the progress we have made as a nation in the last half century be reversed by our current government, which has presided over a series of changes that undermine Britain's commitment to human rights," Reprieve said in a statement. (source: rt.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Nov 10 09:37:01 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2015 09:37:01 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., N.C., LA., OHIO, IND. Message-ID: Nov. 10 PENNSYLVANIA: A Practitioner's 5-Point Plan to Improve the Pa. Supreme Court They are reform-minded. They are energetic. They are (relatively) younger. They are the 3 newly elected Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices, who are set to join the court in January 2016, returning that court to full strength for the 1st time in seemingly forever. 1 of the 3 justices-elect, state Superior Court Judge David Wecht, campaigned on a 5-point plan focused largely on judicial ethics reform, a goal that I and apparently many others strongly support. Along the same lines, as someone who has focused on the output and performance of federal and state appellate courts for the past 25 years, I am devoting this month's column to my own 5-point plan intended to improve the quality and timeliness of the state Supreme Court's decision-making process. If Pennsylvania's highest court were to implement some or all of the following 5 proposals, surely many attorneys and litigants would be more satisfied with that court's output and overall performance. -- Point 1: Decide whether to grant or deny petitions for allowance of appeal (requests for discretionary appellate review that make up the bulk of the court's docket) within three months after briefing on that question is complete. At present, it frequently takes between 6 months to a year, and sometimes even longer than a year, for the Supreme Court to announce whether it will grant or deny a petition for allowance of appeal. This delay in the court's initial decision whether to even accept review of a case is inexplicable and inexcusable. The U.S. Supreme Court, by contrast, decides whether to grant or deny review of cases in a far shorter timeframe during the 9 months of the year when that court is in session. Although deciding which cases will receive discretionary review in Pennsylvania's highest court is one of that court's most important duties, distinguishing between the cases that satisfy the rigorous criteria for discretionary review and those that do not is relatively straightforward. Once the wheat has been separated from the chaff, the justices merely have to decide which of the cases that remain they are interested in deciding right now. Whether to hear and decide a particular case presents a judgment call, but this sort of judgment is what appellate judges in Pennsylvania are elected to perform. If a justice isn't certain whether a particular case should be reviewed right now, instead of simply taking more time to decide, the response should be to deny review, because if the issue is important enough it will arise again before long. -- Point 2: Decide all argued cases within 6 months to a year after oral argument. Far too many cases pending on the merits before the state Supreme Court take more than a year from oral argument to be decided. It would be preferable if the timeline for deciding all but the most unusually complex case was 6 months to a year. Once an appellate court finds itself chronically behind in deciding appeals on a timely basis, it can be very difficult to dig out of such a rut. Now that Pennsylvania's highest court will be turning the page with the arrival of 3 new justices on the 7-justice court, the court cannot only aspire to but actually implement a far more prompt timetable for deciding argued cases. -- Point 3: Eliminate the formulaic nature of Pennsylvania Supreme Court majority opinions. In recent years, the justices serving on the state Supreme Court appear to have agreed that all of the court's majority opinions must follow a formula. After describing the issue(s) under consideration and the relevant factual and procedural background, the court's majority opinions next turn to exhaustively describing the opposing parties' arguments, together with the arguments of any amici involved in the case. There is absolutely no requirement that an appellate opinion devote countless paragraphs - and the time and effort necessary to write, review and approve them - to describing the competing arguments of the parties in minute detail. I am concerned that the formulaic nature of Supreme Court majority opinions may be largely to blame for the otherwise inexplicable delays in issuing decisions. If more attention were paid to deciding cases and explaining the reasons for those decisions instead of comprehensively summarizing and regurgitating the contents of the parties' merits briefing, surely many cases could be decided far more quickly and cogently. -- Point 4: Eliminate the right of direct appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court of criminal convictions for which a death sentence has been imposed so that those appeals will be heard and decided in the first instance, in common with all other direct criminal appeals, by the state Superior Court. One of the reasons the workload of Pennsylvania's highest court can get bogged down is the court must hear and decide a category of cases that constitutes the most complicated of all criminal cases - death-penalty cases on direct appeal from the trial court in which the sentence was imposed. All other criminal cases, no matter how complicated and even if they resulted in a sentence of life imprisonment, are heard on direct appeal in the first instance in the state Superior Court, with discretionary review available thereafter in the Supreme Court. I have tried to justify the statutory provision that requires a direct appeal to the Supreme Court in all death-penalty cases. Perhaps it was enacted to protect the life of the condemned, to ensure that no criminal defendant would be put to death unless a majority of Pennsylvania's highest-ranking judges ruled that it was lawful and appropriate. Or perhaps it was enacted to streamline the review process, so that the imposition of the criminal penalty deemed most serious (and certainly most irreversible) could occur without dragging on forever throughout the appellate process. Whatever the original reasons happened to be for requiring direct appellate review in the Supreme Court of a judgment of conviction and sentence in a death-penalty case, those reasons no longer make any sense today. If getting the answer right were the reason, surely intermediate appellate review would provide an additional opportunity for error correction while also sharpening the issues that otherwise may qualify for Supreme Court review. And if streamlining the process for imposing the death penalty were the reason, in 2015 one thing we know for sure is that criminal defendants sentenced to death are nowhere near the imposition of that sentence on direct appeal due to the seemingly never-ending process of review, for which direct appellate review merely serves as a 1st step. In sum, the high cost of speeding up Supreme Court review of a trial court's judgment of conviction and sentence in a death-penalty case does not seem worth it. The cost is reflected in slowing down the court's disposition of the rest of the court's very important workload. Point 5: Create a page on the state Supreme Court's website listing all of the cases in which allowance of appeal has been granted, containing the question(s) presented in each case and linking to PDF copies of the merits briefing. The court already has its own website, and all merits briefs are already either being electronically filed as PDF documents or being scanned into PDF documents once filed. It would be a wonderful resource, for the civic education of the public, for students interested in the law and government, and for journalists who cover Pennsylvania's highest court if the court were to create and maintain such an online repository of the court's merits cases. Moreover, the free and easy online availability of briefs filed in merits cases would provide one more reason for the court to scrap the formulaic nature of the court's current majority opinions. If someone wishes to learn in intricate detail what the parties and amici have argued, he or she can merely go online to see what the briefs have said. All but 1 of these 5 proposals are within the court's own control to implement; the proposal concerning death-penalty appeals will require action from the General Assembly. These proposals will, if adopted, improve the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision-making process, and therefore I hope that the merits of these proposals will be as apparent to the justices themselves as they are to at least one experienced appellate practitioner. (source: Howard Bashman, The Legal Intelligencer) NORTH CAROLINA: Man accused in killing argues against death penalty option A 21-year-old man accused of having a hand in the 2013 bludgeoning death of a woman in an apartment near North Hills made a series of requests in Wake County Superior Court on Monday in advance of his January trial date. Defense attorneys for Travion Devonte Smith, 22, of Raleigh, were unsuccessful Monday in their attempt to take the death penalty off the table as a possible punishment in his case. In a hearing that is scheduled to continue Tuesday, Jonathan Broun, one of Smith???s defense attorney, contended that prosecutors had withheld critical information that raises questions about the accusations against Smith. Smith is 1 of 3 people charged in the death of Melissa Huggins-Jones, a mother and new arrival to Raleigh. Huggins-Jones had moved to Raleigh from Tennessee and had just started a new job. Newly divorced, she set up her home with her daughter, 8 at the time, and expected her son to join them after the school year. On May 14, 2013, the girl left the apartment and sought help from a construction worker, who followed the child to the apartment and the discovery of the crime scene. Investigators did not immediately have suspects in the case. But a laptop stolen from the apartment that turned up in Wake Forest with telling DNA evidence led investigators to Smith and 2 co-defendants. Also charged with murder in the case was Ronald Lee Anthony, a 25-year-old who has pleaded guilty to 1st-degree murder and accepted a sentence of life in prison without parole in exchange for prosecutors dropping their pursuit of capital punishment. Sarah Rene Redden, 20, also faces charges related to the case. On Monday, Broun noted that Redden, initially described as the getaway driver, had changed her account of the night from her early reports to police. She initially said Anthony and Smith killed Huggins-Jones, but since then has recanted and shifted the primary responsibility to Anthony. "She is now saying that it was Ronald Anthony and Ronald Anthony alone who killed Melissa Huggins-Jones," Broun said Monday during the hearing presided over by Judge Paul Ridgeway. "Ronald told her that he stabbed her to death. Travion didn't personally hit stab or hurt Miss Huggins-Jones, according to this statement. She also said she had no indication that Travion ever when into Ms. Huggins-Jones' bedroom or was present in the room when Ronald Anthony killed her." Broun contended that Redden's initial account of the night - that both men took turns bludgeoning Huggins-Jones - was offered because she did not want Anthony, her boyfriend at the time, to take full blame. Broun argued that because Redden had changed her account to make Smith less culpable that he no longer should be eligible for the death penalty if convicted. Ridgeway told the attorneys that at this point in the proceedings, the death penalty would remain an option, but that would not keep him from reconsidering such a request later in the legal process. (source: News & Observer) LOUISIANA: Southern Rep's death penalty drama brings humanity, persuasive argument to challenging issue Few political or moral issues divide this country as much as the death penalty; the simple fact that Southern Rep has tackled the issue with its newest drama will upset and even anger some. The very nature of the controversies surrounding the topic will lead some to declare that the company is engaging in little more that political agitprop dressed up as theater. Nevertheless, by presenting the world premiere of "Song of a Man Coming Through," Southern Rep has created one of the most reasonably argued and convincing cases against state-sponsored execution, while also revealing the methodical depersonalization that allows advocates of the death penalty to readily declare another human being as unworthy of living. "Song of a Man Coming Through" tells the story of Earnest Knighton Jr., a black man in rural Louisiana who got caught up in drugs and crime from his youth. Eventually, while high on speed, he was involved in a Bossier City armed robbery in 1981, in which a victim was shot and killed. (Knighton, who admitted his guilt in the robbery, said the shooting was inadvertent.) SONG OF A MAN COMING THROUGH --What: Southern Rep presents the true story of convicted Louisiana murderer Earnest Knighton Jr., and the priest, lawyer and paralegal who reluctantly become his greatest advocates. The Episcopal priest, Joe Morris Doss, and his son, Andrew Doss, wrote the play. Aimee Hayes directs the cast, which includes Robert Diago DoQui, Lance Nichols, Mike Harkins, John Neisler, Cecile Monteyne, and others. --Where: First Grace United Methodist Church, 3401 Canal St.. --When: Performances at 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, and at 6 p.m. Sundays, through Nov. 21. --Admission: $20-$40. For information, call 504.522.6545, or visit the company's website. Brought to trial, Knighton's court-appointed lawyer was an ill and overworked public defender. A jury convicted him and he was sentenced to death. Despite a legion of appeals on a variety of grounds, which drew national attention, Knighton was electrocuted on Oct. 30, 1984. "Song of a Man Coming Through" was written by one of Knighton's appellate attorneys, Joe Morris Doss, and his son, Andrew Doss. Having earned his law degree, the elder Doss later became an Episcopal priest. A significant part of his ministry has centered of efforts to end the death penalty. While a member of the clergy, he was entreated to serve as a co-counsel through the appeals process by his friend, attorney Julian Murray. The drama of the play is tense throughout as the pair of lawyers and their paralegal work through the maddingly tedious process in which a man's life hangs in the balance. Keeping their eye on the legal ball, ironically, even the lawyers, at first, tend to depersonalize Knighton. "We're just your lawyers," he is repeatedly told. The job is to spare his life, nothing more - not to befriend him, not to get to know him beyond the facts of the case. It is as much the struggle of that dehumanization that gives the story its vitality, as well as its title. Unlike most prison dramas, in which no one is guilty in the pen, Knighton admits his culpability from the outset. One of the surest signs of his rehabilitation is that he is a man who wants that guilt recognized and desires absolution for his crime. The strongest argument that the play makes - though it failed to persuade the appellate judges in the 1980s - is to establish with distinct clarity the arbitrary and capricious nature in which the death penalty was and continues to be applied in this country. On a larger scale however, it is Knighton's cry to be recognized as a man who is due the dignity, whatever his crimes, to be seen as a human person. Wisely, the script doesn't attempt to turn Knighton into an angel. In Robert Diago DoQui's performance, however, audiences will find the heart and soul of the piece. There is an impassioned simplicity presented. As the action goes on around him, he sits on death row. And sits and sits. Even with death looming, time is all he has, and it weighs heavily on him. DoQui's performance conveys a man who has come to a kind of peace, while seeking means of salvaging something good from his destroyed life. It is a performance that quietly catches the audience with a shattering impact by the end. Playing Doss, Mike Harkins captures well the struggle of serving as legal co-counsel, focusing on the technicalities of saving Knighton's life, which often prevents him from fulfilling his calling to minister to the man's soul. It is one of the most empathetic performances I've seen Harkins give. John Neisler plays the lead lawyer, Murray, with a patrician authority and commitment to the purity of the law. Initially reluctant to take on the appeals, not wanting the responsibility of holding Knighton's life in his hands, Neisler gives Murray the appeal of a modern-day Atticus Finch. His passion for the case may be muted, at first, but seeing the fire in Neisler's eyes, we never doubt that it is there. As the paralegal assisting the 2 lawyers, Cecile Monteyne serves as the bridge into this legal world for the audience, both as technical guide and representative of our emotional reaction to the case. She is uncertain of how close she dare allow herself to get, before the realization of just how all-encompassing such a struggle can be. Monteyne deeply expresses the life-changing affects of such an ordeal. One of the most unexpectedly intriguing characters of the play is an unnamed fellow inmate played by Lance Nichols. As he provides bits of wisdom for Knighton, he also offers comic relief at points. As he seems to worm his way into Knighton's conscience, however, we wonder whether is he the voice of a devil demanding that Knighton just give up, or that of an angel bucking him up. Samantha Beaulieu touches the heart as Knighton's wife, struggling to move on with her life, knowing that even if his sentence is commuted, she'll never see her husband again. The behind-the-scenes political maneuverings that affect such cases are well depicted in the meetings with the original district attorney who prosecuted Knighton, along with the governor, played with conviction respectively by David Sellers and Ian Hoch. In a brief scene to show that Knighton received improper legal representation in his trial, Mark Burton is quite effective as the overwhelmed public defender who was frustratingly off his game for the capital case. As a matter of full disclosure, I note that I consider myself ardently pro-life, and that includes firm opposition to state-sponsored execution. I can note, however, a significant failing in the script that those favoring the death penalty will rush to point out - what about Knighton's victim? The actual crime is never fully or clearly addressed. The audience only learns of it in bits and pieces: the botched armed robbery, committed under the influence of drugs, in which Knighton's intent to kill is questionable, at best. We know very little, however, of the victim and are left wondering, perhaps, how these noble lawyers might respond to an encounter with his family? While the show is talky by its very the nature and has little real action, director Aimee Hayes has her cast moving in and out of the playing space in the church sanctuary with purpose. "Song of a Man Coming Through" can, however, use some sharp editing. While explaining the lengthy appeals process may be somewhat necessary, the first act gets bogged down in turgid, legal minutiae. Despite these flaws, Hayes shows that this is a major work that demands attention. She strikes a particularly delicate balance, delivering the message of the show without letting it become mere propaganda. Indeed, also without trivializing that message, there is a strong element of showmanship here. Framed by choruses of gospel music, the audience is drawn in from the moment it enters. The final moments of the play bring all the emotions together in a manner that left me physically trembling. What could be a miserably depressing evening, instead, becomes a grace-filled and powerfully life-affirming experience. (source: nola.com) **************** 1 juror saves Mickelson from death----Jury votes 11-1 in favor of death penalty for confessed killer The man convicted of 1st degree murder in the 2007 death and dismemberment of 86-year-old Charles Martin Monday was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole, probation or suspension of sentence. A Caddo Parish Jury convicted Mickelson of the murder on Oct. 28, and after 2 days of testimony during the sentencing phase, voted to sentence Mickelson to life in prison on Oct. 30. When the jury came in with their verdict, they told the Court their verdict was unanimous, but asked to be polled privately. Today, acting Caddo Parish District Attorney Dale Cox revealed to NBC6/FOX33's Jade Cunningham that the jury was not unanimous in their decision, but instead 11 jurors voted in favor of the death penalty, while 1 juror voted for life in prison. In Louisiana law, in order to invoke the death penalty, the jury must bring back a unanimous vote. If even 1 juror votes against the death penalty, the sentence is life in prison. Cox said he believes the reason the jury announced a unanimous verdict and asked to be privately polled was to protect the juror who voted against the death penalty. "I can tell you the jurors did that (said their decision was unanimous) was out of concern for the 1 juror, and I think that is magnanimous and I applaud that," Cox said. This was Mickelson's 2nd trial in Martin's death. He was convicted of 1st degree murder and sentenced to death for the same crime in 2011; but in 2014, the Louisiana Supreme Court in a split vote threw out that conviction, due to a technicality during the jury selection process. Mickelson's attorneys tried several times throughout the trial to get the judge to declare a mistrial, filing motions with the trial judge, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and the Louisiana Supreme Court asking that Cox be recused from the case. All 3 courts denied the motions. Following the sentencing decision, defense attorneys told NBS6/FOX33 they did not know whether Mickelson would appeal his conviction. (source: arklatexhomepage.com) ******************* Loyola University New Orleans Hosts Sister Helen Prejean Prejean will deliver a talk, "Dead Man Walking: The Journey Continues," at 7 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 16 in Holy Name of Jesus Church at Loyola, 6363 St. Charles Ave. The event is free and open to the public. Prejean, a Louisiana native and member of the Congregation of St. Joseph, will share her continued work with death row inmates and their victims and highlight perceived problems of our justice system, particularly the death penalty. Prejean is a regular and welcome visitor at Loyola New Orleans, where she was awarded an honorary doctorate in May 2005. The talk helps to kick off a year-long celebration of LUCAP at Loyola and is sponsored by the advocacy organization together with Loyola's Office of Mission and Ministry, University Ministry and University Chaplain. Started in 1975, LUCAP is a student-initiated, student-led volunteer service and advocacy organization open to all Loyola students, offering them opportunities for direct service; reflection on larger, related social justice issues; and advocacy and organizing through projects in areas such as: rebuilding, hunger and homelessness, tutoring and mentoring, and environmentalism. "As the Catholic Church enters its Year of Mercy beginning in Advent, the United States enters an election year in 2016 and Pope Francis continues to call for global abolition of the death penalt, Sr. Helen challenges us to talk about life, death and social justice," said Kurt Bindewald, director of the Office of Mission and Ministry at Loyola. "We are honored to have Sr. Helen Prejean as our guest, as we celebrate 40 years of social justice work performed by Loyola students in the community through the Loyola Community Action Program." Prejean's work was documented in her book "Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty," which was made into a major motion film and an opera. One of the best known voices for the abolition of the death penalty in the U.S., Prejean also heads a national nonprofit organization, The Ministry Against the Death Penalty. "MADP believes the death penalty causes harm to all those affected by it, including victims' families and prison officers, as well as the condemned and their families," Prejean states on the organization's website. "We are committed to promoting compassionate alternatives to the death penalty, including restorative justice and funding for victims' families. We believe in the dignity and rights of all persons and recognize that government-sanctioned killing is a violation of those rights." Social justice is a key underpinning of a liberal arts Jesuit education at Loyola, where for more than 40 years, LUCAP has provided volunteer service and addressed social justice issues in the Greater New Orleans area. Ongoing projects include work with area nonprofits including Caring Across Cultures; Cafe con Ingles; Habitat for Humanity; Ozanam Inn; Hunger Relief; People for Animal Welfare and Service (PAWS); Student Advocates on Mental Illness (SAMI); Best Buddies and the Uptown Shepherd Center. On campus, LUCAP also helps to support: --Students Against Hyper-Incarceration, an advocacy project focused on addressing the mass incarceration of African-American men in the United States, and ending the 'school-to-prison pipeline' that perpetuates this unjust practice; --Loyola Immigration Advocacy, which works toward comprehensive immigration reform; --Green Light, which aims to build gardens in local New Orleans residents' backyards and help residents to harvest their own produce, and --Students Seeking Solidarity, a group committed to working for international peace through justice. (source: loyno.edu) OHIO: Man still fights extradition in 2012 murder 3 years after Kyle Sheppard surrendered to authorities in his native Canada in the Nov. 2, 2012, murder of his wife in Toledo, he is continuing to fight extradition to the United States. Kyle Sheppard, 32, is being held in jail in Montreal on a warrant from Lucas County charging him with murder in the strangulation of Katie Sheppard, 29, who was found on the front porch of the couple's Rivard Road home. She was wrapped in a blanket with a belt around her neck. Mr. Sheppard fled to Canada the same day then turned himself in to police Nov. 4 in Saguenay, Quebec. He has been in jail ever since. Jeff Lingo, chief of the criminal division for the Lucas County Prosecutor's Office, said there is little prosecutors can do until Mr. Sheppard is extradited to Toledo. Speedy trial rules, which require that a defendant held in custody be brought to trial within 90 days of his arrest, do not apply when a defendant flees, Mr. Lingo said. "This is the 1st extradition from Canada I have been involved with, but we respect the Canadian system and are awaiting our opportunity to proceed with the prosecution," he said. Daniel Brodsky, a Toronto-based defense attorney who represents Mr. Sheppard in Canada, said that may not happen at least until next summer. While 2 courts already have ruled against him and ordered his extradition, late last month, Mr. Sheppard appealed his case to the Court of Appeal of Quebec. He contends the Minister of Justice should seek "genuine unequivocal assurances" that the state of Ohio would not seek the death penalty against him if he is convicted and that he should not be surrendered until the police investigation in Toledo is finished. "If the investigation is still ongoing, then Mr. Sheppard must be protected and remain in Canada until such time as it is done and the requesting state confirms no death [penalty]," his appeal states. "If there is even a single possibility that the requesting state might seek the death penalty after the investigation progresses, then Mr. Sheppard cannot be surrendered." Mr. Brodsky said both sides will have the opportunity to respond in writing and then oral arguments will be scheduled in the case. In Lucas County, Mr. Sheppard was indicted on alternate counts of murder, both of which carry a possible sentence of 15 years to life in prison. Mr. Lingo said the case does not qualify for the death penalty, and the prosecutor's office is not seeking the death penalty. Mr. Brodsky said his client is in a difficult position. Among rulings handed down in his case, a judge in 2013 found that statements Mr. Sheppard reportedly made to Canadian police upon his arrest were inadmissible because the officers did not give him the opportunity to have a lawyer present and they failed to keep appropriate notes of their interview. In the conversation, Mr. Sheppard allegedly said he strangled his wife because he suspected she was cheating on him. (source: Toledo Blade) INDIANA: Murder exoneree Kwame Ajamu to speak at IU McKinney School of Law On Friday, Nov. 13, the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law Wrongful Conviction Clinic, in conjunction with the Indiana Abolition Coalition, will host Kwame Ajamu, who was exonerated of murder in February, 12 years after his parole following 28 years in prison for the crime. Ajamu's story is one of a wrong righted after years of punishment. The exoneree will speak at 7:15 p.m. in the Wynne Courtroom of the law school's building, Inlow Hall, 530 W. New York St., on the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis campus. At the age of 17, Kwame Ajamu, then known as Ronnie Bridgeman, was sent to death row from a Cleveland courtroom for the 1975 stabbing and shooting murder of a money-order salesman. No physical or forensic evidence linked Ajamu, his brother and a friend to the heinous crime. Rather, the prosecution's case rested on the testimony of Eddie Vernon, who was 13 when he testified. All 3 were convicted. Ajamu's death sentence was commuted to life in 1978, when Ohio's death-penalty statute was declared unconstitutional. He was paroled in 2003 after serving 28 years. The Ohio Innocence Project agreed to reinvestigate the case after a 2011 magazine article highlighted inconsistencies in Vernon's eyewitness testimony. In November 2014, Vernon told a judge reviewing the matter that the police gave him the details of the crime. In February 2015, Ajamu was declared innocent. The law school's Wrongful Conviction Clinic, directed by professor Fran Watson, is a founding member of the Innocence Network. The international group of about 60 organizations is "dedicated to providing pro bono legal and investigative services to individuals seeking to prove innocence of crimes for which they have been convicted." The network is also dedicated to policy reforms leading to the prevention of wrongful convictions. About 16 to 20 students each year are accepted into the Wrongful Conviction Clinic program. Their success stories include the 2001 release of Larry Mayes of Gary, Ind., who was exonerated of rape based on DNA testing that resulted from the work of Watson and four of her clinic students. In 2008, a federal court approved a $4.5 million settlement for Mayes, who spent 21 years in prison on the wrongful conviction. (source: iupui.edu) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Nov 10 09:37:44 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2015 09:37:44 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----KY., KAN., NEB., CALIF., USA Message-ID: Nov. 10 KENTUCKY: Letters on death penalty package As usual The Courier-Journal only presents 1 side of an issue. Sunday's Forum (Nov. 8) had several articles protesting the death penalty, but none with a pro-death penalty alternative. When a killer murders people, with no questions of guilt, some courts have the choice of the death penalty or a government-funded retirement package, offering food, shelter, clothing, medical services, recreational facilities and the chance to obtain educational degrees. Most people work their entire lives to receive retirement packages not nearly as complete as what murderers get. This doesn't make sense! The next time a murderer is found guilty, see what our courts give the person, a death penalty or a retirement package. Dick Cesler Louisville 40299 --- "Unjust. Unfair. Costly. Dehumanizing." These words topped the Forum coverage of the death penalty, but one word was missing: "Association." I know Americans are loathe to consider us anything but "exceptional," but the most compelling argument against this barbaric punishment is the company we keep. China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Saudi Arabia use the death penalty. Great Britain, France and the rest of the European Union do not. (Texas alone, with 12, would be 10th on a worldwide list of most executions for 2015.) France and Denmark may be punchlines in our presidential debates but shouldn't we be keeping better company? John Carbone Louisville Ky --- "Time to abolish the death penalty"? Are you kidding? We are supposed to be a benevolent society. Right? While I agree we should not be cruel to those who are convicted of a crime, we should and must assure that the penalty reflects the crime. Should a person who rapes, tortures and burns to death another innocent human being be allowed to live a long and comfortable life? I don't think so. If we are a truly civilized society and if we cherish human life a person who commits the ultimate crime against society should and must suffer the ultimate penalty and lose their life. I am not saying that anyone responsible for the death of another should die. Of course not. But there are some crimes so despicable, so horrendous, so vile, so repulsive that the perpetrator must not be allowed to keep their own life. By abolishing the death penalty we do not show the world that we cherish human life. Just the opposite is true, we minimize human life. Paul Lon Jeffersontown, KY 40299 --- At the risk of sounding like an apostate from my Church's stance, let me state that there is another way to view the death penalty system, rather than constantly condemning it. Here are some anti-death penalty statements and (to me, anyway) some logical rebuttals. There is Declining Support for the Death Penalty. In the 1990s, the support for the death penalty was around 80 %, so there is a definite decline in support as of 2014. However, 61 % of the public still supports the death penalty (Gallup, May 14 poll) and 44 % say it's not used enough. So to say that there is declining support for the death penalty, while true, is not entirely honest. If you use that logic to say there is a "sea change" in opinion, then let's just allow gay marriage everywhere, for example, as more people now support it than ever did before. The Death Penalty is Racially Biased. Since 1976 there have been 1,386 executions. 56 % of these were white felons, only 34% black. According to a December 2014 Department of Justice report, (http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cp13st.pdf) blacks currently make up 42 % of death-row inmates, whites at 56 %. Hardly a racial bias, unless, perhaps, you're white. The crime -- not the color of the criminal -- should be the determinant. The Costs of the Death Penalty are Exorbitant. Admittedly, this is true, when you factor jury selection, extra evidence and time allowed to admit it, the automatic appeals process, and further appeals, etc. It's easily a million dollars when all is said and done. I would submit that if we streamlined the appeals process and formed special courts just for handling these cases, we'd reduce costs and superfluous appeals. In addition, consider this: to house an inmate (depending on the state) runs from $28,000 (North Carolina) to more than $47,000 (California) per year. This counts their health care, rehabilitation programs, security and logistics costs to supervise them, etc. If you sentence someone to prison for life when they're 20, and they live to be, say, 75, then using this range of costs the taxpayers will spend between 1.5 - 2.6 million dollars, on average, to let one death inmate stay alive. Think of how that money could be instead used for the impoverished, or toward education, or to rebuild our nation's infrastructure. The Death Penalty isn't a Deterrent. While nearly everyone agrees with this, we???re talking apples and oranges. While the threat of the death penalty doesn't deter the commission of a crime, it lowers the recidivism rate (i.e., the recurrence of crime by an individual) to zero. It is Cruel and Unusual Punishment. Supreme Court verdicts over the years have consistently disagreed with that statement. And ask yourself if it isn't somehow more "cruel" to lock a man up like a dog in a cage for the rest of his life, even with TV and exercise facilities at their prison. Another question you need to ask: what if it were your child who was raped, murdered, strangled, or abused? Is the report of a "poor" inmate - someone who raped and murdered a pregnant girl and buried her alive -- gasping for air for an hour on the execution gurney really the moral equivalent of the crime they committed? For every family member who forgave the killer in question, I would submit to you that there are at least the same amount -- or more - who support equal retribution for the crime they committed. The Religious Argument(s): (1) It's God Who Determines Who Takes a Life. Romans 13 tells us to obey the government, as it was set up by God. Obviously you shouldn't obey a morally wrong government, but are we morally wrong in executing a handful of incorrigible thugs for their heinous crimes? And if you follow this line of reasoning, then we shouldn't be fighting wars, lest we kill an innocent human being. (2) If you shy from executions because of the phrase, "Vengeance is Mine, Sayeth the Lord," then ask whose hand God used to exact vengeance, say, on the Axis powers during World War II. He was with "the good guys," but we are God's tools on Earth, and we work His ways through our actions (or lack thereof). (3) We are all God's creatures. I would reply, "Yes; but so what?" Hitler was one of God's creatures, as was Charlie Manson, as are the ISIS radicals in the MidEast. Even Satan was once an angel. The argument is specious. Just because we're children of God doesn't mean that His children don't rebel or "act badly." And God tells us of the punishment for those who stray from Him and His ways. There are currently only about 3,000 inmates on death row nationwide. Why are we expending so much angst for people who have chosen - of their own free will - to distance themselves from God and to commit such grievous sins on their fellow citizens? I will readily admit that the wrongful accusation (and exoneration) numbers that we now see should cause a thorough review of every death penalty case, to preclude the truly innocent (of that crime, anyway) from being executed. In the past 5 years an average of 5 people a year have been DNA-cleared from death row. So attention to detail should be used in every instance to ensure that only the truly guilty are executed. But to expend mountains of time and energy for the sake of a mere 3,100 murders, rapists, and molesters so they can live the rest of their lives on the taxpayer's dole -- even as we complain about the cost of building new prisons to house these long-term felons - seems to defy logic. Mark Fassio Pendleton, Ky. 40055 --- I disagree with the position taken by Rep. David Floyd in Death Penalty Has Been Bad Investment For Kentucky and the essence of what the rest of those have written about the same subject in Sunday's Forum section. There are cases where the penalty for committing a particularly heinous crime DO deserve the taking of the perpetrator's life. The fact that those in the religious, legal, and political professions have made its use so convoluted, corrupt, and unfairly applied (as these pieces note) does not mean that it is morally wrong, nor fair, or unjust to do so. If St. Thomas Aquinas' "just war doctrine" can be made for our efforts to secure oil and kill off a virulent sect of Islam because of a "greater good" I have no problem in taking the life of a convicted child rapist and murderer. The latter being just one example, there are others, of societal appropriateness. What we need here in its application is honesty, clarity, and finality. Not the furtherance of religious, political agendas and cottage industries surrounding the current law. To do so the following changes in policy and procedures should be made: All executions will be done via firing squad. All legal appeals completed within 11 months of conviction and executions within a month after that, i.e., total 1 year time frame from conviction to death maximum. No exceptions, if the 365 day limit is not met the convicted individual is set free. Period. Easy as 1, 2, 3. Joseph C. Kopacz Prospect, Ky. 40059 --- Take this as a "Super Rant:" opponents of the death penalty as posited by Sunday's CJ are laboring under the weight of personal convictions that contend society is "civilized." Guess again. Take a look around at the world. .. the USA just happens to have enacted, practiced and enforced a state of morality that surpasses most nations. Given our crime rates, our civilized society "sucks" in many respects. I hold that those that demonstrate unmitigated threat to the common weal earn immediate elimination. The litigious construct of interminable pleas by self-serving lawyers - I refuse to recognize them as a profession - more akin to leeches, aggrandizers, parsers, obfuscators, et al. All under the guise of "rights." In my book, you kill and you will be summarily killed. You have forfeited any "rights" by dint of your actions. Now what about questionable guilt? Demand firm limits on establishment of culpability. Period. What about errors? Too bad. Lead a life so civil there is never a doubt you are innocent.The public taxpayer does not owe the criminal element anything beyond a minimal life-sustaining incarceration. Robert A. Korkin Louisville, 40205 (source: Letters to the Editor Courier-Journal) KANSAS: White Supremacist to Learn If He Will Be Sentenced to Death A Missouri white supremacist who killed 3 people at 2 Kansas Jewish sites last year is about to find out if he will be sentenced to death. Frazier Glenn Miller Jr. was convicted in August of capital murder, attempted murder and other charges. The same jury that convicted him after a weeklong trial recommended the death penalty. Johnson County District Judge Thomas Kelly Ryan will announce his ruling at a sentencing hearing Tuesday. Miller is an avowed anti-Semite who said his intent was to kill as many Jewish people as he could on April 13, 2014, when he went to Overland Park, Kansas, and opened fire at 2 Jewish centers. The 74-year-old Aurora, Missouri, man has chronic emphysema and says he doesn't think he has much longer to live. (source: Associated Press) NEBRASKA: Nebraska Corrections Director grilled over execution drugs Nebraska's corrections director is facing criticism for spending more than $54,000 on foreign-made lethal injection drugs in May that the state still hasn't received. Members of a legislative oversight committee grilled Scott Frakes on Thursday, saying he approved the pre-payment without following typical procedures or taking steps to ensure the state could recover the money. "What we saw at the tail end of today's hearing," Sen. Paul Schumacher, of Columbus, said, "was a lot of politics and not very much business." Schumacher was referencing how Frakes relied on attorney-client privilege with the Attorney General's office to not answer specific questions, and how Frakes seemed unable to remember particular details or conversations with Governor Pete Ricketts regarding the drugs. Lawmakers said there's a very good chance the taxpayer dollars the state paid will never be seen again, and the drugs will likely never be imported to the state. Legal experts and lawmakers have said the FDA will not import the drug death penalty proponents are seeking. State officials bought the supply from Chris Harris, a distributor in India who sold execution drugs to the state in 2010. The drugs' manufacturer later accused Harris of misrepresenting how he intended to use them. Frakes acknowledged under questioning that he allowed Harris to dictate the price of sodium thiopental and pancuronium bromide, both of which are required in Nebraska's 3-drug protocol. He disputed that the state's efforts to import the drugs violate federal law. In the 4 1/2 hour meeting Thursday, lawmakers also asked Frakes about the progress he's making during his 1st year as director. Senators were disappointed in auditor's complaints that it took awhile to receive important documents needed to complete the audit released Monday. "It would be frustrating if I were waiting for documentation to answer a question and I wasn't getting it," Frakes said. "That's why I inserted myself in the process early on." Lawmakers said they appreciated Frakes involvement in the process, but, wanted to make sure a similar situation didn't happen again. Frakes was not asked about his strategic plan released Wednesday that details immediate goals in the next 2 years and long term goals spanning the next 6 years. State representatives said they'd had less than 24 hours to review the material and need to ask him questions at a later date. "We recognize that a substantial amount of money and substantial haste has got to be put into the corrections department," Schumacher said. "We're lucky we have not been taken to task in the federal courts at this point." (source: KGWN news) CALIFORNIA: Judge denies attempt to tie murders to convicted serial killer on death row After more than 5 days of hearings about DNA evidence related to the "Grim Sleeper" killings of 9 women and a teenage girl, a judge Monday denied a defense motion to present evidence suggesting that 20 other people, including an already convicted serial killer, might be responsible for the crimes. Lonnie Franklin, a 63-year-old former city employee, is charged with the "Grim Sleeper" murders. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. An expert called by defense attorney Seymour Amster testified that some DNA evidence related to the crimes could be linked to convicted serial killer Chester Turner and 19 other less notorious individuals. But Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy said the defense expert's analysis fell short of scientific standards and ruled that the DNA testimony - called 3rd-party culpability evidence - would not be allowed at trial or during the penalty phase. Another motions hearing on other matters is scheduled for Nov. 16. Jury selection in the long-delayed case is expected to begin Dec. 15. Franklin is charged with the murders of 9 women - who were mostly in their 20s - and a 15-year-old girl. The victims' bodies were dumped in alleys and trash bins in and around South Los Angeles, Inglewood and unincorporated county areas. He is also charged with the attempted murder of another woman. The killings occurred between 1985 and 1988, and 2002 and 2007, with the assailant dubbed the "Grim Sleeper" because of the roughly 13-year break between killing sprees. Detectives have said they are also investigating whether Franklin might be connected to the disappearances or deaths of 8 other women whose photos were found in his home near 81st Street and Harvard Boulevard. Chester Turner was sentenced to death in 2007 for 10 murders that occurred between 1987 and 1998. He was charged with 4 more killings and convicted in 2014, and was again sentenced to death. (source: mynewsla.com) USA: Foster claims racial bias, takes death row case to Supreme Court The most striking thing about Foster v. Chatman isn't the very strong evidence of race discrimination that brought this death penalty case to the Supreme Court - it is the nearly comic levels of incompetence by the prosecution that enabled this race discrimination to be discovered. Jury selection, in the end, boils down to how prosecution and defense lawyers use their so-called peremptory strikes. Just like prosecutors have an interest in securing convictions by drawing a jury panel that's sympathetic to their case, defense lawyers too want jurors who will view their client favorably. The U.S. Supreme Court struggled on Monday over how to resolve an appeal by a black Georgia death row inmate convicted of murdering an elderly white woman in a 1987 trial in which he contends prosecutors unlawfully excluded black jury candidates. Foster's attorneys hope that, if the Supreme Court does, in fact, decide that the jury selection process is racist and discriminatory (as it was applied in his case), he will be given a new trial. A 1986 Supreme Court ruling made it unlawful to take race into account when excluding potential jurors from a trial. Proving a racial motive can be complicated, as attorneys manage to concoct other reasons for their peremptory challenge. 5 different courts in Georgia, including the state supreme court, have examined the prosecutors' actions and found them acceptable. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito noted prosecutors objected to a few of the black jurors because they were women or relatively young, but they did not refute the emphasis on race. "Doesn't that show pretext?" A North Carolina study of jury selection in 173 death penalty cases found that black prospective jurors were more than twice as likely to be struck by the prosecution as similarly situated white jurors. In Foster's case, the reasons the prosecution gave for excluding black jurors are described by Huffington Post writer Cristian Farias as "bulls**t". Finally, notes also indicated the prosecutors and investigator ranked the black jurors against each other if "it came down to having to pick 1 of the black jurors". "Meanwhile, prosecutors accepted every white teacher and teacher's aide in the jury pool". The trial court concluded that the 'prosecutors involved undertook long and careful assessment based on many factors, 'which contributed to the court's finding there was no purposeful discrimination in the strikes. No black jurors sat in Foster's trial. Another failed to make eye contact. In the notes, the names of potential black jurors were highlighted and marked with a letter "B". Arguing for Foster, Stephen Bright painted a picture for The Court of the systemic racism that was known to permeate the judicial system in Rome, Georgia. "Surely it is the judge that hears the testimony who is best able to judge whether asserted reasons are phony reasons or not', he said. "What do we do with the failure of the prosecutor to even ask these black jurors about their concerns?" "Some lower courts have upheld a strike if they can find there is one legitimate reason for it", Justice Sonia Sotomayor observed. According to Bright, the states' race-neutral justifications don't hold up. Burton tried to persuade the justices that the notes focused on black people in the jury pool because prosecutors were preparing to defend against discrimination claims. "They insisted that the Church of Christ took a strong position against the death penalty and that any member of the Church of Christ would vote against the death penalty", Bright says. Then there was prospective juror Marilyn Garrett. Once the procedural discussions were concluded, a majority of justices appeared to side with Foster, suggesting he may yet have his death sentence overturned and a retrial ordered. The state of Georgia refused to provide anyone to be interviewed for this story. Foster???s attorneys also point to inconsistencies between the prosecution???s explanation for removing jurors and the record in the case. On Monday, the case arrives at the United States Supreme Court. Judges seem to have a high threshold for seeing racial bias, even in supposedly liberal states. Many defense attorneys and legal scholars argue that Batson v. Kentucky has proved to be a weak regulator of behavior. (source: or-politics.com) *************** New Report Shines Light on Military Veterans Facing the Death Penalty----Key Decision Makers in Justice System Often Ignore Critical Mitigating Evidence Related to Vets' Service More than 1 million veterans have returned from wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and the Middle East with symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Most veterans go on to live exemplary lives and are rightly honored for bravely serving their country. However, for a small but significant number, their mental wounds contributed to their committing acts of violence and they are now on death row. Many others with similar problems have already been executed. A new report released on the eve of Veterans Day by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) exposes the scope of this crisis and calls on authorities to better account for service members facing execution and identify where the system has fallen short. DPIC estimates that there are at least 300 veterans on death row, representing about 10 % of the nation's death row population. As the country prepares to honor its military veterans on November 11, it may be a sobering and surprising revelation that many veterans have been adjudged as "the worst of the worst," condemned to death, and executed by the government they once served. The 1st person executed this year was Andrew Brannan, a decorated combat veteran who fought in Vietnam, but returned with PTSD. He qualified for 100 % disability from the Veterans Administration because of his mental disabilities. In a fleeting moment of out-of-character violence, he killed a police officer who had stopped him for speeding. At his trial, Brannan's lawyer made little mention of the mental scars from his military service and the prosecution mocked his claim of PTSD. The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied him clemency. Other veterans have received their medals for dedicated service while on death row, but no real mercy. "PTSD is not an excuse for all criminal acts, but it is a serious mental and emotional disorder that should be a strong mitigating factor against imposing the death penalty," said Richard Dieter, DPIC's Senior Program Director and the author of "Battle Scars: Military Veterans and the Death Penalty." "Defense attorneys representing veterans accused of capital crimes often fail to investigate and present evidence of PTSD and other war-related mental injuries. Prosecutors, judges and juries are often not adequately informed about the psychological effects of being immersed in combat, even though the mental scars of war can be just as debilitating as physical injuries." "At a time in which the death penalty is being imposed less and less, it is disturbing that so many veterans who were mentally and emotionally scarred while serving their country are now facing execution," said Robert Dunham, Executive Director of DPIC. "It is our hope that a better understanding of the extreme and long-lasting effects of trauma and the resulting disabilities many veterans have experienced will lead to a larger conversation about imposing capital punishment on trauma survivors and other people with severe mental illnesses." The report is not offered as the final word on this important issue, but rather is intended as a wake-up call to government officials and the public that some veterans are being left behind.??? (source: source: Death Penalty Information Center) ******************* 300 Veterans, Some With PTSD, Are on Death Row: Report During Courtney Lockhart's capital murder trial, the jury heard testimony that he had returned from a bloody 16-month deployment to Ramadi, Iraq, a changed man. His sweet nature was replaced by anger and paranoia, his ex-fiancee said. He hid in the closet at night, started living out of his car, drank too much and once put a gun to his own head. The defense argued he was suffering from untreated PTSD and that he wasn't in his right mind when he abducted, robbed and fatally shot college student Lauren Burk in 2008. The Alabama jury rejected the prosecution's call for the death penalty and sentenced him to life. But in a rare move, a judge overrode the panel's decision and put him on death row. The case of Lockhart - whose brigade had a dozen other men charged with murder or attempted murder after coming home from Iraq - is highlighted in a new report by the Death Penalty Information Center, a group that opposes capital punishment. "At a time in which the death penalty is being imposed less and less, it is disturbing that so many veterans who were mentally and emotionally scarred while serving their country are now facing execution," said Robert Dunham, the center's executive director. About 300 veterans are on death row nationwide, about 10 percent of all those condemned to die, the group estimates. It's unclear how many have been diagnosed with PTSD or have symptoms, but Dunham says that in too many cases, a veteran's mental scars are not examined closely enough by defense lawyers, prosecutors, judges, juries and governors who can commute death sentences. The 1st prisoner executed this year, Andrew Brannan, was a Vietnam vet on disability for PTSD and bipolar disorder when he fatally shot a deputy nine times during a speeding stop. Dash-cam video showed Brannan dancing in the street and saying "shoot me" before he pulled a rifle from his car and fatally shot the 22-year-old cop. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to stop his lethal injection. Kent Scheidigger, legal director of the pro-capital punishment Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, said that since PTSD does not normally cause sufferers to become violent, the condition "may not have anything whatever to do with the crime." "If a crime is sufficiently heinous, a death sentence may be the just outcome," he said. "Mental issues may be weighed in the balance, but they would have to be very severe before they outweighed, say, torture or serial killing." At Lockhart's trial, according to media accounts at the time, a prosecution expert testified that he was not mentally ill and knew what he was doing was wrong when he killed Burk. A defense expert said he had symptoms of PTSD but not a diagnosed case. After the jury heard testimony from those close to Lockhart about the problems he experienced after his military service, the panel voted 12-0 to spare his life, but the judge overruled them, saying they didn't know about other robberies he had committed. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor later wrote that jurors were "influenced by mitigating circumstances relating to severe psychological problems Lockhart suffered as a result of his combat in Iraq.'' "Lockhart spent 16 months in Iraq; 64 of the soldiers in his brigade never made it home, including Lockhart's best friend," she wrote. "The soldiers who survived all exhibited signs of posttraumatic stress disorder and other psychological conditions. 12 of them have been arrested for murder or attempted murder." The Death Penalty Information Center said its report was meant as a "wake-up call" to spark conversation about imposing capital punishment on trauma survivors. "The country owes its veterans a thorough examination of the use of the death penalty in their cases, even when their offenses are especially grievous," the report said. (source: buzzfeed.com) ************** Military veterans on death row deserve special consideration, says report----With at least 300 veterans estimated to be awaiting execution - 10% of the total number - a new study says their service should be seen as a mitigating factor For a fleeting moment in 2009, James Davis was a wounded war veteran belatedly receiving his Purple Heart 4 decades after he fought in Vietnam. But after the medal was pinned, it was removed, his shackles snapped back on, and he was escorted back to his cell on death row, where he remains to this day. One spring day in 1995, Davis walked into a tool company in Asheville, North Carolina, and opened fire. With a rain of bullets, Davis killed 3 people, including 2 of his bosses who had fired him earlier that week. As his murder the trial progressed, testimony showed that Davis was mentally ill, that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, and that he had been abused as a child. But this was not raised until late into his trial, a misstep that advocates say led to Davis's death sentence. Davis is 1 of hundreds former service members condemned to death at the hands of a government they risked their lives to protect and serve, according to a report, Battle Scars: Military Veterans and the Death Penalty, published by the Death Penalty Information Center on Tuesday. "The government shouldn't be taking the life of people who spent part of their life serving the government and were wounded mentally in that process," said Richard Dieter, the center's senior program director and the author of the report. "Their service should exclude them from being treated as the 'worst of the worst'. It's a mitigating factor, the same as age or disability might remove them from part of the death penalty. It's an exemption from part of the punishment, certainly not all of it." As the nation prepares to honor its citizens who have served in the US armed forces on 11 November, Dieter said he hopes the report will act as a "wake-up call" for the criminal justice system and the American public warning them that they have failed a small but significant population of veterans. Though the exact number of veterans on death row is not known, the report estimates, based on a variety of surveys, that at least 10% of the condemned population in the US, at least 300 inmates, had prior military service - and more have already been executed. "In a country that is proud of its renewed respect for veterans, and that is using the death penalty for a dwindling number of offenders, capital punishment stands out as a questionable punishment for those who have served in the military ..." he wrote in the report. "The country owes its veterans a thorough examination of the use of the death penalty in their cases, even when their offenses are especially grievous." Decades of studies on former servicemen and women have established ties between combat in war zones and increased rates of unemployment, substance abuse, domestic violence, homelessness and criminality. The report includes several recommendations for keeping veterans off death row including "mental health assessments for capitally charged veterans by professionals with experience in military health issues; mandatory training and assistance for defense teams handling such litigation from military experts; education about PTSD and related matters for prosecutors, judges, and defense attorneys who may be involved in such cases; allowance of mitigation testimony regarding military culture at capital trials; questioning of potential jurors regarding their views about the military; and allowing VA therapists to testify in capital cases". Most surprising, Dieter said, was how often a veteran's military service was overlooked, discounted or even presented as an aggravating factor in capital cases. "Defense attorneys failed to investigate this critical area of mitigation; prosecutors dismissed, or even belittled, their claims of mental trauma from the war; judges discounted such evidence on appeal; and governors passed on their opportunity to bestow the country???s mercy," he wrote in the report. A defendant's military history is a "double-edged sword", said Ken Rose, a defense attorney with the Center for Death Penalty Litigation in North Carolina who represents clients sentenced to death, including Davis, because lawyers, juries and judges can interpret it as both a mitigating and an aggravating factor. "On the one hand it shows a commitment to the country. It's patriotic and sometimes even a heroic service to the nation," said Rose, who represents Davis. "But at the same time it can be seen as an indication that their client is a mad dog - a person who is totally out of control, who may get out and kill again." Rose agrees with the report's suggestion that defense attorneys receive training when handling a case involving a veteran. To properly present a person's service as a solely mitigating factor, rather than an aggravating one, and sharply draw a connection between trauma suffered in combat and the act of violence takes a deep understanding of the military and mental illness, he said. If not, Rose said: "Defense attorneys don't bring up this very valuable mitigating evidence for fear that it be turned against them." The American public is starting to recognize the unique pressures veterans face when they return home from war, but the legal system has been slow to accommodate them, said Art Cody, the legal director at the Veterans Defense Program of the New York State Defenders Association. (Cody does not represent veterans in capital cases as New York does not have the death penalty.) "Right now they're getting what I call the military discount," Cody said. "The military discount is, 'Well, just like at Home Depot, I'll give you 10% off so I'll give you 10 years instead of 12.'" But in exchange for a more lenient punishment, Cody said he believes judges and prosecutors disregard testimony that is related to a defendant's combat experience and mental illness. "We haven't reached the point yet where we're fully understanding the conditions that our troops are going through," Cody said. (source: The Guardian) **************** When 'Race-Neutral' Reasons for Striking Jurors Aren't Neutral in the Slightest Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case regarding whether Timothy Tyrone Foster lives or dies. Nearly 30 years ago, an all-white jury sentenced Foster, then an 18-year-old Black kid, to death for the murder of an elderly white woman in Floyd County, Georgia. The prosecution had eliminated every eligible Black person from the jury pool. And once the prosecution had obtained an all-white jury, the lead prosecutor, Stephen Lanier, urged said jury to impose the death penalty in order to "deter other people out there in the projects." The all-white jury obliged. Now, one of the issues looming before the Supreme Court is whether or not the prosecution's purportedly race-neutral reasons for striking the Black jurors ensured that Foster would face a jury that would be susceptible to racially inflammatory comments like Lanier's. The racism in Lanier's statement to the all-white jury about "other people out there in the projects" certainly seems clear - after all, at the time 32 of the 34 units in the local housing projects were occupied by Black families. And it's hard to believe that Lanier would have made that statement to the jury if there were a Black person sitting in the box. But there wasn't, because the prosecution had used its peremptory challenges to strike each of the four qualified Black jurors. Lawyers in criminal cases are permitted to use nine peremptory challenges to eliminate jurors for any reason they want to, with some important limitations. In 1986, in a case called Batson v. Kentucky, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that jurors could not be excluded from sitting on a jury because of their race, and set up a system by which a trial court could hold a special Batson hearing and determine whether a prosecutor was striking jurors due to their race, or due to some race-neutral reason. Foster, through his attorneys, asked the trial court to hold just such a hearing. Ultimately, the trial court didn't think that Lanier used his challenges to strike every Black juror because of their race. Every subsequent appellate court agreed; the prosecution had provided sufficient race-neutral reasons for striking the Black jurors, they said, leaving Foster's fate in the hands of an all-white jury. After that jury convicted Foster and sentenced him to death, Foster asked the court for a new trial. He argued that the trial court had made a mistake when it rejected his Batson claim. In response, the prosecution piled on even more "race-neutral" reasons for striking all of the Black jurors. One of those reasons? That the investigator who helped the prosecution during jury selection was Black. This is about as close to "one of my best friends is Black" as you'll find in a legal context. The court rejected Foster's Batson claim a 2nd time. In 2006, almost 20 years after Foster was sentenced to die, his attorneys obtained copies of the prosecution's jury selection notes. And those notes changed everything, revealing almost mustache-twirling levels of villainy with regard to the prosecution's efforts to eliminate every Black juror from the pool. The notes contained 4 copies of a list of prospective jurors. On each of the 4 copies, the names of the Black jurors were highlighted in green and marked with the letter "B." On the juror questionnaires, where prospective jurors had indicated their race, the prosecution had circled the word "Black." All of the Black jurors were listed on the prosecution's list of "Definite NOs." And the prosecution ranked the Black prospective jurors in case, according to a draft affidavit signed by the prosecution's investigator, "it comes down to having to pick 1 of the black jurors." The notes confirmed Foster's attorneys' suspicions. They had always believed that this was a clear case of racial discrimination. Before jury selection even had begun, they informed the trial court in a brief that the District Attorney's office had a nasty habit of excluding Black people "from being allowed to serve on juries with a black Defendant and a white victim." And during Foster's Batson hearing after the jury selection process was over, Foster's attorneys pointed to a mountain of evidence that suggested the prosecution had repeated that nasty habit this time. In response, the prosecution threw supposedly race-neutral reasons for striking jurors at the trial court like so much spaghetti on a wall. "All I have to do is have a race-neutral reason," Lanier said, "and all of these reasons that I have given the court are racially neutral." Well, not exactly. A closer look at these reasons reveal that they are dubious at best. During the Batson hearing, Lanier piled on explanations for why he eliminated all the Black jurors, presumably in the hopes that the court would latch onto one of them, even if other reasons were suspect. Some of the reasons were thinly veiled dog whistles. Lanier claimed that each of the Black jurors was some combination of confused, incoherent, hostile, disrespectful, or nervous, and struck them on that basis. Lanier also removed Black jurors from the jury pool for avoiding eye contact, being divorced, being a social worker, or appearing to be bored. When not criticizing the Black jurors for their demeanor in court, the prosecution exaggerated facts to make them look problematic, and gave reasons for striking Black jurors that applied to white ones who made it onto the jury. For example, Lanier explained to the trial court that his approach in capital cases was to discriminate against women, not Black people: "Women have a tendency in a case of this nature where the death penalty is being sought - they have serious reservations, time conflicts, or whatever it may be, but that is what I look at when I am trying a death penalty case." (In 1994, long after Foster had already been convicted and sentenced to death, the Supreme Court ruled that barring women from serving on a jury violates the Equal Protection Clause.) Of the 4 prospective Black jurors, three were women. In the end, 5 white women ended up serving on the jury. In 1 specific instance, Lanier claimed that Marilyn Garrett, 1 Black juror, was too close in age to the defendant. She was 34. At the time of trial, the defendant was 19. The prosecution accepted 8 white prospective jurors who were 35 or younger, including 1 who was 21 years old. In another, Lanier struck a Black juror, Eddie Hood, because he "asked to be off the jury." But when Lanier used a peremptory challenge to strike a different Black juror, he said it was because that juror didn't ask to be off the jury. The prosecution also kept changing their tune when justifying their peremptory challenges. In Hood's case, Lanier originally said in the pre-trial hearing that he was concerned that Hood had an 18-year-old son, the same age as the defendant. But on the motion for new trial, after the prosecution accepted 2 white jurors who had sons in the same age range as Foster, as well as the aforementioned 21-year-old white man, Lanier switched gears. Suddenly, Hood's membership in the Church of Christ became the primary justification for eliminating him from the jury pool. That reason was suspect too, however. Lanier claimed that the church "definitely takes a stand against the death penalty" even though Hood repeatedly said that he was not against the death penalty and was willing to impose it. Also, Lanier's claim was later contradicted by the prosecution's notes, which said the Church of Christ "doesn't take a stand on [the] Death Penalty," leaving the issue for "each individual member." And, more egregiously, the prosecution's notes said "NO. No Black Church" with an emphasis on "Black." Lanier also said that one of the Black jurors "appeared to have a low income occupation." Notably, the Black juror's "low income occupation" counted against her, but a white woman who went on to serve on the jury had almost the same job. Both women were teacher's aides at local schools. In fact, the prosecution said that it wanted jurors that were "teachers or associated with teachers" because the victim was a retired schoolteacher. The prosecution proceeded to accept every teacher and teacher's aide - except the Black juror. The prosecution tried to explain away the difference in the way they treated the Black and white teacher's aides by claiming that the Black teacher's aide worked with underprivileged kids, and the white teachers aides did not. But during jury questioning, Lanier did not ask about whether or not the students with whom the white teachers and teacher's aides worked were underprivileged. These examples are but a few of the ridiculous reasons the prosecution offered to explain striking every potential Black juror. According to Foster's attorneys in the case currently before the Supreme Court, the new evidence from the prosecution's notes establishes that the prosecution purposefully eliminated Black jurors in order to secure an all-white jury; a jury that would impose the death penalty to send a message to Black people in the projects. It's outrageous, but, sadly, this is simply part of a long tradition of racial discrimination in a jury selection system that has failed Black people since the founding of this nation. Numerous studies show that prosecutors strike Black jurors at significantly higher rates than white jurors, demonstrating their failure to take seriously the requirement in the Constitution that every citizen has an equal right to sit on a jury. In 2012, a North Carolina state court found, based on a study of jury pools in 173 capital cases, that prosecutors were more than twice as likely to eliminate Black jurors from the jury pool than white jurors. A 2012 study of 332 felony juries trials prosecuted in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, between 2003 and 2012 found that prosecutors struck Black jurors at more than 3 times the rate that they struck white jurors. And in death penalty cases between 2005 and 2009 in Houston County, Alabama, prosecutors used peremptory challenges to eliminate 80 % of qualified Black jurors. This sort of discriminatory behavior harms criminal defendants, especially in death penalty cases where the defendant is Black and the victim is white. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, "all-white juries tend to spend less time deliberating, make more errors, and consider fewer perspectives." The conduct also harms the excluded juror, who is prevented from participating in an important civic duty. Turning away Black jurors furthers stereotypes that Black people are unfit to serve on juries, creates false presumptions that Black people cannot be fair or follow the law, and, according to one Supreme Court case, Miller-El v. Dretke, undermines the integrity of our justice system. This isn't just happenstance or bad behavior by a select group of rogue prosecutors. In many instances, prosecutors are trained to cover up racial discrimination in the jury selection process by keeping race-neutral explanations for striking Black jurors in their back pocket, lest defendants mount a Batson challenge, according to an amicus brief filed in Foster's Supreme Court case by a group of prosecutors, including author Scott Turow, and former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, who served in the George W. Bush administration. In North Carolina, for example, the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys held a statewide training course that provided a list of justifications that prosecutors could use when striking Black jurors: a document entitled "Batson Justifications: Articulating Juror Negatives." And in a now-infamous training video, former Philadelphia District Attorney Jack McMahon advised trainees that keeping Black, low-income, and educated citizens off juries is key to securing convictions. As reported by Philly.com in 1997, McMahon's advice reached almost comical levels of racism as he explained to a group of trainees that: In selecting blacks, you don't want the real educated ones. This goes across the board. All races. You don't want smart people. If you're sitting down and you're going to take blacks, you want older black men and women, particularly men. Older black men are very good .... My experience, young black women are very bad. There's an antagonism. I guess maybe because they're downtrodden in 2 respects. They are women and they're black ... so they somehow want to take it out on somebody and you don't want it to be you .... The blacks from the low-income areas are less likely to convict. I understand it. It's an understandable proposition. There's a resentment for law enforcement. There's a resentment for authority. And as a result, you don't want those people on your jury. This sort of race-based jury selection isn't 1-sided. Just as prosecutors tend to eliminate Black jurors from jury pools, defense attorneys tend to eliminate white jurors. The only difference is, prosecutors generally have a larger group of white potential jurors to choose from, so it's often easy for a prosecutor to eliminate every Black juror from the jury pool. Defense attorneys cannot eliminate every white juror from the jury pool because there are too many of them. It's a simple numbers game. If the Supreme Court actually addresses the crux of the case, it's likely that it will side with Foster's attorneys, leading to a new trial. After all, 4 justices agreed to hear it in the 1st place, and it shouldn't be too difficult for those 4 to find a 5th to agree with them, especially in light of Snyder v. Louisiana, a factually similar case which saw Alito and Roberts siding with the liberal wing of the Court to find by a vote of 7 to 2 - with Alito writing the majority opinion - that the prosecution's use of peremptory challenges were not race-neutral. I wouldn't be surprised if Alito and Roberts once again join the liberal wing if the Court rules in Foster's favor. But, as Lyle Denniston points out over at SCOTUSblog, during oral arguments, the justices spent a lot of time on the procedural complications of the case. That may prevent the justices from even reaching the merits of the case - the Court may simply kick it back to state court and let Georgia sort it out. If that doesn't happen, though, the Court will hopefully provide some guidance to trial courts about how to evaluate prosecutorial claims of race-neutrality, especially when there's overwhelming evidence that the prosecution is impermissibly eliminating Black jurors because of their race. Ultimately, a Batson challenge is toothless if a prosecutor inventing after-the-fact race-neutral reasons for eliminating Black jurors can overcome it. (source: rhrealitycheck.org) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Nov 10 09:38:28 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2015 09:38:28 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 10 INDIA: Kerala To Observe Hartal Demanding Abolition Of Death Penalty On Nov. 11 A democratic hartal will be observed on November 11th in Kerala demanding the death penalty be abolished as recommended by the National Law Commission Report. The other demands are declaration of a moratorium on death penalty in the country, passing of a motion in the State Assembly to pass a bill in Parliament to abolish death penalty, and protection of human rights of prisoners in our jails. It was on November 11, 1944 that death penalty was abolished Tiruvitamcode, and the hartal is intended to evoke and pay homage to Kerala's tradition of tolerance and humanism. The hartal is committed to the protection of democratic rights of the citizens. Excepting essential services like hospital, newspapers etc, the hartal will be observed in a peaceful manner from 6 AM to 6 PM by closing commercial, educational and official establishments, avoiding vehicular traffic etc. We request all people to freely and democratically participate in the same. This is not a hartal that is organized centrally and imposed from 'top to bottom', instead through voluntary public participation. During the last few months, the Organising Committee had campaigned all over the State, and support groups formed at the regional level to spread the message among the people and the hartal is organized through their active participation and initiative. Organisations like Adivasi Gotra Mahasabha, NCHRE, PUCL, Progressive Artists & Writers Collective etc and publications like Padabhedam have assured their formal support to the hartal. The basic objective of this hartal is to remember and reassert the long tradition of renaissance and to rally the people behind the demand for abolition of death penalty. In the coming years too, November 11 - the day on which death penalty was abolished - will be observed as a Anti Death Penalty Day. We appeal to all the democratic forces in this country who are struggling against fascist tendencies in our society to join hands to attain our objective. GEORGE Convenor, Hartal Organising Committee Anti Death Penalty Collective (source: countercurrents.org) SAUDI ARABIA----execution Saudi Arabia executes citizen for killing policeman Saudi authorities executed a citizen convicted of killing a policeman trying to arrest him for drug trafficking, the interior ministry has said. Ayed al-Jahdali was executed in the Makkah region, the interior ministry said. Saudi executions are usually carried out by beheading with a sword although sometimes a firing-squad is deployed. A total of 151 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia this year -- the highest recorded figure since 1995 -- campaign group Amnesty International said in a statement, condemning the "bloody execution spree". "The Saudi Arabian authorities appear intent on continuing a bloody execution spree which has seen at least 151 people put to death so far this year -- an average of 1 person every 2 days," said James Lynch, deputy director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme. Almost 1/2 of the 151 executions were for offences that do not meet the threshold of "most serious crimes" which involve intentional killing and for which the death penalty can be imposed under international human rights law, Amnesty said. The death penalty is disproportionately used against foreigners in Saudi Arabia and of the 63 people executed this year for drug-related charges, 45 were foreign nationals, the group said. So far 71 foreign nationals have been put to death in the conservative kingdom in 2015, mostly migrant workers from developing countries, Amnesty said. Rights experts have raised concerns about the fairness of trials in the kingdom and migrants are especially vulnerable as they typically lack knowledge of Arabic and are denied adequate translation during their trials, Amnesty noted. "The use of the death penalty is abhorrent in any circumstance but it is especially alarming that the Saudi Arabian authorities continue to use it in violation of international human rights law and standards, on such a wide scale, and after trials which are grossly unfair and sometimes politically motivated," said James Lynch. The country's Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence of Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr, a prominent Shia Muslim cleric after a politicised and grossly unfair trial at Saudi Arabia's notorious counter-terror court. Nimr's nephew Ali Mohammed Baqir al-Nimr, and 2 other young Shia activists who were arrested as juveniles after taking part in anti-government rallies, also had their death sentences upheld, Amnesty said. All 3 claim they were tortured and denied access to a lawyer during their trials. (soruce: Business Standard) ********************* Where's the Outrage Over the Beheadings in Saudi Arabia? By the time you read this column, Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, Dawoud Hussein al-Marhoon and Abdullah Hasan al-Zaher may be dead. In case you've never heard their names, they are young prisoners of conscience currently housed in solitary confinement at the notorious al-Ha'ir penitentiary in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. They are waiting to be beheaded. In all likelihood, as is Saudi custom, no advance public notice of their executions will be given. We'll learn of their demise only after the fact, via social media, or when the Saudi government officially announces that their sentences have been carried out. Al-Nimr, al-Marhoon and al-Zaher are Shiite Muslims who were arrested without warrants at different times in 2012 for participating in pro-democracy protests in the country's Eastern province during the Arab Spring uprising of 2011-2012. Al-Nimr and al-Marhoon were 17 years old when they were apprehended; al-Zaher was 16. Although approximately 90 % of the Saudi population consists of Sunni Muslims, the oil-rich Eastern province is predominantly Shiite. Relations between the 2 strands of Islam have never been good in Saudi Arabia, but tensions have reached a fever pitch in recent years. Branded as apostates by prominent Sunni clerics, the Shiites of Saudi Arabia are an oppressed and segregated minority, historically excluded from access to government services, jobs and leadership positions and often subject to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. Al-Nimr and his cohorts were held for more than 2 years in pretrial detention without access to counsel while they were interrogated and reportedly tortured into signing confessions. Their alleged crimes, according to Amnesty International, included "chanting slogans against the State with the intent of destabilizing the security of the country and overturning its system of government, participating in the killing of police officers by making and using Molotov cocktails to attack them" and "carrying out an armed robbery." Their trials were devoid of the most basic due-process protections. Predictably, in 2014 all three were convicted and sentenced by the nation's Specialized Criminal Court in Riyadh to death by beheading. Their convictions and sentences were subsequently upheld on appeal. The only difference in the outcome of the 3 cases is that al-Nimr won't just have his head lopped off. His body will be crucified afterward and put on public display as a warning to other would-be troublemakers. Al-Nimr is the nephew of a leading Shiite spiritual figure - Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr - who is also under a death sentence for his vocal criticism of the monarchy, the House of Saud, which has exercised absolute rule over its people since 1932. Saudi Arabia is one of the last nations on earth that stage public executions. "They are carried out not just in Riyadh, but in other cities," Neil Hicks of Human Rights First (HRF) told me in an interview last week. "In Riyadh, they generally take place after Friday prayers in a downtown courtyard known locally as 'Chop Square,' when crowds of men are already gathered in the area and provide a ready audience." Beheading is the most common method of execution, but other means, such as firing squads, are occasionally used. Amnesty International reports that in 2014, the Saudis executed 90 people. This year, through Oct. 22, the number has soared to 137. Apart from China and Iran, no other country consistently exceeds such totals. Hicks, who formerly worked as a researcher for the Middle East department of Amnesty International in London before becoming director of human rights promotion at the HRF in New York, says the spike in the Saudi death penalty is part of a general "clampdown on human rights" that has taken place over the last 3 to 4 years "because the regime is concerned with the impact of the Arab Spring" and "threats to authoritarian rule." Public beheadings, he explains, are "meant to keep order and suppress dissent." Coerced confessions like those extracted from al-Nimr, al-Marhoon and al-Zaher are a staple of the Saudi justice system, as are closed trials and appeals. Equally deplorable is the fact that capital crimes are vaguely defined, ranging from murder and drug smuggling to adultery, apostasy, witchcraft and sorcery. >From 2014 through the middle of this year, nearly 1/2 of those sent to the sword had been convicted of nonlethal, drug-related crimes. The Saudi system of executing juveniles also violates international law, specifically the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Even the United States - which along with Japan is the last advanced Western-style democracy that regularly implements capital punishment - has halted the execution of juvenile offenders as a result of a 2005 Supreme Court decision (Roper v. Simmons) declaring the practice unconstitutional. Women and the mentally disabled, too, are subject to the Saudi death penalty. In one particularly loathsome case, Rizana Nafeek - a Sri Lankan woman who had worked as a domestic servant - was beheaded in Dawadmi, a small town 200 miles west of Riyadh, for causing the death of a 4-month-old baby in her care. Nafeek claimed the child choked while being bottle-fed. Once in custody, she "confessed" - without the assistance of a lawyer or interpreter - to strangling the infant. The opening stages of Nafeek's execution were filmed and are available for viewing on YouTube. In the face of such medieval barbarity, where is the outrage? To be sure, international human rights organizations have worked hard to expose the Saudi atrocities. Thus far, however, their pleas to dismantle the Saudi killing machine have proved ineffective. Most shamefully, the Obama administration has declined to speak out. Although the president has frequently condemned the gruesome beheadings performed by Islamic State, he has remained mum on Saudi practices. When White House press secretary Josh Earnest was asked by a reporter in a Sept. 23 media briefing to comment on the al-Nimr case, he claimed not to be "familiar with the intimate details of ... the situation." Earnest quickly added, however, "that the United States, under the leadership of this president, regularly raises our concerns about the human rights situation inside of Saudi Arabia." But even if the U.S. is indeed employing back channels of diplomacy to halt at least some of the Saudi executions, such efforts are grossly inadequate and also hypocritical. "The Saudi practices of public beheadings," Hicks says, "are the pattern that has been followed by [Islamic State] to terrify and subdue subject populations. This is where [Islamic State] gets its message from. The Saudis have been doing the exact same thing for decades." The U.S. refusal to condemn Saudi human rights violations is rooted, of course, in larger geopolitical machinations. Despite the recent drop in global commodity prices, the Saudis remain a critical supplier of crude oil to the West. Even more critically, the Saudis are viewed as a vital American military ally - 2nd only to Israel in the Middle East - in the all-purpose and never-ending war on terror. Since October 2010, according to the Congressional Research Service, the Saudis have purchased more than $90 billion in fighter aircraft, helicopters, missile defense systems, missiles, bombs, armored vehicles and related equipment from such American defense manufacturers as Raytheon, Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Since March of this year, U.S.-trained Saudi military personnel have deployed such equipment to launch a vicious air-bombardment campaign against Shiite Houthi rebel groups in Yemen. Although the Obama administration lacks the courage and decency to come forward, the rest of us have no reason to be constrained. Campaigns to free al-Nimr and his compatriots confined on Saudi Arabia's death row are underway and deserve our active participation. The 1st step in ending tyranny is to expose its existence - to let the tyrants know that we're watching and won't turn away until they are forced to change their ways or stand down once and for all. (source: Bill Blum, truthdig.com) IRAN----executions 3 Prisoners Hanged: 2 in North, 1 in Central Iran Between Sunday and Monday November 8-9, Iranian authorities reportedly hanged 3 prisoners to death on alleged drug charges. According to the human rights news group, HRANA, 2 prisoners were executed at Gorgan Central Prison on Sunday November 8. According to the Baluchi Activists Campaign, 1 prisoner was hanged at Isfahan Central Prison on Monday November 9. All 3 prisoners were reportedly executed on drug related charges. The prisoners hanged on Sunday have been identified as: Mohammad Barani, 39 years old, and Mokhtar Khoojamaly, 33 years old. The prisoner hanged on Monday has been identified as: Barkat Malekraeesi, held in prison for 7 years before his execution. Official Iranian sources have been silent on these 3 executions; however, on Sunday, the official website of Golestan's Judiciary reported that 2 unidentified prisoners were hanged in public on rape charges. Iran Human Rights is greatly concerned with the lack of transparency of executions and convictions in Iran and fears the real number of prisoners who have been hanged is much higher than what has been reported by human rights groups. (source: Iran Human Rights) BANGLADESH: Rajon, Rakib killings: Death references at HC The death references in 2 cases filed for killing 13-year-old boys Sheikh Md Samiul Alam Rajon and Rakib reached the High Court today for examining the verdicts that sentenced 6 people to death. Officials of Sylhet and Khulna courts concerned brought the documents of the cases including the judgements to the HC, Supreme Court???s Additional Registrar Sabbir Foez told The Daily Star. Death reference section of the HC has received the documents, he said. Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha will now assign the High Court judges to hold hearing on the references. Sylhet Metropolitan Sessions Judge's Court on Sunday sentenced four people including prime accused Quamrul Islam to death for beating Rajon to death in July this year. On July 8, Rajon was beaten to death by a group of brutes in Kumargaon Bus Stand area of Sylhet Sadar allegedly for trying to steal a rickshaw van. Tied to a pole, he screamed for help, cried for water and begged for his life. But they laughed and jeered at him till the boy went silent, forever. One of them even filmed the horrendous incident and shared it on Facebook. The 28-minute video footage went viral and shows Quamrul, in a black T-shirt and lungi, hitting the boy with a stick in the feet, joints of legs, shoulders and in the head. The sickening torture video shook the nation to its core and stirred outcries in the social network and the mainstream media. On the other hand, Khulna Metropolitan Magistrate Court handed down death penalty to 2 people for killing Rakib by pumping air into his rectum. On August 3, Rakib's former employer Md Sharif and his uncle Mintu Mia stripped the boy naked, inserted a high-pressure air pump nozzle into his rectum and filled the body with air for changing workplace. Rakib's intestines tore apart and lungs burst as air filled the abdomen, which left him dead. The killing incident sparked outrage all over the country 3 months ago. (source: The Daily Star) SINGAPORE: How do we justify the death sentence without unanimous judgments? Some Friday mornings an inmate is awakened before dawn and taken to a chamber in a maximum security section of Changi Prison. A noose is slipped over his or her head, the knot positioned under a ear to make sure the spinal cord is broken upon impact, to ensure instant death. A doctor certifies the inmate dead and the body is taken away for the family to claim later. Once this is done, there is no going back. There is no punishment more final than that of the death penalty. Its irreversibility means that when we send someone to the gallows, we must be sure. Beyond sure. There can be no questions, no loose ends, no doubt whatsoever. Yet in Singapore people can be sentenced to death even when there is disagreement among judges ruling on the case. Take Kho Jabing, the 31-year-old Sarawakian convicted of murder after a robbery ended up with one man dead. Following the changes to the mandatory death penalty in 2013, a High Court judge set aside his death sentence and changed it to life imprisonment with 24 strokes of the cane. The prosecution then appealed, and in early 2015 the Court of Appeal sent him back to death row in a 3-2 split decision. The High Court judge had found that there was "no clear sequence of events concerning the attack." The dissenting judges in the Court of Appeal also found a lack of evidence to determine how Jabing had attacked the victim, and observed that there was "reasonable doubt" as to whether he had acted in a way that exhibited a "blatant disregard for life". Regardless of one's views on capital punishment, I think we can all agree that death penalty cases need to be watertight because of its harsh finality. Wrongful executions can never been rectified, and leave us as guilty of taking a life as those we seek to punish. How then, do we justify the imposition of the death sentence when there is no unanimity on the bench? When even 2 of our learned appeal judges have doubts over whether it is safe to impose the death penalty in such a case, can we truly be sure that the punishment is justified? Before we put someone to death, there can be no doubt. It is unsafe to send someone to the gallows when even High Court and Court of Appeal judges do not feel like there is enough evidence to make such a sentence appropriate. (source: Kirsten Han is a Singaporean blogger, journalist and filmmaker. She is also involved in the We Believe in Second Chances campaign for the abolishment of the death penalty. A social media junkie, she tweets at @kixes. The views expressed are her own----Yahoo news) ******************* Family of man on Singapore death row turn to Sarawak lawmakers Buoyed by the delay of his execution in Singapore, family members of Sarawakian Kho Jabing are coming to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow for a last ditch attempt at rallying support from lawmakers to take up his case in helping to plead for leniency. The Singapore Court of Appeal granted Jabing, 31, a stay of execution on Thursday, barely 24 hours before he was scheduled to be hanged at the Changi Prison for causing the death of Chinese citizen Cao Ruyin in 2007. Jabing's sister Jumai and their mother Lenduk are expected to seek out Sarawakian lawmakers, said Malaysian lawyer Ngeow Chow Ying. "I've been trying to help arrange for them to meet as many members of Parliament from Sarawak as possible," said Ngeow, who was contacted by Singapore anti-death penalty group We Believe in Second Chances 2 weeks ago to provide assistance to Jabing's family. The few whom her team managed to get in touch with have "not been very positive" in showing much enthusiasm for Jabing's cause, she said. The family also hope to meet prominent lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, who heads the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), to deliver a letter of appeal for Asean nations to lend their support in calling for clemency for Jabing. Ngeow was also the lawyer for Malaysian Yong Vui Kong, who in November 2013 became the 1st drug trafficker on death row to have his sentence commuted to life imprisonment and 15 strokes of the cane under Singapore's 2012 amendments to their capital punishment laws. She said the level of public, government and international support for Yong, 24, was much greater than for Jabing, admitting that the case for the Sarawakian of Chinese and Iban descent was "more complicated". "For Vui Kong, we had a lot of media coverage, a lot of people signing the petition to grant him clemency and we even had international pressure," said Ngeow. "But because in Jabing's case it's murder, or rather robbery leading to murder, it's a problem trying to rally public support. MPs are also hesitant to throw their support behind his case," she said. Doubts about conviction However, Ngeow said it was important to emphasise that there was "a lot of doubt" in the details of Jabing's murder conviction, which was the reason why rights groups and lawyers believed he should be spared from execution. The Singapore High Court reviewed Jabing's case and resentenced him to life imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane in 2014, but his family's relief was shortlived after the death penalty was reimposed by the Court of Appeal in a split 3-2 decision. President Tony Tan then rejected his appeal for clemency on October 19. The Court of Appeal's ruling last Thursday surprised many rights activists, who say it was unprecedented in Singapore's recent history to delay an execution at the 11th hour. While his family pin their hopes on garnering greater public and government support in the extra time they have, Ngeow is quick to caution against being too optimistic of the effectiveness of diplomacy in pushing for clemency. "The Malaysian government will most likely not petition for Jabing, at the most they will write a letter of appeal," said Ngeow, citing Malaysia's strict adherence to Asean's policy of non-interference. "From experience, the chances of diplomatic pressure alone being the reason for the Singapore government to relent is very slim," she said. Jabing's lawyer has until November 23 to present a Motion of Crisis for his case to be resubmitted. Priscilla Chia, director of We Believe in Second Chances, said if the court decides to dismiss the motion, Jabing will be the 1st Malaysian to be hanged in Singapore since 2011. The organisation has been one of Jabing's strongest supporters, providing legal counsel and financial support to his family during their stay in Singapore. (source: themalaysianinsider.com) INDONESIA: Indonesia plans to use crocodiles to guard death row drug convicts ---- In echoes of the Bond film Live and Let Die, the country's anti-drugs chief is backing the plan because 'you can't convince them to let criminals escape' Indonesia's anti-drugs agency has proposed building a prison on an island guarded by crocodiles to hold death row drug convicts, an official has said, an idea seemingly taken from a James Bond film. The proposal is the pet project of anti-drugs chief Budi Waseso, who plans to visit various parts of the archipelago in his search for reptiles to guard the jail. "We will place as many crocodiles as we can there. I will search for the most ferocious type of crocodile," he was quoted as saying by local news website Tempo. Waseso said that crocodiles would be better at preventing drug traffickers from escaping prison as they could not be bribed - unlike human guards. "You can't bribe crocodiles. You can't convince them to let inmates escape," he said. But he is banking on the convicts lacking the crocodile-running skills shown by Roger Moore's 007 in the Bond movie Live and Let Die when he escapes from an island using the reptiles as stepping stones. The plan is still in the early stages, and neither the location or potential opening date of the jail have been decided. Indonesia already has some of the toughest anti-narcotics laws in the world, including death by firing squad for traffickers, and sparked international uproar in April when it put to death seven foreign drug convicts, including Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. But president Joko Widodo has insisted that drug dealers must face death as the country is fighting a "national emergency" due to rising narcotics use. Despite the harsh laws, Indonesia's corrupt prison system is awash with drugs, and inmates and jail officials are regularly arrested for narcotics offences. Anti-drugs agency spokesman Slamet Pribadi confirmed authorities were mulling the plan to build "a special prison for death row convicts". He said only traffickers would be kept in the jail, to stop them from mixing with other prisoners and potentially recruiting them to drug gangs. The agency is currently in discussions with the justice ministry about the plan, he added. (source: The Guardian) *********************** In the end, Chan and Sukumaran's executions stung Indonesia's economy, not its conscience On the night of 28 April, much of the world's media was trained on a prison island off central Java where 8 prisoners, including 2 Australians, were executed at midnight. The lead up to the executions and the diplomatic repercussions that followed dominated much of the Australian news agenda for the first 4 months of this year. Yet after so much sound and fury, debate about the death penalty and engagement with Indonesia on the issue seems to have dropped away. 60 people convicted of drug offences were due to be executed this year. So far, 14 have been killed. Why haven't any other executions been held since that night in April when Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, and 6 others, were killed? Anti-death penalty activists - including myself - have been holding our breath, waiting with dread for further killings to be announced, but the year is racing to a close and the state's lethal urges appear to be spent. Indonesia's so-called drugs emergency, which was the reason given for the rush to the gallows in the first place, has not suddenly gone away. Nor has there been a sudden surge of humanity. But Indonesia's economy is hurting and the very public spectacle of the executions in April hasn't helped. The cost of the executions is being picked over by local press. The last 2 rounds of executions cost around AU$206,000. For the April executions, Indonesia allocated around AU$20,000 for each prisoner in its "execution budget" and chose Nusakambangan Island for the venue because it was cheaper than other locations. According to local media reports in May, Indonesia's attorney general wanted to further save costs in the 3rd round of executions. It's not just the cost of the actual executions that is putting Indonesians off. A bad economy, a tanking rupiah, slowing growth and the desire to attract foreign investment have meant the "3rd round" has not gone ahead. Dr Vannessa Hearman, a lecturer in Indonesian studies at the University of Sydney, told Guardian Australia that the Indonesian government has not yet named when the next batch of executions would take place. "After talk about the 3rd wave, there doesn't seem to be any further developments," she said. Hearman says that while there have been reports about a move away from carrying out executions "because they cost a lot of money and the focus is on growth ... this stalling is more a response to the international outcry to the executions." Indonesia has a lot on its plate at the moment. As well as the economy spluttering, there's massive environmental problems with the fires causing enormous haze, health problems and disruption to trade across large swathes of the country. Local human rights activists are also busy with other issues, such as the 281 Indonesians facing execution abroad, sex trafficking and corruption. The death penalty, particularly the execution of foreigners, is further down the list of priorities. Todung Mulya Lubis, lead Indonesian lawyer for Chan and Sukumaran, appeared at the Ubud Writers Festival in Bali last weekend. He spoke of his disappointment with Indonesian president Joko "Jokowi" Widodo: When I was involved in the campaign to elect Jokowi, human rights was on the agenda. We'd like more civil society, we'd like abolishment of the death penalty but that hasn't happened. The Bali 9 executions has been very damaging for Indonesia ... Our constitution guarantees human rights, and we also have a lot of Indonesians facing death penalty overseas. What morality do we have if this is the double standard that we have? The mere existence of a double standard was not a cause for pausing the executions earlier this year. Nor was the plea for mercy, or the well-documented rehabilitation of the prisoners. But perhaps the best hope for abolition of the death penalty is to reframe it in an economic context. Trading partners - both at a government and private level - can take the lead and let it be known that they are uncomfortable doing business in an environment where executions occur, particularly when the justice system is so flawed. A report by Amnesty International released last month said: Death row prisoners in Indonesia are routinely denied access to lawyers and are coerced into 'confessions' through severe beatings, while foreign nationals facing the death penalty had to deal with a judicial system they hardly understand. Speaking to the ABC in September, Todung Mulya Lubis said he had seen nervousness among the business community about government policies. "Jokowi realises, he understands, new investment is not coming to Indonesia," he said. "Even the existing investment cannot be maintained. They may go any time. And I as a lawyer come across that. I know some of the companies ... are considering leaving, so that is not very good." This pause is great news for those on death row who may have thought they'd be killed by now. But Hearman would like to see more certainty. "Currently no one in the government is moving towards it (more executions). But to me, the danger of keeping quiet is that the death penalty can still be used at some time. It's not sustainable for the government to have this arrangement." Right now, business concerns may be the best hope abolitionists have in stopping the executions. (source: Brigid Delaney is the co-founder of the Mercy Campaign----The Guardian) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Nov 10 15:54:51 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2015 15:54:51 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., OKLA., USA Message-ID: Nov. 10 TEXAS: Condemned Killer of Houston Girl, 2, Loses Court Appeal A federal appeals court has refused an appeal from a 56-year-old Houston man on Texas death row for the rape and fatal beating of his girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter 15 years ago. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected arguments from Kerry Dimart Allen that his lawyers at his Harris County trial in 2001 were deficient. The court late Monday also turned down arguments that the state, its death penalty law and the trial court's actions during jury selection all violated Allen's constitutional protections. Allen already was a convicted sex offender when he was arrested for the May 2000 slaying of Kienna Lashay Baker. He'd been living with the child's mother and watched her 4 children when she went to work. Allen does not yet have an execution date. (source: NBC news) FLORIDA: Last chance to spare Tommy Zeigler's life may be modern science----Death row inmate files motion for additional DNA testing It's a thrift store on Dillard Street now, but in 1975, a Christmas Eve nightmare unfolded inside the Zeigler Furniture store in Winter Garden when 4 people were murdered, and the owner, Tommy Zeigler was wounded. Within days, Zeigler was charged in the killings of his wife, Eunice, her parents, Perry and Virginia Edwards, and customer Charlie Mays. They were shot, some with multiple guns, and the men were beaten. The prosecution, led by then-State Attorney Robert Eagan, called it a plot devised by the businessman to collect $500,000 on insurance policies he'd taken out on his wife months earlier. The state also persuaded a jury that Zeigler tried to frame Mays, a customer and local citrus worker. Just 7 months later, in July 1976, Zeigler was sent to death row. A jury that originally deadlocked on the case before reaching a guilty verdict recommended a life sentence. But presiding Judge Maurice Paul, who now sits on the U.S. District Court of North Florida, sentenced Zeigler to death. WESH 2 News has previously reached out to Paul, but he has declined to discuss the case. Recently, Zeigler wrote to WESH 2 News from his jail cell at the Union Correctional Institution in Raiford. In the letter, Zeigler said there are 2 major developments in his case. 1 involves DNA testing and the other is a document. "I did not kill my wife," Zeigler said. "I did not kill Mr. and Mrs. Edwards. I did not kill Mr. Mays." Greg Fox, reporter: "You're innocent?" Zeigler: "Yes." Zeigler claims he was jumped by the killers. "It was dark in there, and like I said, I was being bounced around like a ping pong ball, off the walls and everything," Zeigler said. "And I was shot!" Nearly 40 years later, Zeigler's last chance to spare his life may be modern science. He's filed a motion for "additional DNA testing" on "every single bloodstain" on his shirts, his wife's clothing and father-in-law's "finger nails." Zeigler claims today's testing, not available years ago, will prove he's innocent. "It was a bloody mess. How can you beat somebody to death and not get their blood on you?" he said. Zeigler's legal team has also uncovered court documents in Colquitt County, Georgia, where victims Perry and Virginia Edwards lived, that show his in-laws withdrew and were changing their will to make Zeigler the executor, giving him control of millions of dollars. Zeigler recalls the proposed change in the will infuriated his late brother-in-law Perry Edwards Jr., who was the executor, along with Eunice Zeigler, at the time. Photos shows Edwards Jr. looked similar to Zeigler in 1975, and the death row inmate believes Edwards Jr. designed the murder plot to keep control of his family's money. Zeigler is counting on the new evidence to win an acquittal or a new trial. "The facts are what they are," said State Attorney Jeff Ashton. "None of this stuff changes that. It never has, and it never will." Ashton has been prosecuting the Zeigler case since he took over in the 1980s. He said Zeigler's fifth motion for DNA testing is irrelevant, citing the Supreme court ruling that reads: "...we do not believe that Zeigler has presented a scenario under which new evidence resulting from DNA typing would have affected the outcome of the case." "If Mr. Zeigler got every DNA test he asked for today, he'd find something else to ask for," Ashton said. Zeigler's attorney, Dennis Tracey, who's been on the case since 1986, said the evidence is a slam dunk. "40 years later, we are very confident that if we test this DNA, we will find out who the killer was." Tracey said. "You don't execute someone when there is definitive evidence in the courthouse that you haven't looked at." Tracey also told WESH 2 News that a key witness in the case, Felton Thomas, has given a recorded statement, recanting some of his testimony. Thomas said in the interview that authorities told him the night of the murders that Zeigler was believed to be the killer. But they never provided a photo lineup so Thomas could attempt to identify the man he thought he had seen earlier in the evening with murder victim Mays. Tracey will be seeking court subpoena for a sworn deposition from Thomas to submit to the court. Fox: "Did you commit these murders?" Zeigler: "I did not, and I have done everything in the world that I can possibly do to prove that." But time is running out. At age 70, Zeigler's odds of freedom or escaping his 3rd death warrant are fading. "I would say I probably have a 50/50 chance, depending on what happens with this latest motion with the DNA," Zeigler said. A hearing to determine if Zeigler's motion for DNA testing will be granted is likely to be scheduled for December. (source: WESH news) OKLAHOMA: ACLU sues governor for failing to release public documents A news organization and a not-for-profit are going to court based on claims Gov. Mary Fallin and her office failed to comply with the state's Open Records Act. The American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma filed a lawsuit in Oklahoma County District Court Monday on behalf of The Oklahoma Observer and A Perfect Cause, a not-for-profit that advocates for Oklahoma's nursing home patients. Fallin's office failed to provide access to public records sought more than a year ago in each case, the lawsuit contends. This is the 4th time the governor's office has been sued in connection with its failure to public records sought by news agencies and other entities. Arnold Hamilton, editor of The Oklahoma Observer, made his request July 16, 2014, for documents related to the Pardon and Parole Board's recommendation that death row inmates Garry Thomas Allen and Brian Darrell Davis receive clemency. Both men were executed as scheduled. Hamilton told reporters he requested any records and communications the governor had with officials from the attorney general's office, Department of Corrections and the Pardon and Parole Board. "I wanted to know what went into the governor's thinking" in refusing clemency for the two inmates, Hamilton said. "From where we stand the death penalty is the greatest sanction government can impose on its citizens." Hamilton said he finally received a package containing 41,600 pages of documents from the governor's office, but it was the wrong information. The documents were related to 2014 executions carried out by Oklahoma, not the executions of Allen and Davis, which occurred in 2012 and 2013. Fallin's spokesman, Alex Weintz, said he was unaware Hamilton had received the wrong information and would look into the matter. Meanwhile, A Perfect Cause Director Cecilia Smith on March 4, 2013, sought records of communication between the governor and her staff with nursing home operators and long term care providers on any related issues or concerns. They also wanted communications between the governor's office and seven state officials who A Perfect Cause asked to resign because of widespread neglect and abuse allegations in nursing homes statewide, said Wes Bledsoe, founder of the not-for-profit. The underlying reason for the documents request was to determine the governor's policy on nursing homes and the abuse allegations, an ACLU official said. On Jan. 8, 2014, Bledsoe met with Fallin's chief of staff, Denise Northrup and the governor's legal counsel, Steve Mullins. Bledsoe also met with Mullins 2 months later with Mullins informing him the governor's office intended to focus on the nursing home surveys, which are conducted to determine it any deficiencies exist at individual nursing centers. However, the request for documents from A Perfect Cause was never complied with, said ACLU Legal Director Brady Henderson. Henderson and ACLU Executive Director Ryan Kiesel said the governor???s office is violating the Open Records law by not answering official requests for documents. The governor's office takes unnecessary steps designed to delay production of records requests, the lawsuit contends. Staff members rescan digital records, such as e-mails and pdf documents, into non-searchable optically scanned images to make it more difficult for reporters and the public to search available records. This process is performed by either digital conversion or physically printing hard copies of digital documents and then scanning the hard copies with an optical scanning device, the lawsuit states. The ACLU also contends requests are delayed even more by requiring the governor's legal staff to inspect all documents that will be released. The ACLU claims the governor's office also is reviewing the documents for "political sensitivity or other non-legal reasons." "After dealing with this administration, we don't see any alternative other than litigation," Kiesel said. However, Weintz defended the system that is used at the governor's office, saying Fallin's administration has disclosed 357,000 pages of requested public documents since 2012. "The scope of this is unprecedented," Weintz said, claiming no other governor has been asked to produce that many public records. "We take our obligation seriously. The Open Records Act is something Gov. Fallin supports. It is our obligation to read these documents before we can turn them over so private information is not disclosed. It is a time consuming process." Weintz contends neither Gov. Frank Keating nor Gov. Brad Henry was asked for so many public records and communications during their time in office. The governor's office has three attorneys and a paralegal who spend part of their workdays reading documents that have been requested by news agencies and other individuals. The public and the press should be "realistic and fair" before criticizing the governor's office for failing to provide the documents under the Open Records Act, Weintz said. The requests for documents are answered as they are received, he said. However, the ACLU claims a year or longer is not "reasonable or prompt" as stated in the Open Records Act. Henderson believes it will take a thorough legal challenge to force the governor's office to move at a faster pace when answering records requests. "This tool (Open Records Act), if we don't defend it, can become mute," he said. "What's said is we've had to do this at all." USA: 1 in 10 death row inmates are military veterans, report says 1/1/0 of those who currently on death row in the United States are military veterans, including some with post-traumatic stress disorder that was not factored into their sentences, according to a new report released on the eve of Veterans Day. This report arrives as the country's use of the death penalty is simultaneously declining and facing increased scrutiny, something that has been argued before the U.S. Supreme Court and on the presidential campaign trail this year. While it is not known exactly how many veterans have been sentenced to death, the report released Tuesday by the Death Penalty Information Center says that about 300 of the country's more than 3,000 death-row inmates have served in the military. It goes on to argue that a person's military service should be factored into a possible sentence, particularly if the person facing trial has shown signs of trauma and possible post-traumatic stress disorder. "At a time in which the death penalty is being imposed less and less, it is disturbing that so many veterans who were mentally and emotionally scarred while serving their country are now facing execution," Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said in a statement. The number of people put to death is falling nationwide, as are the number of death sentences handed down and the number of states carrying out executions. So far this year, 25 people have been executed, and the country is likely to have fewer executions this year than it has in nearly a quarter of a century. The 1st person put to death in the United States this year was Andrew Brannan, who killed a Georgia sheriff's deputy in 1998. Brannan, who served in Vietnam, had argued that he developed post-traumatic stress disorder after his experiences in combat. This new report outlines Brannan's case and many others, stating that "many [veterans] have experienced trauma that few others in society have ever encountered - trauma that may have played a role in their committing serious crimes," considerations that should be factored into how they are sentenced. The report also noted that for many veterans currently on death row, their military service and any related mental illnesses "were barely touched on as their lives were being weighed by judges and juries." It adds: "Even today, there are veterans on death row with PTSD that was unexplored at their trial or undervalued for its pernicious effects." As a possible remedy, the report says that attorneys in capital cases should make sure to ask about possible military service, have mental health assessments that focus on possible trauma from that service and educate prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges about the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder. (source: Washington Post) ********************* Last Day of Freedom (32min) When Bill Babbitt realizes his brother Manny has committed a crime he agonizes over his decision- should he call the police? Last Day of Freedom is a richly animated personal narrative that tells the story of Bill's decision to stand by his brother, a Veteran returning from war, as he faces criminal charges, racism, and ultimately the death penalty. This film is a portrait of a man at the nexus of the most pressing social issues of our day - veterans' care, mental health access and criminal justice. Original music by Fred Frith. Currently we are nominated for Best Short Film by the IDA and semi- finalists for the Oscar in Best Short Documentary. The film was awarded the Jury Award for Best Short at Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, an Academy Awards (Oscar) qualifying category; the Film Maker Award from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke, the Jury Award for Best Short Documentary Hamptons International Film Festival, NY, Golden Strands Award, for outstanding documentary short film, Tall Grass International Film Festival, KS, Animated Short Doc Award, Bar Harbor, MA, Impact Award (In) Justice for All International Film Festival, IL and Honorary Mention Best Animated Documentary Short Film, Dok Leipzig, DE Link to the trailer http://www.lastdayoffreedom.net [www.lastdayoffreedom.net] -- Making of video - on IndieWire: http://www.indiewire.com/article/watch-exclusive- behind-the-scenes-clip-from-award-winning-short-last-day-of-freedom-20151001 (sources: DH-J & RH) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Nov 10 15:58:28 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2015 15:58:28 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 10 BANGLADESH: Statement on War Crimes Trial ---- Govt asks Amnesty Int'l to apologise Blasting the Amnesty International over a statement on war crimes trial, the government has demanded the rights watchdog withdraw the statement immediately and apologise for its highly objectionable pronouncement concerning the pro-independence forces. In a protest note to the Amnesty, the government said the watchdog in its October 27 statement has gone beyond its usual stand, and caused widespread outrage by suggesting that the "pro-independence forces" in Bangladesh be also implicated for committing "serious crimes". "This egregious comment is just a brazen insult to the valued freedom fighters and martyrs of Bangladesh's Liberation War and betrays Amnesty International's shallow reading of the history and significance of Bangladesh's Liberation War and its aftermath. "This is exactly the kind of misleading propaganda run by those who opposed Bangladesh's independence in 1971, continue to work against Bangladesh's sovereignty and independence, and remain on the side of those convicted of crimes against humanity and genocide," read the government note which was sent to the AI headquarters in London. The Amnesty in its statement reiterated its principled position against the death penalty, and in the process, questioned the trials and appeals in the cases against BNP leader Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury and Jamaat leader Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mojaheed, who have been convicted of committing crimes against humanity and genocide during the Liberation War. About the AI's stand on war crimes cases, the government note said it is a sad reality that the perpetrators of the mass atrocity crimes during the Liberation War were allowed to gain political and economic strength over the years and make systematic attempts to change the narratives about their past. They unleashed their full force to create an environment of terror and violence to destabilise the country and foil the trials, resort to selective murders and attacks on witnesses and campaigners of the trials, and run an international campaign through certain quarters to undermine the trials, added the note. "The government and people of Bangladesh consider it unfortunate that Amnesty International has enlisted itself with those quarters. It becomes obvious from its latest (as well as previous) statement that, under the pretext of opposing the death penalty, Amnesty International has resorted to projecting the trials as politically biased and motivated." In so doing, the AI has moved away from the stand of an impartial observer and commentator, and has made a choice to repeat the arguments of the defendants as well as the local and international detractors who have a vested interest in disrupting the trials, the protest note said. The fact that most of the defendants happen to be members of different opposing political parties is a mere coincidence as far as the trials are concerned. Even then, the fact that some ruling party or coalition members are also standing trials is conveniently glossed over by the Amnesty, mentioned the note. It said without going into any specificity, the AI made sweeping comments about the alleged miscarriage of justice or lack of fair trial standards. "It is unacceptable that Amnesty International assumes the prerogative to make value judgments about an independent judiciary and its conduct in a manner that reeks of utmost irresponsibility, unaccountability, and condescension." The AI, said the government, opposes the death penalty, but it raises its concerns over the death penalty only on a selective basis, especially for convicts with finance and international clout. "There is thus no reason to consider Amnesty International as an unbiased arbiter of the judicial process. Any claims it makes, such as calling the ICT-BD flawed, must be viewed through that lens, and treated with skepticism." (source: The Daily Star) IRAN----execution West Azerbaijan: Prisoner Hanged by Crane in Public On the morning of Monday November 9, a prisoner identified as "A.S." was hanged by crane in public on rape charges. The hanging was reportedly carried out in Khoy, West Azerbaijan. The news of the hanging, including the photos, were published by Azarnegah, an official Iranian state-run news site. (source: Iran Human Rights) INDIA: Book Exceprt----The beginnings of a hangwoman's career managing the noose; The 1st in a series of excerpts from the books longlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. First up: 'Hangwoman'. "Jatindranath Banerjee's hanging will be the 1st to happen in India in 13 years. But after hangman Phanibhushan Grddha Mullick has made it clear that he will not work unless his demands have been met, plans for Jatindranath's execution take a new turn." The handsome young man looked into my eyes and announced this. Then it was Father's face on TV. Smoothing down the ample grey moustache that hung on his bulging cheeks, Father began to speak, holding an unlit cigarette between his index and middle fingers. "In 1982, they had given this to me in writing when they decided to execute Jabbar Singh. Government jobs for my childred ... but later, when my son Ramdev Mullick was seriously injured ... then they conveniently forgot the promise. How did he suffer that injury? The government ought to have had a thought. I have sacrificed my life and my family's too, for the sake of this country. Doesn't the government have any obligation towards me? This business of hanging, is it a picnic? Babu, we don't tie the noose around the neck of a hen or a snake. We tie it around a human being's neck. Here, pinch me, and see for yourself, I am no block of iron or stone. A raw man, just like you. I too have a family. A wife. Mother. Brother. Children. He, the condemned man I am to hang, is not even my son's age. I am ending his life. Is that like smoking this cigarette? No, brother, no ..." Father lit his cigarette and let out a puff of smoke. When the camera panned sideways, Alipore Central Jail appeared. Father was coming out after seeing the IG. Blowing the smoke out, he struck a jatra pose, gazing reverentially at something in the distance and folding his hands in salutation. Then he continued: "I am a person who calls to god every day. I don't know what lies ahead of this life. I have hung 451 people with these hands... not even one of those 451 has returned to tell me what death is like and what lies beyond. Look here, you, I am an old man. May leave any time... if I leave and reach there, will the 451 people be waiting for me? I don't know. Will they fry me in oil? That, too, I don't know... Everything ends after death, scientists say. But to know if it is really like that, we have to go by ourselves ..." "Do you believe in life after death?" "No, brother, that is not the issue. The issue is the big risk I have taken. Risk, Babu, risk ..." Father pointed the cigarette at the camera and puffed hard once more. He wiped the sweat with his gamchha. "Till which class did you study?" "See? This is the problem with you. Why do you worry about the class up to which I have studied? Isn't it enough to ask how much I know? I know enough to read an English newspaper. To make sense of it. I know enough of maths and chemistry and physics and everything else to do my job. Why, won't that do?" Father raised his eyelids and laughed mockingly. His face really looked like that of a vulture. "Are you saying that the government must compensate you for the torture you may have to undergo in the afterlife?" "I said I know nothing of afterlife... there is risk even in life till death." "What risk do you face?" "My son Ramdev... my son was cut down by the father of Amartya Ghosh whom I hanged at the gallows in 1990..." Father pulled hard on the burning cigarette. Suddenly my heart fell. We never spoke of that day. In 1990, Ramu da had been my age, 22. Father's height, luxuriant hair and moustache, and Ma's fair complexion and gentle eyes made him handsome. All the girls in the neighbourhood were fastening nooses around his neck, I would tease; they threw look after look in longing. He was a good student. And reluctant to become a hangman. He argued with Father over it all night sometimes. Those days, there were no 24-hour channels. That was the heyday of newspapers. The news of Amartya Ghosh's execution continued to appear. Our family was all agog, having got a job after 2 or 3 years. But 2 days later, Ramu da, who was returning from college, was attacked by Amartya's aged father. The old man hacked off his fair, slender, delicate limbs. "Didn't the government offer compensation for the injury Ramdev suffered?" The young man continued to question Father. "They gave 1500 rupees then... and now a pension for the disabled..." The image of Father flinging away the cigarette butt appeared on the screen. I thought it would end there. But the young man's voice rang again. "Only your son is disabled. Your healthy daughter is still with you. Are you not keen to hand over your job to her?" I was stunned. Father, too, looked somewhat startled. "I haven't ever thought of that..." Father took out another cigarette, lit it, took a drag, and continued without wasting any time. "Uh-uh... why not? She can easily do it. But, brother, that is not for me to decide. It is for the government, right?" Ma, Ramu da and I sat transfixed as Father turned around and looked at us with a smile. The scenes that followed were these: The young man's face appeared. "Grddha Mullick made it clear that unless his daughter is granted a government job, he will not receive the court order and perform the hanging. While committed to the position that the children of a hangman may be given the same job, law minister Pallav Dasgupta announced that Grddha Mullick's demand that his job be given to his daughter is unacceptable..." Followed by the minister's face: "No, no, no... this is not a job a woman can do... it requires a lot of strength... of mind and body..." The young man's face: "Do you mean to say that women lack in strength of mind and body?" The minister: "No, not that... but this is not a job like any other..." Now the young man's face, again. "This is not just a matter of the conduct of justice anymore. The question of whether a woman has the right to work as a hangman cannot simply be denied, given the backdrop of arguments in favour of women's reservation. And this in a context where the death penalty is being abolished in many nations of the world. This is the topic of discussion today in CNC Face to Face. Viewers may take part in the live discussion. This is the question: Can women be appointed executioners to hang criminals? To voice your views, call us on..." I was deeply shocked. Still, I thought it would end there. It didn't. "When we reached the house of the country's most famous hangman, Grddha Mullick, his first condition was that no images of his family members be made public. But CNC channel received images of his daughter secretly. 889-year-old Phanibhushan now bargains with the government to make the life of this young woman secure - she who passed the Plus Two examination with very high marks but was unable to continue her studies because of financial problems." My image began to roll on screen. Me about to turn right after taking money from Kaku. Then turning left. Walking towards the camera. Passing by the camera, opening and closing my arms merrily. The camera shows my back till I reach Hari da's shop. As I return, my faded and tattered dupatta and the breasts it does not fully cover appear on the screen. Then my face comes into view on the screen, magnified. I saw the small wart on the left side of my nose, the smooth shiny hair of my eyebrows, and the bulging eyes, the same as Father's. This is how others see my face - now I saw too. As I sat there dazed, the young man concluded: "From Bhavanipore, for CNC channel, along with cameraman Atul Kishore Chandra, this is Sanjeev Kumar Mitra." "Sanjeev Kumar Mitra!" Father jumped up, furious. "I'll finish him with my bare hands!" Father was wrong. He was to die by my hands. That's why I was attracted to him from that very moment. He was special, with his exceptional height, thick straight hair, long straight nose. It took me much longer to be convinced that the feeling I had for him was what people call love. The kinds of love that the likes of us experienced were all like the noose fixed between the 3rd and 4th vertebrae. Either the noose tightened and the person died, or the cord broke and the person escaped. But even those who broke the cord could never completely untie the noose from their necks. Like Chinmayi Devi who married Radharaman Mullick, we writhed and flailed without breath, all our lives. Excerpted with permission from Hangwoman, KR Meera, translated from the Malayalam by J Devika, Penguin Books. (source: scroll.in) SINGAPORE: see: http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/singapore-halt-kho-jabing-s-execution-ua-10315 (source: Amnesty International USA) UGANDA: Proposal To Scrap Death Penalty From Law Books Tabled The bill proposes amendment of the Penal Code Act, Cap 120, the Anti Terrorism Act 2002, Trial on Indictments Act and Uganda Peoples Defence Forces Act, 2005, which contain several provisions that prescribe mandatory death penalty upon conviction. (source: ugandaradionetwork.com) NIGERIA: Ken Saro-Wiwa's Death And Legacy 20 Years On Editor's note: The world is remembering Ken Saro-Wiwa and 8 other activists who led the movement against Shell's activities in the Niger Delta and were executed by the military in November 1995. Naij.com looks at how Nigeria dealt with the Ogoni Nine just 20 years ago and at what has become of the people who signed the death warrant. The memory of Saro-Wiwa lives on, but has Nigeria changed and grown enough to accept the truth he was trying to push through? Tuesday, November 10 will mark 20 years to the day since the hanging of the writer and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and 8 others. Convicted by a military tribunal of inciting the murder of four Ogoni elders, Saro-Wiwa and 8 other leaders of the Ogoni people's rights movement, MOSOP, were hanged in Port Harcourt prison on November 10, 1995, in the face of international outrage. The executions, described by Nelson Mandela as "a heinous act", led to Nigeria's 3-year suspension from the Commonwealth days later, and to economic sanctions from the EU and the USA. The men were brought from an army camp where they had been held since their conviction and coralled in a single room in Port Harcourt prison where they were shackled. Then they were blindfolded and led one by one to be hanged, beginning with Saro-Wiwa. According to one report Saro-Wiwa's own execution was bungled and only succeeded at the fifth attempt. "Why are you people treating me like this? Which type of country is this?" he is reported to have asked his executioners. Only 10 days earlier on October 31, 1995, the Ogoni 9, as they came to be known, had been condemned to death by a 3-member military tribunal handpicked by the kleptomaniacal military dictator General Sani Abacha. The death penalty was sanctioned by the military junta's Provisional Ruling Council on November 8, 1995, strong armed by Abacha???s determination not to look weak internationally. The men's final months had been a torment of beatings and torture, and of the knowledge that the military had unleashed a murderous campaign against the Ogoni people. In an interview with the BBC in 2013, Ledum Mitee, a senior MOSOP member who was arrested with Saro-Wiwa and acquitted by the tribunal, told how Ogoni women would be brought to the army camp where the men were held, and raped by soldiers in neighbouring cells, the detainees seemingly exposed deliberately to the women's shouts and screams. A richly endowed land When Royal Dutch Shell discovered oil in the Niger Delta in 1956, the Ogoni people lived in what has been painted, perhaps fancifully, as a pastoral Eden reliant on agriculture and fishing. Saro-Wiwa wrote in his statement to the tribunal: "Ogoni was a blessed land at that time. The fertile alluvial soils of the plain provided a rich harvest of yam, cassava and vegetable. The pure streams and seas brimmed with fish and other sea food." Shell started extracting oil in 1958. By the 1990s over 100 million dollars of oil and gas had, in Saro-Wiwa's words, been "carted away from Ogoniland". "In return for this," he told the UN in 1992,"the Ogoni people have received nothing." Indeed, in return for watching in increasing poverty while a fortune was pumped from their land, the Ogonis' fragile Eden was despoiled by oil spills and gas flaring: the dark marauding beast of commercial greed. In 1996 Bopp van Dessel, Shell's former head of environmental studies in Nigeria, admitted that Shell had ignored repeated warnings that its operations in Nigeria were causing massive environmental damage. "They were not meeting their own standards; they were not meeting international standards. Any Shell site that I saw was polluted. Any terminal that I saw was polluted. It is clear to me that Shell was devastating the area," he said. Agents of death The Ogonis were by no means the only people of the Niger Delta to suffer the rapacity of the oil companies. As the environmental devastation continued into the 1980s, other peoples of the delta were provoked into humble protest to and against Shell. The only response they received was police violence. In 1990 the Ogoni elders signed the Ogoni Bill of Rights calling for a measure of Ogoni political control of economic resources and "the right to protect the Ogoni environment and ecology from further degradation". That year the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) was formed. Saro-Wiwa was among the founders, and he declared the movement's ethos of non-violent protest. In January 1993 300,000 people attended a MOSOP-organised march and demonstration against Shell's operations in Ogoniland. "We have woken up to find our lands devastated by agents of death called oil companies. Our atmosphere has been totally polluted, our lands degraded, our waters contaminated, our trees poisoned, so much so that our flora and fauna have virtually disappeared," an Ogoni leader told the crowd. The demonstration was peaceful, but seriously alarmed Shell executives. Arrests and imprisonment of MOSOP leaders followed, including Saro-Wiwa twice. Demonstrations by Ogonis were suppressed violently, and MOSOP alleged the collaboration of Shell in the violence. General Abacha came to power in Nigeria in the autumn of 1993, and established the Rivers State Internal Security Task Force under the military governor Lt.Col Komo and Major Okuntimo, the operational commander. A series of secret communications between Komo and Okuntimo suggests that one of the task force's missions was to make Ogoniland safe for the conduct of "business ventures": the reopening of Shell's drilling operations, suspended earlier in the year. As Okuntimo remarked weeks later: "Shell operations still impossible unless ruthless military operations are undertaken for smooth economic activities to commence." His recommendation was "wasting operations during MOSOP and other gatherings making constant military presence justifiable". Wasting operations 9 days later on May 21, 1994, 4 Ogoni elders, who had had strategy disputes with MOSOP and Saro-Wiwa, were hacked to death by a mob. The security services responded slowly, suspiciously slowly some have said. The mob was allowed to disperse, and the actual killers were never identified. Instead, the government immediately accused MOSOP of responsibility, and its leaders were arrested. They were charged, much later, with inciting the killings. Saro-Wiwa challenged the accusation in detail in his submission to the military tribunal. He pointed out that 2 of the dead were his in-laws; that there were no serious disagreements between MOSOP and the murdered men; that the security forces had prevented him from being anywhere in the vicinity on that day. Subsequent witness reports attest to a significant military build-up across Ogoniland the day of the murders, but before they occurred, as if in anticipation. Nevertheless, there are those in the Ogoni community who have always blamed Saro-Wiwa for the murders. Donu Kogbara, now a prominent journalist with Vanguard, knew Saro-Wiwa well growing up. She wrote in 2011: "Saro-Wiwa took exception to those who urged caution and, according to witnesses whom I've met, ordered the hotheads who surrounded him to take harsh action against them." She wrote that she supported Saro-Wiwa's campaign and condemned his execution, and struggled to believe that he had directed the killings, but that he "had a dark, power-hungry, rabble-rousing side that led to the deaths of 4 Ogoni moderates". Whatever the degree of Saro-Wiwa's, or the military's, involvement in the killings, the security services seized upon the opportunity with relish. 'Wasting operations' commenced. "Ostensibly searching for those directly responsible for the killings", Okuntimo's men began "deliberately terrorising the whole community, assaulting and beating indiscriminately", according to Amnesty International. Hundreds were killed, many women were raped, villages were destroyed and thousands of people were displaced across Ogoniland. Business as usual Shell maintained complete innocence and lack of involvement in all this. They claimed, and still claim, that the company bore no responsibility for the actions of the Nigerian military government. But there were indications otherwise. Shell was accused of financing and supplying vehicles for military operations. Okuntimo allegedly told a British environmental activist he briefly detained that he was "doing it all for Shell ... But he was not happy because the last time he had asked Shell to pay his men their out-station allowances he had been refused which was not the usual procedure". Shell has always denied that the company had any power to save the Ogoni 9. The company claimed to have appealed to the Nigerian government for clemency for the men. Between May and July 1995 Saro-Wiwa's brother met Brian Anderson, Shell Nigeria's managing director, several times to try to find a way to secure his brother's release. Owens Wiwa said he was shocked to be told at 1 meeting that Anderson would intercede with the Nigerian government if Owens promised to stop all campaigns, nationally and internationally, against Shell. Owens, appalled, objected that he did not have that power. The trial which began in February 1995 was, in the eyes of most observers, seriously flawed. 2 key prosecution witnesses later claimed that they were bribed by Shell to testify against the MOSOP leaders. After the defence counsel refused to participate any longer, the fifteen defendants were left without legal representation. The decision was in any case never in doubt. In October nine of the fifteen were condemned to death: 6 others were acquitted for lack of evidence. The international outcry that followed cut little ice with Shell. The following year the company attempted to resume oil operations in Ogoniland after Ogoni elders 'invited' them to return to "clean up the pollution in the area" and "start community assistance projects". MOSOP alleged that the invitations were procured by large payments. Ecological war The story since 1995 is depressingly familiar to most Nigerians. Human rights abuses and environmental damage continued in the Niger Delta. Minorities in the area, principally the Ijaw, turned increasingly to armed resistance, culminating in widespread armed conflict in the early years of the 21st century until the amnesty in 2009. In June 2009 Shell settled a lawsuit brought against the company by the families of the Ogoni Nine in the USA on the eve of trial for $15.5 million. In the lawsuit, Shell was accused of conspiring with the military government to capture and execute the men, in addition to a series of other alleged human rights violations, including collaborating with the army to cause killings and torture of Ogoni protesters. The company was alleged to have provided the Nigerian army with vehicles, patrol boats and ammunition, and to have helped plan terror raids on villages. Shell stressed that the payment did not imply guilt. Oil pollution has continued to devastate the Niger Delta. A report to be published this week co-authored by Amnesty International and the Port Harcourt-based Centre for Environment Human Rights and Development accuses Shell of falsely claiming to have cleaned up oil spills in Ogoniland. It alleges that the sites are still massively polluted despite Shell publicly claiming to have cleaned them in 2011. Contractors employed by Shell admitted simply burying the oil. "This is just a cover up. If you just dig down a few metres you find oil. We just excavated, then shifted the soil away, then covered it all up again," 1 contractor told Amnesty. Shell routinely blames thieves and saboteurs for oil spills, but there is a wealth of evidence from internal documents that the company has known for years that its pipelines are old and dangerous. Amnesty recently renewed its call for a reform of the spill inspection system. "Instead of being in the dock when there is an oil spill in Nigeria, Shell gets to act as judge and jury. The Niger delta is the only place in the world where companies admit to massive oil pollution from their operations and claim it is not their fault. Almost anywhere else they would be challenged on why they have done so little to prevent it," said Audrey Gaughan of Amnesty. Come the day In his statement to the tribunal which condemned him to death, Saro-Wiwa wrote: "Shell and the Nigerian military dictatorship are violent institutions and both depend heavily on violence to control those areas of Nigeria in which oil is found." He added: "The military do not act alone. They are supported by a gaggle of politicians, lawyers, judges, academics and businessmen, all of them hiding under the claim that they are only doing their duty, men and women too afraid to wash their pants of their urine." What has happened to the representatives of the Nigerian military government who participated in the "judicial murder" of the Ogoni 9 20 years ago? General Sani Abacha died in 1998 of a heart attack, variously attributed to poison or to his exertions with 2 Indian prostitutes. General Abdulsalami Abubakar, who was chief of defence staff in Abacha's junta and therefore responsible for the activities of the military as well as being one of those who approved the executions, succeeded Abacha as head of state and oversaw the return to democracy. Today he is a respected elder statesman in Nigeria. Dauda Musa Komo, the military governor of Rivers state in 1995, was a contender to be the PDP candidate in the 2003 governorship election in Kebbi state. The notorious Major Paul Okuntimo, he of the "wasting operations" and Shell "allowances", retired as a brigadier general, and has occasionally given incoherent interviews since, including one with The Sun in 2010 in which he said: "No, no, Ken deserved to die, if you were to be the president of the Republic of Nigeria, you will know, Ken had to die because he had to be eliminated at that time". Justice Ibrahim Auta, who headed the 3-member tribunal which passed the death penalty, later became the chief judge of the Federal High Court of Nigeria, and typically was both praised as a "rare gem" in the judiciary and accused of corruption. The other member of the judiciary on the tribunal, Joseph Bodunrin Daudu, was the president of the Nigerian Bar Association from 2010 to 2012, and the secretary general of the International Council of Jurists. And what of the 3rd member, the military's representative on the tribunal? Colonel Hamid Ali (rtd) was appointed the new comptroller general of the Nigeria Customs Service in August 2015 by President Buhari. He has said that he has no regrets over his participation in the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the other Ogoni activists. On November 5 it was reported that a sculpture created as a memorial to Saro-Wiwa and the others was impounded - by Nigerian customs - who cited its "political value". (source: naij.com) SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi Arabia's New King Likes Beheading People Even More Than His Predecessor Saudi Arabia has executed at least 151 people this year, the most since 1995 and far above the annual figure in recent years, which rarely exceeded 90. On Monday Amnesty International criticized the wave of executions, calling it "a grim new milestone in the Saudi Arabian authorities" use of the death penalty. "The Saudi Arabian authorities appear intent on continuing a bloody execution spree which has seen at least 151 people put to death so far this year - an average of 1 person every 2 days," said James Lynch, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Amnesty International. "The use of the death penalty is abhorrent in any circumstance but it is especially alarming that the Saudi Arabian authorities continue to use it in violation of international human rights law and standards, on such a wide scale, and after trials which are grossly unfair and sometimes politically motivated." The last time Saudi Arabia executed more than 150 people in a single year was when 192 executions were recorded in 1995. No one at Saudi Arabia's Justice Ministry was immediately available to comment on the surge in the numbers of executions. But diplomats have speculated it may be because more judges have been appointed, allowing a backlog of appeals cases to be heard. Saudi Arabia's current King Salman rose to power after the death of King Abdullah in January 2015, and has moved to consolidate authority among his own branch of the royal family. Upon assuming power, he shook up the cabinet, appointed a new minister of justice, and placed functionaries loyal to him in positions of power throughout the state bureaucracy. Saudi Arabia has long been ranked among the top 5 countries to use capital punishment. It ranked number 3 in 2014, after China and Iran, and ahead of Iraq and the United States, according to figures from Amnesty International. The same 5 countries executed the most prisoners in the first 6 months of 2015. Defenders of the Saudi death penalty say beheadings, usually with a single sword stroke, are at least as humane as lethal injections used in the United States. Concerns over the increase in executions have been further compounded by the apparent use of the death penalty as a political tool to clamp down on Saudi Arabian Shi'a Muslim dissidents. In one of the most high profile death penalty cases, last month the Saudi Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr, a prominent Shi'a Muslim cleric who is a longtime critic of the ruling regime. 3 other Shia activists - Ali Mohammed Baqir al-Nimr, Dawood Hussein al-Marhoon and Abdullah Hasan al-Zaherwere were also arrested in recent months. Their lawyers report they have been tortured and are facing the death penalty. Amnesty said the in general, the death penalty is disproportionately used against foreigners in Saudi Arabia. Of the 63 people executed this year for drug-related charges, 45 were foreigners. The total number of foreigners executed so far this year is 71. These Foreigners are mostly guest workers from poor countries, and they are particularly vulnerable, Amnesty said, since they typically do not know Arabic and are denied adequate translation in court. On Sunday, Iran summoned Saudi Arabia's charge d'affaires in Tehran to complain about the recent execution of three Iranian nationals on charges of drug smuggling. Just a day before, a video leaked online showing what could be that execution: a grainy cell-phone video showing a group of men gathering to watch as an executioner beheads three unidentified men. In the video, the men kneel on the pavement in what appears to be a public square which the unverified video says is located in the Saudi port city of Jeddah. The executioner wields a long curbed sword, raises it above his head, and with a quick chop to the back of each man's neck, decapitates them before a crowd of onlookers and near a busy street. For its part, Saudi Arabia has repeatedly insisted that it provides fair trials for all defendants in death penalty cases. (source: vice.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Nov 11 10:34:08 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2015 10:34:08 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., FLA., ALA., OHIO, ARK. Message-ID: Nov. 11 TEXAS: Waxahachie Representative John Wray: A True Texas Hero If ever there was a story that needed a hero, it is the Lake Waco Triple Murder. Jan Thompson, aunt of Lake Murder victim, Jill Montgommery, in her quest for the simple truth via DNA, has gone to many people for help in what seems to many to be a simple case of basic subtraction and a situation begging for a man with common sense. Unfortunately, time after time, people in positions to help have not. Case in point: Senator Rodney Ellis, Democrat, Houston, Texas The formerly heroic Senator Ellis, known by reputation as a defender of the innocent and poor, really dropped the ball on this one. Contacted many times in person and by letter since 2011, Senator Ellis has ignored this case and questionably has not seen fit to quiz members of the Innocence Project of Texas about this case. Happily, taken out of the hands of the lawyers, this case is now in the hands of the TEXAS FORENSICS COMMISSION. Anthony Melendez, in a letter to his attorney, Innocence Project VICE PRESIDENT, Walter Reaves, demanded that Reaves take his case to the TEXAS FORENSICS COMMISSION. He also asked that they "run the DNA" and Melendez has told Reaves in writing to "take the tapes to the TEXAS FORENSICS COMMISSION". It makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER for the Commission to go after only "bite marks" in the Lake Waco case when there is obvious DNA sitting in Arkansas, that has not been run against the DNA of Spence, Melendez, or Deeb. The case of Juanita White (mother of David Wayne Spence) has already fallen to the wayside by DNA clearing of Calvin Washington and the overturning of the case of Joe Sidney Williams. Senator Rodney Ellis and his Chief of Staff, Brandon Dudley, merely decided that those who have questions about the handling of the case are "nuts". One must wonder IF and when the DNA comes back and clears the Lake Murder defendants how Senator Ellis is going to explain the obvious lack of interest. Representative John Wray hand delivered a letter to Senator Rodney Ellis himself, then informed Jan Thompson that he believed Senator Ellis would soon be contacting her soon to help. You see, Representative John Wray is a young man, still interested and still questioning. Representative Wray is a lawyer and has grown up in Waxahachie where Jan Thompson is somewhat of an icon. MANY people have questions about this case without the glaring question, "why hasn't the DNA been run"? Jan Thompson waited for Senator Ellis or someone from his office to contact her. Months passed and there was nothing. Jan Thompson called Representative Wray's office again and in early September, things began to happen. The TEXAS FORENSICS COMMISSION is going to look at the case, the National Innocence Project has been contacted and thanks to Representative John Wray of Waxahachie, Texas, a woman who deserves to know the truth, Jan Thompson, finally will. Wray, instead of berating and questioning motives of those involved, has seen evidence and knows "ridiculous" when it is served up. Representative Wray, when faced with the DNA of this important case going to a lab in Arkansas in 2013, not having samples from the convicted, run on a whim by a lawyer with a New York writer as Puppetmaster, was as confused as the rest of us. THE DNA IS FUNDED AND IS BEING RUN We would like to thank Representative Wray, finally a true hero in a saga that sorely needed one! (source: wordpress.com) CONNECTICUT: State: Hold Off On Changing Cheshire Home Invasion Killers' Death Sentences The issue of whether the death sentences of Cheshire home invasion killers Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky should be corrected in state court should not be addressed until the state Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of the death sentence of Russell Peeler Jr., prosecutors said in recently filed court papers. It was not known Tuesday when the state's highest court is expected to rule on the death penalty appeal of Russell Peeler Jr., who was sentenced to death for ordering the 1999 killings in Bridgeport of 8-year-old Leroy "B.J." Brown Jr. and his mother, Karen Clarke. But while the decision is pending, the trial court should not consider changing death sentences to punishments of life in prison without the possibility of parole, Senior Assistant State's Attorney Robert J. Scheinblum wrote in a motion filed Monday for a stay of Hayes' motion filed on Friday in Superior Court to correct what he calls his "illegal" sentence. Komisarjevsky filed a similar motion on Friday but the state's response only references Hayes' motion. "To mitigate the risk that the questions presented in Peeler will become moot before this Court addresses them, no action should be taken by the trial court on the defendant's motion to correct his death sentence until there is a final judgment in Peeler, Scheinblum wrote. On Monday, Blue filed an order that essentially stays the Cheshire home invasion killers' motions until the Supreme Court rules on Scheinblum's motion. Hayes and Komisarjevsky said the death sentences they face are "unconstitutional and must be corrected" in light of the state Supreme Court's decision in August barring all executions, regardless of when the sentence was imposed. Hayes' attorneys said in the motion that a sentence is illegal "if it is not within the range of permissible punishment for an offense. Here, the 6 sentences of death are unconstitutional pursuant to [the Santiago decision]. A life sentence is the only available alternative sentence under the statute governing" Hayes' offense. On Tuesday, attorneys for Santiago filed a "motion for immediate sentencing" asking a Superior Court judge in Hartford to impose a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of release, saying his death sentence is also unconstitutional. Connecticut abolished the death penalty in April 2012 but made the law prospective, meaning it applied only to new cases and kept in place the death sentences already imposed before the bill was passed. The provision was added after the high-profile trials of Hayes and Komisarjevsky. Hayes, 52, and Komisarjevsky, 33, are on death row for killing Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, during a July 2007 home invasion. The men tied up and tortured the family as they ransacked the Petit home for cash and valuables. Komisarjevsky sexually assaulted Michaela, and Hayes raped and strangled Hawke-Petit. The house was doused with gasoline and set on fire. Hayley and Michaela died of smoke inhalation. The daughters' father and Hawke-Petit's husband, Dr. William Petit Jr., survived but was severely injured. After the 2012 repeal of the death penalty, attorneys representing those on death row challenged the law, saying it violated the condemned inmates' constitutional rights. The state Supreme Court agreed to take up the prospective issue in the case of Eduardo Santiago, whose death sentence was overturned in June 2012. The case was argued before the state's highest court in April 2013. The state Supreme Court ruled on the Santiago case in August and in a 4-3 decision, banned capital punishment for all defendants, saying in the majority decision that Connecticut's death penalty no longer comported with societal values and served no valid purpose as punishment. Since the ruling, the high court has denied a request by the chief state's attorney to postpone the Santiago decision, a ruling that followed a denial by the Supreme Court of a request by prosecutors to reargue Santiago. Prosecutors have filed briefs in Peeler's pending appeal that raise the same issues included in the motion for reconsideration in the Santiago case. (source: Hartford Courant) FLORIDA: Prosecutors seeking death penalty in Colley double murder Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against James Terry Colley Jr. in the August shooting deaths of his estranged wife Amanda Cloaninger Colley and friend Lindy Morgan Dobbins, authorities announced Tuesday. Colley Jr., 35, of St. Augustine, was indicted Sept. 4 on 2 counts of 1st-degree murder, 2 counts of attempted 1st-degree murder, burglary with assault or battery, burglary to a dwelling and aggravated stalking after injunction. That's after the Aug. 27 shooting rampage that left Cloaninger Colley, 36, and Dobbins, 39, dead inside an upscale St. Johns County home. Colley Jr. was arrested later that night in Norton, Va. on a DUI charge after a massive manhunt. He's being held without bond. About 10:30 a.m., Colley emerged from a wooded path behind Cloaninger Colley's South Bellago Drive home armed with a handgun before opening fire through the rear sliding glass doors near where witnesses were standing, witness Rachel Hendricks told investigators. Hendricks and Dobbins hid inside a closet when Colley Jr. came inside while Amanda Colley hid in a bathroom, Hendricks said. Hendricks was barricading the closet door with her body as the suspect searched the home for a second witness, Lamar Douberly, yelling, "Where is he?" Hendricks recalled. Hendricks told Colley Jr. that Douberly wasn't in the closet, that it was just she and Dobbins inside, she told investigators. Then, according to the statement, Colley Jr. shot through the closet door, narrowly missing Hendricks. When Colley entered the closet and allegedly started shooting Dobbins, Hendricks fled the home and called 911. Court papers suggest Douberly ran from the home after the initial gunshots. The suspect's father, James Colley Sr., told deputies afterward that his son had just called him, saying that he had shot his wife and his wife's friend, according to a sworn statement. Colley Jr. was "furious" after a court hearing earlier that morning, said his father, who had told him "not to do anything foolish." Hours before the shooting, Colley had been in court pleading no contest to violating a restraining order his estranged wife had taken out against him Aug. 10, according to court records. The same day, Colley Jr. had received a year of unsupervised probation as part of his plea deal. A judge had ordered him to surrender his weapons, complete a batterers' intervention class and avoid any contact with his estranged wife. (source: WTLV news) ********* State seeks death penalty for accused killer----James Colley Jr. charged with murder in death of estranged wife, her friend The state wants the death penalty on the table in the August shooting deaths of a St. Augustine woman and her friend. Police say Amanda Colley and Lindy Dobbins were killed in Amanda Colley's Murabella home Aug. 27 by her estranged husband, James Colley Jr. 2 other people were inside the home and escaped, police said. James Colley, 35, faces charges of murder, burglary with assault and battery, burglary of a structure while armed, and aggravated stalking after injunction. State Attorney R.J. Larizza announced Tuesday that the prosecution will seek the death penalty against James Colley. He is set for a pretrial conference at 8:30 a.m. Jan. 7 before Judge Michael Traynor. The shooting According to deputies, Dobbins and Amanda Colley were in Amanda Colley's home with 2 friends, Rachel Hendricks and Lamar Douberly, as James Colley emerged from a wooded area in the home's backyard, pulled out a handgun and started shooting into the home's sliding glass doors. Amanda Colley ran to hide in a bathroom while Dobbins and Hendricks hid in a closet in the home. As James Colley entered the home, deputies said he began yelling, "Where is he?" trying to find Douberly, who had run out of the house. While Hendricks and Dobbins were in the closet, Hendricks pressed herself against the door, trying to keep James Colley out while yelling at him that Amanda Colley wasn't in the closet. Deputies said that James Colley shot into the closet, barely missing Hendricks, but causing her to fall away from the door and giving James Colley enough room to open the door, shooting and killing Dobbins. The report said that while James Colley was shooting Dobbins, Hendricks was able to escape. She called police as James Colley found his estranged wife, shooting and killing her, deputies said. After killing the 2 women, James Colley called his father and said that he had shot his wife and her friend, before driving away, deputies said. He was eventually stopped by police in Virginia. James Colley was returned to St. Johns County from Virginia, where he was arrested Aug. 27, several hours after the victims were found. The report also said that this isn't the 1st time James Colley acted aggressively and violently toward his estranged wife. On July 13, Amanda Colley got a temporary injunction against James Colley after he had broken into her home, taken all of her clothing and burned it in the yard, deputies said. Officials said that on Aug. 27 James Colley broke into Amanda Colley's home again, ransacking the house, breaking televisions and taking things from the home hours before the shooting. James Colley is being held in jail in St. Johns County with no bond. (source: news4jax.com) ALABAMA: A Death Row Inmate's Haunting Observation Hours Before Execution----"More people have said, 'What can I do to help you?' in the last 14 hours of my life than they ever did in the first 19 years." As a death row attorney whom Desmond Tutu has called "America's young Nelson Mandela," Bryan Stevenson has worked with people who most of society has already cast aside. For many of these condemned convicts, however, that happened long before they entered prison walls. Take Herbert Richardson, for example. Richardson, Stevenson says, had returned from the Vietnam War emotionally disturbed and without the support and resources to overcome the trauma. Then, in 1977, Richardson became upset by the end of a relationship and left a homemade bomb on the porch of his ex-girlfriend's home. The woman's 11-year-old niece picked up the bomb, and it exploded. She died instantly. A year later, Richardson was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. A series of appeals was each time denied, and just one month before his execution date, Richardson called upon Stevenson to help in the eleventh hour. The lawyer filed for an emergency stay of execution, but, in his words, it was too late. The stay was rejected, and Richardson was scheduled to die at midnight on August 18, 1989. Stevenson went to the prison on the day of the execution and, as he tells Oprah during an interview for "SuperSoul Sunday," what his client said that day has always haunted him. "I was back there with him right before the execution, and he was saying to me, 'All day long, people have been saying, What can I do to help you? Can we get you water? Can we get you coffee? Can we get you stamps to mail your last letter?'" Stevenson says. "And I never will forget him saying to me... 'Bryan, it's been so strange. More people have said, What can I do to help you? in the last 14 hours of my life than they ever did in the first 19 years of my life.'" Stevenson found the observation both profound and tragic. "I was holding his hands, standing there with him and thinking, 'Yeah, where were they when you were 3 when your mom died? Where were they when you were 7 and you were experimenting with drugs? Where were they when you were a young teenager returning from Vietnam traumatized and drug-addicted?" Stevenson says. As those questions swirled through Stevenson's mind, his client was pulled away. Richardson was strapped into the electric chair and executed; he died at 12:14 a.m. The experience changed Stevenson forever. "The shame of that was, for me, what I couldn't let go," he says. "They had the guards come in and shave the hair off [Richardson's] body to prepare him for execution, and I watched those men do that. I don't think I'd ever seen human beings more pained by something they had to do." Though Stevenson certainly believes that people who commit horrific crimes deserve to face consequences, he does not believe the consequence should be death. "The pain and shame of that made me believe that we can do better," Stevenson says. (source: Huffington Post) OHIO: Divided court rejects execution date for Mexican national The Ohio Supreme Court has rejected a prosecutor's request to set an execution date for a Mexican national convicted of killing 4 members of his girlfriend's family and sentenced to death in 3 of the 1991 slayings. Mexico opposes setting a date for Jose Trinidad Loza, saying he was never allowed to consult with a Mexican consulate and was the subject of bias early on, including a crime scene detective who used an ethnic slur to describe him. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry earlier this week asked Ohio Gov. John Kasich to ensure Loza is not executed until his case receives full review and reconsideration. The state Supreme Court ruled 4-3 Tuesday against the Butler County prosecutor's request for an execution. (source: Associated Press) ************ Andre Imbrogno appointed as Ohio Parole Board chairman Attorney Andre Imbrogno has been appointed chairman of the Ohio Parole Board by Gary Mohr, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. Imbrogno has been interim chairman of the 12-member board since May when Cynthia Mauser, the long-time head of the panel, moved to a new position as managing director of court and community programs in the prisons agency. Imbrogno was appointed to the board in July 2012 after serving as staff attorney for the prisons agency. He previously worked as legislative liaison and policy analyst for the Ohio Judicial Conference, as an attorney with the Ohio Legislative Service Commission, and a law clerk with the Ohio Supreme Court. He earned his law and bachelor's degrees from Ohio State University. Also appointed to the board effective Nov. 29 was Tracy Reveal. She was most recently superintendent of the Corrections Training Academy and previously worked as parole officer. The board is charged with handling parole decisions, primarily for inmates serving sentences from before 1996, when the state switched to a flat-sentencing scheme instead of variable sentences. The board also makes clemency recommendations to the governor in death penalty and other cases. Parole officials have been criticized and repeatedly picketed by inmate family members for what they say is the board's intransigence in refusing to grant parole to longtime inmates, more than 4,700 of whom remain incarcerated. (source: Columbus Dispatch) ARKANSAS: UA Students Discuss Capital Punishment Following Panel A panel on the death penalty organized by the School of Law sparked conversation among students about the controversial law. The death penalty is the execution of someone who has committed a capital crime, according to the Legal Information Institute created by the Cornell University Law School. "I think the death penalty is inhumane and inherently flawed within the United States," said sophomore Ryann Alonso, president of Young Democrats. The Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Studies at the UofA organized the panel on the death penalty Thursday. The panel featured Georgetown professor William Otis, who is a supporter of the death penalty, and Ben Jones, who has worked to reverse the death penalty with Equal Justice USA. Otis graduated from Stanford Law School and was a special counsel for George H. W. Bush, according to the UA website. Jones graduated from Ohio State University and got his master's degree from Yale. Jones joined Equal Justice USA after leading a campaign to end the death penalty in Connecticut, according to the website. In Northwest Arkansas, there have been 2 people sentenced to die since 2000, said Matt Durrett, a Washington County prosecutor. Both people were from Washington County, and both were convicted and sentenced in 2008, Durrett said. However, both people are still alive and on death row. Arkansas has gone a decade without any executions, but that will change soon. Gov. Asa Hutchinson has set execution dates for 8 inmates. "I think it is ironic how Gov. Hutchinson is of the pro-life party, but ultimately, the blood of these 8 people will be on his hands," Alonso said. "It's safe to say that our governor isn't as pro life as he may seem to be." It is immoral and economically irresponsible for the state to punish people with death, Alonso said. More than 1 in 9 people on death row are exonerated by DNA evidence, Alonso said. "If we had 1 in 9 planes falling out of the sky, would we consider air a viable way to travel?" Alonso said. "I certainly don't think so." >From an economic standpoint, it's also more expensive to execute people than sentencing them to life without parole, Alonso said. "It's a tricky subject, but I do support it," said junior Brock Hyland, president of the College Republicans. Other students said they were unsure about the law. "I believe the death penalty should be used sparingly, if at all," senior Kori Hudson said. Many convicts who were destined to die at the hands of the state have been exonerated because of advancements in technology, Hudson said. "Many overturned convictions, thanks to The Innocence Project and other organizations, lead me to wonder how many convicted men and women have had their lives taken from them by an overzealous justice system," Hudson said. The Innocence Project is an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to acquitting wrongly convicted criminals through the use of DNA testing, according to the organization's website. The death penalty should be avoided except in extreme cases in which the crime is especially heinous and guilt can be unequivocally determined through DNA evidence, Hudson said. "Even 1 innocent life taken unjustly undoes all the justice the death penalty aims to hand out," Hudson said. When people are sentenced to death, the jury members who convicted them are guilty of killing them, sophomore Monica Briselden said. "Whether or not you're killed for your actions is not up to us," Briselden said. "That is something between them and God." Other cultures view the subject differently, junior Abdulrahman Alkhaldi said. >From an Islamic perspective, death is justified only if that person has already killed someone. However, if the criminal pays money to the affected family, the death penalty will be waived, Alkhaldi said. "For the United States to be a just society, we cannot have the death penalty," Alonso said. "It is reprehensible." Others said they disagreed. "It's OK that the death penalty is being discussed, but I think there are other important issues at hand," Hyland said. (source: The (University of) Arkansas Traveler) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Nov 11 10:36:08 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2015 10:36:08 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----KAN., OKLA., ORE. Message-ID: Nov. 11 KANSAS----new death sentence Kansas white supremacist sentenced to death for 3 murders. A judge on Tuesday issued the death penalty for the white supremacist convicted of shooting to death 3 people at 2 Jewish centers in Kansas last year. Johnson County District Court Judge Thomas Kelly Ryan sentenced Frazier Glenn Cross, 74, to die by lethal injection. A jury in early September convicted Cross, a former senior member of the Ku Klux Klan, of the murders and recommended that he be put to death. Cross also was convicted of 3 counts of attempted murder for shooting at 3 other people. The jury found Cross guilty of killing Reat Underwood, 14, and his grandfather, William Corporon, 69, outside the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City, and Terri LaManno, 53, outside a Jewish retirement home, both in Overland Park, Kansas. After the judge announced his decision, Cross gave the "Heil Hitler" salute and was forcibly removed from the courtroom. On the way out, Cross said, "One day my spirit will rise from the grave and you'll know I was right. I'm a happy man." Cross said in court on Tuesday, as he did during the trial, that he wanted to kill Jews because he believes they control the media, financial institutions and the government. "Jews are destroying the white race," he said, calling himself a patriot. None of those he killed were Jewish.M In court statements before the sentencing, several relatives of victims denounced Cross for his views and spoke of their painful losses. Cross, a military veteran, sat at a court table in a wheel chair, sometimes glancing up at those who spoke at the podium. Will Corporon, son of William Corporon, glared at Cross as he talked. "You are a coward," he said. "You are not a patriot. You are a disgrace to the uniform you wore." Cross, representing himself in court, said on Tuesday he should be released because he was justified in trying to kill Jews. "I wanted to kill Jews, not Christians and I do regret it," Cross said. During the trial he faulted the victims for associating with Jews by going to Jewish centers. Melinda Corporon, wife of William Corporon, told Cross he has never known love. "We are here today to make sure this voice of evil is silenced permanently," she said. Kansas restored the death penalty in 1994; no one has been executed in the state since 1965. (source: Reuters) ************** Becker to continue fight against death penalty State Rep. Steven Becker, R-Buhler, will continue to champion the cause of abolishing the death penalty in Kansas. But he plans a new strategy when the Kansas Legislature convenes in January. Instead of trying to get a bill hearing before the House Judiciary Committee led by Chairman John Barker, R-Abilene, Becker will start the process through the smaller House Corrections and Juvenile Justice Committee, led by Chairman John Rubin, R-Shawnee. "I'm more hopeful we'll have a hearing," he said. "If we are granted a hearing," Becker said Tuesday, he is increasingly confident the bill will get out of the committee. Then it will be up to Speaker of the House Ray Merrick, R-Stilwell, to allow the bill to come to the floor, Becker said. Becker is a former Reno County district judge who entered the House in 2013. In 2 sessions, he carried a bill to abolish the death penalty but both times, he was unable to get a committee hearing - the 1st step for pending legislation. The last execution in Kansas was in 1965. There are 9 inmates on death row in Kansas. Their status would not be affected by new legislation. Kansas, Delaware, New Hampshire and Montana are drawing close monitoring by the National Coaltion to Abolish the Death Penalty because of active efforts in those states to repeal the death penalty. Diann Rust-Tierney, executive director of the national coalition is currently in Kansas, and spoke Tuesday afternoon at Hutchinson Community College's Shears Technology Center. About 10 people made up the audience, including Becker and Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty executive director Mary Sloan, Lenexa. "We're prioritizing work in Kansas because it's so important," Rust-Tierney said. "We just see so much potential here," she said. 19 states and the District of Columbia have abandoned the death penalty practice, and in 4 states, a gubernatorial moratorium has been imposed, Rust-Tierney said. The state of Nebraska repealed the death penalty earlier this year. Death penalty executions mostly occur in southern states. In 2014, 35 inmates were executed in the country. Those executions were carried out in: Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Ohio, Georgia and Florida. The southern U.S. continues to have the highest per capita murder rate, and the northeast U.S. has the lowest per capita murder rate, Rust-Tierney said, attacking the argument that the death penalty is a deterrent. Lethal injection is the execution method in Kansas and other states, but it is increasingly difficult to employ, Rust-Tierney said. Pharmaceutical companies do not want to be linked to the practice, and some states were found to be attempting to import drugs illegally. More people and groups are speaking out against the death penalty, she said. (source: The Hutchinson News) *************** A matter or morals or money? The Kansas death penalty can make for a complicated, emotional equation Mindy Corporon refuses to say the name of the man who killed her dad and 14-year-old son. "The defendant," she calls him. The defendant is Frazier Glenn Cross, also known as Glenn Miller. Depending on the outcome of sentencing, Cross could become the latest person sentenced to death in the state of Kansas--the 10th since 1994, when the state brought back its death penalty. All 9 men currently awaiting execution were are convicted of heinous crimes and all 9 are still alive, being housed in a detention center in Eldorado, Kan. When asked if she believes in the death penalty, Corporon seems to bob from one side of the debate to the other. It's obvious she's struggling with her feelings about all of this. "I was raised in a house believing in the death penalty. I think we grow up in our households and we initially believe and follow what our parents teach us, that's how life works," Corporon said. "And then we get a little older and we form opinions and life happens to us, then we can change our opinions. But I grew up believing in the death penalty. And I would say before this happened to us I believed in the death penalty." If history is any indication of whether or not Cross would linger if sentenced to death, chances are pretty good he would. There are numerous reasons for the delays: appeals, Supreme Court challenges, debates about methods, and more. There are a number of arguments for and against the death penalty. In Kansas, among the top questions are: 1. cost effectiveness 2. whether it's a deterrent for criminals 3. whether a certain county is more aggressive in seeking the death penalty, with racism playing a part Is it cost effective? A Kansas legislative committee last year looked into the cost of the death penalty. It found seeking, defending and prosecuting a death penalty case is, in fact, very expensive. It found: -- Defending someone facing death costs four times as much as defending someone who is not: $395,762 vs. $98,963 -- Trial court costs were higher: $72,530 vs. $21,554 -- Jury trials take longer: 40 days vs. 16 days -- The Kansas Supreme Court estimates it spends 20 times the amount of hours on death penalty appeals than other kinds Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe says those numbers don't add up to a complete picture. "When you have a 1st-degree murder case, it doesn't matter whether you have the death penalty or not. Whatever is the top crime in the state will be the one where you have the most litigation. So that's played out through history. We've seen that here in Johnson County. And I think some who use those numbers sometimes play fast and loose with the true facts," said Howe. Howe said, people who question the efficacy of the death penalty should put money out of the equation. In short, it's not about money. "It's really about the moral issue about whether or not the death penalty should be imposed. From our standpoint there's no right or wrong position to have. Just because we might have differences of opinion as to the death penalty doesn't make one us right or wrong." Is the death penalty a deterrent? The Death Penalty Information Center polled 500 police chiefs in 2009 and found 57 % said the death penalty does little to prevent violent crimes because perpetrators rarely consider consequences. The same poll found most police chiefs believe in the death penalty philosophically, but don't think it's an effective law enforcement tool in practice. When asked if the death penalty is more of a deterrent or punishment, Howe says it can be both. "But one things for sure," he said, with a look in his eyes that is loaded with knowledge of some of the most heinous crimes, "when the death sentence is imposed, I don't care how tough those defendants think they are, they're concerned about it. And they're scared. And to me, it's nice to know that finally they feel like how their victims felt maybe at those times." Could a county be more aggressive or could racism play a role? There are studies which have found certain counties are responsible for the majority of death sentences, and other studies have found certain counties convict significantly more minorities to die. For the purposes of this story, we only looked at facts in Kansas. In the state of Kansas, 3 men have been sentenced to death in Sedgewick County, 1 in Johnson County (Cross would be the 2nd) and 1 each in Crawford, Barton, Greenwood, Cowley and Osage counties. As for the racial makeup of the men sentenced to death in Kansas, 7 are white, 3 are black. A personal matter Even when the question of capital punishment hits close to home, it can be hard to know what to think or feel about the ultimate punishment. "It's a very personal decision and I respect people on both sides of that equation. But we just feel very strongly in the state of Kansas that the cases that do receive the death penalty deserve it based on the egregious nature of the conduct of those defendants," Howe said. So, where does Mindy Corporon ultimately come down? "I'm not against it. I'm not for it. I just don't even want to have to ponder it too much. I know that my dad would be for it and always has been," she said. "And I am my father's daughter and I know if I had been killed I know my dad would say absolutely he deserves the death penalty... Why can I not say that so easily? In terms of general terms of humanity, I hate that a life has to be taken for a life, but he took 3." (source: KSHB news) OKLAHOMA: To Close Case, Family Of 1999 Murder Victim Ask Death Penalty Be Removed A murder case that's been dragging on for 16 years may be closer to reaching an end. The victim's family said they just want it to be over, so they agreed with the district attorney to take the death penalty off the table as a possible punishment. A retired woman was kidnapped from the Promenade Mall, robbed, taken to north Tulsa County and murdered along with a Good Samaritan who came to her aid. That was in 1999. Now, 16 years later, the case against the man arrested and convicted for killing Mary Bowles and Jerald Thurman has yet to close. Victor Miller was 1 of 2 men arrested for murdering Bowles and Thurman. A jury convicted him and gave him death for Thurman's murder, but he appealed and won. A 2nd jury also convicted him and gave him death, but again, he appealed and won a new sentence. If he gets a 3rd death sentence it could mean another 10 years of appeals, and the family said it's time to stop the madness. "The family needs some type of closure because it's been going on for so long. My mom is not getting any younger and she needs to see some type of justice," said Thurman's son Jake. Miller is representing himself and carries his legal papers in a cloth bag. With nothing but time on his hands and access to a computer, he's buried the DA's office in paperwork. Assistant Tulsa County District Attorney, John David Luton, said, "He himself has filed 35 to 50 motions just since the last reversal, just since the last one." In order to end the case, the DA and Thurman's family agreed to remove the death penalty as an option. The family will ask the judge to sentence Miller to life without parole rather than life. Jake said, "As long as he doesn't get to hurt anybody again. He can sit there and think about what he's done the rest of his life." Miller will get to speak at the sentencing and the Thurman family would like to hear him say he's sorry. "If he would apologize and admit guilt, it would help us heal. It would help the healing process," said Jerald Thurman's daughter-in-law, Heather. As much as they wanted the death penalty, they wanted an ending more. Plus, Miller is also serving more than 100 years in federal prison for other violent crimes. Thurman's family hopes the case will be over after the sentencing on December 8th so they can finally begin to grieve. (source: newson6.com) ******************* Execution Mistakes Followed Corrections Director From Arizona To Oklahoma----Each execution attempt under Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Robert Patton has been marred by mistakes. Many of those mistakes mirror ones made under his leadership in Arizona, BuzzFeed News has found. The head of Oklahoma's Department of Corrections has overseen 3 scheduled executions during his brief time in Oklahoma. Each time, there was a major screw-up. In Robert Patton's 1st execution as director, just 2 months after he started on the job, inmate Clayton Lockett sat up on the gurney after he was declared unconscious and told his executioners, "Shit's fucking with me." Patton called off the execution after realizing it was going awry. Lockett died 45 minutes after his execution began. In Patton's 2nd execution as director, which took place this January, Charles Warner's last words included, "My body is on fire." In what was supposed to have been Patton's 3rd execution in the state, officials called of the scheduled execution of Richard Glossip in late September after the doctor discovered the state had obtained the wrong execution drugs. Oklahoma's protocol calls for potassium chloride, but the state received potassium acetate. State officials "briefly considered" using the wrong drug, but eventually decided to call off the execution. A few weeks later, it was revealed that Oklahoma had already used the same wrong drug earlier that year, in the Warner execution. Now, a grand jury is investigating what's been going wrong. Warden Anita Trammell, who oversaw the prison where the executions took place, has already resigned. The Department of Corrections insists that she had considered retiring for some time and was not forced out. And yet, in the state's investigation into the botched Lockett execution Patton disclaimed responsibility, even though he had been on site, watching the execution as it went wrong. "Understand the current Oklahoma protocol does not require anything from the director," he told investigators, "and I'm not trying to deflect any responsibility, but that's just the way the protocol is written at, at this current time." The Glossip execution would have been the 20th execution in which Patton participated - and there have been similar problems before. A BuzzFeed News examination of Patton's prior job as the the corrections division director in Arizona shows that the errors of the past 2 years were also errors made, and criticized, during his time in Arizona. On April 29, 2014, Oklahoma executioners had trouble finding a vein to carry out Lockett's execution, eventually settling on a femoral vein. They cut Lockett's scrubs and underwear to gain access and decided on placing a sheet over his body to, as Patton said, "protect his dignity." The Department of Public Safety found that the inability of the executioners to see the IV was a factor in the botched execution, a decision that kept officials from seeing what was going wrong until it was too late. During the execution, Lockett began to move. When a doctor looked under the sheet, he discovered clear liquid and blood. Lockett had swelling between the size of a golf ball and tennis ball where the IV was inserted. Both the doctor and the warden, who decided to cover Lockett, agreed that the swelling would have been noticed sooner if they had been able to see the IV. 3 years earlier, Patton was involved in several Arizona executions where similar mistakes happened occurred, even though the protocol in that state specifically required the IV be uncovered during the execution. The incident was detailed in a 2011 deposition of Patton obtained by BuzzFeed News. As in 2014, Patton gave the same response in Arizona years earlier, testifying that the sheet had been placed over the inmate's groin "to protect his dignity." During the 2014 investigation into the Lockett execution, Patton admitted he was concerned that no one could see the IV and said he was unsure if anyone could. "Now, was I 100 % [sure] that she couldn't see it? No, I was not 100 % sure," Patton told Oklahoma investigators afterward. "And purposely you shouldn't be able to see it from the witness room, but I was concerned enough to go, 'Oh, I hope she can because I knew [the IV] wasn't in the arms." Patton said he had those concerns "based on experience" from Arizona, but admits that he did not voice those concerns to anyone at the time, or instruct the warden to make a change. Warden Anita Trammell, who resigned in October, told investigators after the Lockett execution that she looked toward Patton for guidance when things started going wrong. "I was kind of panicking," Trammell said. "Thinking, 'Oh my God. He's coming out of this.' It's not working and so he did that, and I wasn't sure where the director was sitting at out there, but I looked up to look for the director, and he was sitting directly in front of me. "So I looked at the director hard like, 'Gimme some, you know, gimme some pointers,' or, 'Give me some advice,' and he looked up at the clock, the director did," she continued. State investigators found the Lockett botch was caused by issues with the insertion of the IV; that personnel did not have the medical equipment that they needed; that they could not notice the problems due to the sheet covering the inmate; and that training was inadequate. After promising changes, the Department of Corrections was allowed to carry out another execution in January. In that execution, the state used the wrong drug. During his time in Arizona, Patton also admitted to several deviations from the protocol. He allowed an executioner to participate in several executions in 2010 and 2011 even though the person did not have the required qualifications, and he did not do the proper criminal background checks on the executioners. "That was an was oversight on my part," he said in the deposition. And he said that, to his knowledge, no one checked the professional licenses of the executioners. In the 2011 deposition, Patton said he never checked the forms that would indicate how much and which drugs were actually used during the Arizona executions. State officials have not said publicly, at this point, who, if anyone, was aware that the wrong drugs were used in the January execution of Charles Warner. In a statement through a corrections spokesperson, Patton disagreed that there were mistakes under his leadership in Arizona, and said that the judge in the case did not take issue with the selection of the execution team. When BuzzFeed News provided direct quotes from his deposition, in which he admits to these deviations from the protocol, and the ruling from the federal judge in which he finds that Arizona indeed deviated from the protocol, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections declined to respond. Gov. Mary Fallin's office did not respond to repeated requests for comment on if she still stood by Patton. ---------- Patton's path to the center of the debate over the implementation of the death penalty began 30 years ago at the State Prison in Fort Grant, Arizona and has involved his participation in 19 executions, with repeated questions raised about oversight and adherence to protocol. He started out as a corrections officer in 1985 after spending time in the Navy. He worked his way up the corrections-level ranks in the state - sergeant, lieutenant, captain - and then to management-level roles as associate deputy warden, deputy warden, deputy warden of operations, and then warden of the Arizona State Prison Complex in Douglas. Patton eventually went back to school, obtaining his bachelor's degree in 2004. He then went to Nebraska, where he ran the Douglas County Correctional Center. He came back to the Arizona Department of Corrections and eventually received a Master's of Administration degree from Northern Arizona University in 2007. Patton was soon promoted to be the director of the Division of Offender Operations. He said he started getting involved in execution planning in 2009. While Patton oversaw planning of executions while in this role in Arizona, Patton also said he was involved in executions in the state before taking on that role. During the 2014 investigation into the Lockett execution, Patton told investigators in Oklahoma that he played a role in 17 executions during his time in Arizona. The state, however, only conducted 13 executions after Patton took on a planning role. Patton said he first started participating in executions in the early '90s, which would have been while he was still in a corrections-level role. From this time through 2000, Patton was involved in at least 3 executions, although his exact role is unknown. Officials redacted Patton's response when asked what his role was during those executions. While specific information about his role in those earlier executions is not known, Patton said in his 2011 deposition that he did not begin playing a role in planning executions until 2009. Investigators also asked Patton if there were any instances in Arizona "where there were issues with an execution." Patton asked to go off the record, which they did for 15 minutes. Patton, questioned this week about the earlier executions, refused to discuss his involvement. "Whether I did nor did not participate in any executions prior to becoming Division Director in AZ would be protected under AZ law," Patton wrote in a statement to BuzzFeed News. "I will not confirm, nor deny that I did." The 2011 deposition stems from a lawsuit brought by Arizona inmates, which alleged the state deviated from its written execution procedures. A federal judge found that the department of corrections, under Patton's leadership in executions, "failed to follow certain components of its execution protocol," but that the deviations did "not suggest cruelty or give rise to a substantial risk of serious harm" for the inmates. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A few years later, in January 2014, Patton was selected by the Oklahoma Board of Corrections to run its prisons. When he started as the director of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections the next month, in February 2014, he sent an email thanking Arizona's director, and his former boss, Charles Ryan. "Sitting at my desk and thinking of you," Patton wrote. "The enormity of this task is really starting to sink in. I can only hope to accomplish it with the dignity and honor that you show everyday. I will never forget all you have taught me over the years." Ryan responded a few hours later. "The enormity is sometimes mind-boggling! I believe you have the experience and tools to get the task accomplished. Shades of gray will become more visible as you progress in the job." Talking of his experience in Arizona in 2011, Patton said he would always spend time with the inmates before they were executed, discussing whatever they want to talk about. Patton said it???s important to him. "There's no set structure to it," Patton said in his deposition. "It's whatever we can do to make him as comfortable as possible. Our goal is professional and humane, and I feel discussion with an inmate, whatever he wants to talk about in his last moments of life is very important." Just a few months after he started in Oklahoma, though, Patton was facing controversy. His first execution as director, the Lockett execution, was one of the worst botches in lethal injection history. Patton wrote to Ryan and Arizona Deputy Director Jeff Hood a couple days afterward, clearly upset over what had happened. He forwarded an email from an angry member of the public that called him "a cruel and inhumane murderer" and that "Hell awaits." "My staff didn't get to this one fast enough before I read it," Patton wrote. "I am told this is typical of the hundred or so call, letters and emails that have came through." Ryan offered support. "Robert, stand your ground... you asked for an independent review... the facts will become public..." he wrote. Hood was more blunt. "Opinions are like assholes - everybody has one," Hood responded. "If people only knew the extraordinary efforts undertaken to treat these vile examples of humanity with respect and dignity in their last hours..." Just a few months later, Arizona - under Ryan and Hood's supervision - carried out the longest lethal injection in history, taking nearly 2 hours to kill inmate Joseph Wood. An Arizona Department of Corrections spokesperson said that Hood's email was "intended as a message of support to his former colleague." As to comparisons between the Wood and Lockett botched executions, the spokesperson said there were "distinct and undeniable differences between the facts of each of those events." Several weeks before the Wood execution, Patton hired Lance Hetmer, the warden at the prison where the Wood execution took place, making Hetmer his "special assistant," a newly created position that pays $88,000 a year. The Wood execution was the last Arizona execution in which Hetmer participated. He started in Oklahoma 1 week later. (source: BuzzFeedNews) **************** Richard Glossip's fight goes on Many of us breathed a sigh of relief on September 30th, when Richard Glossip - who has been languishing on Oklahoma's death row for 17 years - was granted a last-minute stay of execution, following the State's realisation that there had been a mix-up involving the drugs needed according to Oklahoma's execution protocol. A growing community of supporters had raised concern that Oklahoma may be about to execute an innocent man, given that no physical evidence links Glossip to the crime for which he was convicted. The very next day, the State of Oklahoma went even further and issued an indefinite stay of all pending executions, until at least 150 days after an internal investigation launched by the Attorney-General has shone a light on what exactly happened in September - and also in January, when Charles Warner, another death row inmate, was executed with the same, wrong drug. For Richard Glossip, the stay has offered much-needed relief in a seemingly never-ending ordeal that tells us so much about what is wrong with the US criminal justice system today. But it won't set him free. The fight for his full exoneration is far from over, and I have nothing but admiration for his defence teams who have been working so hard to collect further evidence that could eventually allow him to have another day in court and demonstrate his innocence. As so many others, from Sister Helen Prejean to Susan Sarandon and countless Oklahomans of all walks of life, I am confident that day will come. Just two weeks ago, I had a chance to speak with Richard Glossip over the phone for nearly an hour. The man I talked to was a man full of hope and optimism and without a trace of bitterness or fear. It's hard to understand what he has been through, after having been served his last meal, twice, all but certain that his final moment had come. Remarkably, the 2nd time around, he ordered pizza, and because of a 2-for-1 deal, offered to share it with his guards. Richard has never once considered accepting a plea bargain in exchange for a life sentence, even though it was offered to him. Unwavering, he insists on his innocence. Listening to his version of the story and learning of the sequence of injustices that have kept him on death row - many of them corroborated - I am more convinced than ever that he needs to be released. Finality of justice must never prevail over fairness, and fairness is what Richard Glossip deserves. We must do all we can to ensure his case his not forgotten. (source: Richard Branson, virgin.com) OREGON: Defense says serial killer Dayton Leroy Rogers has brain damage, doesn't deserve death penalty Dayton Leroy Rogers really never had a chance in life, psychologists testified Tuesday. The most prolific serial killer in Oregon history suffered brain damage as a result of a tortured, tumultuous childhood in an isolated family led by abusive, religious extremists, they said. 1 close relatives suffered mental illness or were prosecuted for sex crimes. The family moved 39 times before Rogers was 17 and he was unable - sometimes prohibited - from taking part in normal school activities or making friends. The result was problems with memory and impulse control, along with dissociative experiences and antisocial behavior, testimony indicated. At the same time, he developed unhealthy sexual obsessions and fetishes that eventually led to sadism and murder. "I can't even imagine what his childhood was like," Karen Bronk Froming, a Palo Alto University neuropsychologist, told a Clackamas County jury. "It was extremely fearsome and completely unpredictable." Prosecutors Scott P. Healy and Bryan J. Brock tried to chip away at the picture during cross-examination, eliciting answers that indicated Rogers could tell right from wrong. That question will weigh on the jury, which must decide whether Rogers, dubbed the "Molalla Forest Killer," should receive the death penalty - for the 4th time. The first 3 death sentences were overturned on appeal, sending the case back to Clackamas County Circuit Court. Rogers, 63, a former Canby lawnmower repairman, was found guilty in 1988 and 1989 of killing 7 prostitutes and dumping 6 of their bodies in the woods near Molalla. The case brought out graphic details of Rogers driving his victims along old logging roads in the Mount Hood National Forest, south of Molalla, then sharing vodka and orange juice with them. While engaging in sex, he hogtied, stabbed and tortured the women -- even sawing off some victims' feet. He has been on -- and off -- death row ever since. The man jurors are seeing now hardly looks threatening. Balding and pudgy, he sat at the defense table in a shapeless prison uniform, consulting with defense attorneys Richard L. Wolf and Lynne B. Morgan in hushed tones. He never reacted outwardly, despite testimony about his horrific crimes, pausing occasionally to put on his reading glasses while studying defense documents. Ruben C. Gur, a University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine neuropsychologist, testified that scans of Rogers' brain indicate that he had suffered damage to his frontal lobe that could make him lose his inhibitions, develop obsessive-compulsive and antisocial behaviors while engaging in risk-taking in manic sprees. Other parts, such as Rogers' corpus callosum, appear to have stopped working altogether. "The right side of Mr. Rogers' brain has lost tissue," Gur said. "That damage can make him feel detachment, like 'Yeah, it's me, but I'm not really here. I'm sitting somewhere up in the clouds.'" Kevin B. McGovern, a Portland-based psychologist specializing in forensics and criminal behavior, testified that Rogers no longer poses a threat to commit violent crimes. He said Rogers has displayed exemplary behavior during his 10,200 days in the Oregon State Penitentiary, even working as a barber and using sharp scissors to cut fellow inmates' hair. He also said age has mellowed Rogers, who now expresses remorse for his actions. "I see him basically as a harmless person who is more in danger of being harmed by some inmate who wants a notch on his belt rather than him harming someone else," McGovern said. Rogers told him, McGovern said: "'Every morning, I wake up in a cell, remembering the horrible things I did.'" Courts are closed Wednesday in recognition of Veterans Day. Judge Thomas J. Rastetter is scheduled to reconvene the hearing Thursday, when the defense is expected to conclude its case. The state will follow with rebuttal witnesses before the jury will decide Rogers' fate. (source: oregonlive.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Nov 11 10:37:12 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2015 10:37:12 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 11 SAUDI ARABIA: Death Penalty Disproportionately Used against Foreigners in Saudi Arabia: Rights Group Saudi Arabia has used death penalty disproportionately against foreign nationals, mostly migrant workers from developing countries, Amnesty International said in a new report. Of the 63 people executed this year for drug-related charges, 45 were foreigners. The total number of foreigners executed so far this year is 71. "Foreign nationals, mostly migrant workers from developing countries, are particularly vulnerable as they typically lack knowledge of Arabic and are denied adequate translation during their trials," the report by the Amnesty International said on Monday. The UK-based human rights group also slammed the surge in Saudi Arabia's executions, which it said is at a 20-years high. Saudi Arabia has executed at least 151 people this year, the most since 1995 and far above the annual figure in recent years which rarely exceeded 90, Amnesty International said. Defenders of the Saudi death penalty say beheadings, usually with a single sword stroke, are at least as humane as lethal injections used in the United States. They deplore any comparison between its executions of convicted criminals and ISIL killings of hostages. Shiite Muslims are also specifically targeted by political executions in the country, Amnesty added, and also slammed the kingdom for executing people under the age of 18, Reuters reported. UN human rights experts have called on the Saudi government to stop the execution of minors, pointing to the case of Ali Mohammed Nimr, who was convicted for protesting when he was a teenager, a statement from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued in September said. (source: Tasnim News) NIGERIA: Corruption: Customs boss advocates death penalty The Comptroller-General of Nigeria Custom Service, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd) has advocated a death sentence for any Custom officer found to have indulged in stealing public fund or any corrupt practices. Ali while addressing officers and men of the service in continuation of his tour of formation under Kano/Jigawa Command said that though the law does not permit such stiff penalty, but that if he had his way, corrupt officers who steal government money, "should be shot." In his words, "many of us are in the service not because we want to serve but because of what we can make out of it. Anybody that goes contrary to the laws will be showed the way out. There will be no room for indiscipline in the system, you must be disciplined and that is why we are called para-military. If you are not disciplined, forget it because we stand on discipline. "Henceforth, the laws are very clear, Section 47 is there and we shall apply that section without fear or favour and that is 10-year jail term and that is the maximum punishment. My prayer is that nobody should give me the room to apply that punishment. We are the gateway of the country and if you are corrupt that is the reflection and perception you are sending to the outside world about Nigeria," he stated. The Customs boss also warned officers over connivance with smugglers, particularly those manning the borders, pointing out that it was wrong for them to compromise and allow trailers bringing in contra-band goods, arms, ammunitions and other dangerous items into the country unchecked. According to him, most of the trailers left unchecked at the borders might be carrying arms and ammunition used by insurgents, kidnappers, cattle rustlers and other criminal elements to disturb the peace of the country. Ali also spoke to the officers on the need to uphold discipline, integrity, honesty and transparency, pointing out that gone were the days when the Service is seen as indiscipline and corrupt organization, adding that, "the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari believes in the mantra of change; and if you don't change, we will change you." He also noted that the Customs management team is currently reviewing promotion exercise carried out without due process, adding that those who benefitted from abnormal promotion should be ready to face demotion. He said within 10 months, the Service generated N747 billion and urged them to ensure that the Service will be able to generate over N200 billion before the end of the year so as to meet the Federal Government's target of N944 billion, "and if we work harder by blocking the leakages, we can meet the N1.2 trillion target set by the Customs management." Ali also charged men and officers of the Service to maintain cordial relationship with their host communities, and urged them to make themselves advocates of anti-smuggling. (source: thenationonlineng.net) AUSTRALIA: 'Bali 9' Ringleader Named GQ Artist Of The Year, 7 Months After His Execution Convicted drug smuggler Myuran Sukumaran has been posthumously named GQ Artist of the Year, seven months after his execution in Indonesia. Sukumaran was sentenced to death for his involvement in the Bali 9 drug trafficking ring -- of which he and Andrew Chan were deemed the ring-leaders. Both were executed by firing squad in April. Prior to his death, Sukumaran developed a love and undisputed talent for art, creating a large body of work during his imprisonment, including many self-portraits. The annual GQ magazine Men of the Year Awards honoured Sukumaran by announcing him Artist of the Year at a ceremony held at Merivale's ivy Ballroom in Sydney on Tuesday night. Archibald Prize winner Ben Quilty, who considered Sukumaran his friend and protege, was one of many who took to Twitter to voice his thoughts on the posthumous honour. (source: Huffington Post Australia) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Nov 11 13:54:53 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2015 13:54:53 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OKLA., UTAH, USA Message-ID: Nov. 11 OKLAHOMA: Oklahoma Death Row Inmate Richard Glossip Details His Execution Experience----"It is torture beyond what anybody can believe." For 50-days straight, florescent lights bore into the small concrete cell where Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip was being held while awaiting his execution. In accordance with Oklahoma Department of Corrections execution protocol, he had been taken to a unit closer in proximity to the actual death chamber. There, Glossip was to spend the remaining weeks of his life in isolation - a windowless cell where the lights remained on at all hours of the day. That is where inmates scheduled for execution spend their final 35-days of life. Glossip, however, was allotted an extra two weeks after courts postponed his initial execution date to evaluate a last-minute appeal from his attorneys. As a result, Glossip spent 50 total days in that holding cell instead. He still had not been granted a hearing on the evidence his attorneys believe will prove he did not hire a man to kill his boss - the crime he was charged with back in 1997 - but his execution would still be halted at the last moment. Oklahoma officials discovered hours before Glossip's scheduled execution that they had obtained the incorrect lethal injection drugs. Glossip is now one of the few to experience what leads up to execution - and lived to tell about it. "It is real torture," Glossip says over the phone from death row. He remains surprisingly upbeat throughout the conversation. "I think it is done to make you say, 'Man, get me in that room and get this over with. Because it is hell. It really is." For those 50-days, he says it was difficult to sleep without a reprieve from the constant harsh lighting. He hardly ate the food he describes as inedible and often forgot basic necessities like water. He struggled to cope under the constant gaze of the guard who was tasked with documenting his every move. "It really messes with your head,' Glossip shares. "I still look over my shoulder to see if someone is watching me." Glossip explains that at times he would try to sit completely still on his bunk just so he could avoid witnessing the guard logging his last days alive. As time went by, teams of guards began rehearsing for Glossip's execution as he watched from his cell. He says he tried to distract himself by maintaining a routine and a positive attitude. Every morning, he would tidy up his cell. He would talk on the phone when he was able to. And he would read the Bible. It was the only book he says he was allowed to have in his cell - even though the Oklahoma Department of Corrections protocol permits inmates to keep reading material with them. A spokesman for the DOC denies the allegation that Glossip was not allowed to have any other books. "I'd try to do anything to keep my mind occupied," Glossip says. "Even in a horrible place like this, I would always wake up and make sure that I have a purpose for every day." Oklahoma has executed a total of 191 men and 3 women between 1915 and 2014. Before being transferred to a new cell closer to the death chamber, all property belonging to prisoners is confiscated and placed in storage. They are allowed only family photographs, letters from family, paper, and a safety ink pen. Glossip says the most difficult part for him was surrendering his mp3 player. Before being transferred, he relied on music as a mental escape, sometimes listening for hours at a time to rock music ("I'm a rocker at heart") and artists like Modest Mouse, the Cold War Kids, Ryan Adams, and X Ambassadors. "[The system] don't want you thinking about anything but what is going to happen to you I think," Glossip says. "They want you to have that in your head when they kill you - they are going to make sure you know you are going to die." Once inside the new cell, inmates are issued new clothes, new bedding, and a limited amount of hygiene products that are administered on a daily basis. After that, there's nothing left to do but wait. On the evening before execution, prisoners are given a budget of $45 and allowed to order their last meal. Glossip chose to order Domino's Pizza - a company he spent 11 years working for before going to prison. "[The system] don't want you thinking about anything but what is going to happen to you I think. They want you to have that in your head when they kill you - they are going to make sure you know you are going to die." "I used to travel all over for Domino's and sometimes it didn't taste the same depending on how you made it," Glossip adds. "But I gotta say: I was pretty impressed with Domino's here. It was really good." But Glossip didn't want to eat alone. Instead, he chose to share his meal with the guards. "They said, 'No, we can't eat your last meal!'" he recalls. "But I looked at it like, I just wanted to enjoy that night and share it with others. I don't know if that sounds strange, but it is just the way I felt." The next morning, Glossip was awakened at around 3:30 AM. It's part of execution procedure to begin the protocol 12 hours out from when the lethal injection will be administered. He was then taken for a full-body medical evaluation, where he was X-rayed and strip-searched. Glossip estimates that it took about 30-minutes before he was placed in a new cell even closer to the death chamber. This cell is where inmates spend their final hours. It is equipped with a mattress, a sheet, and a pillow, but no personal items are allowed. "You are just in that cell and it is just like a morgue," Glossip describes. "It was ice cold in there." It wasn't until 1 PM the day of his scheduled execution when the Department of Corrections (DOC) would call the attorney general's office to report that they had received the incorrect drugs. Potassium acetate was on hand instead of the approved potassium chloride, which is the part of the state's controversial drug cocktail used to stop a prisoner's heart. 3 hours later, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin would officially stop the execution. At approximately 4 PM, she issued a 37-day stay to allow the DOC to conduct an investigation into how the drug mix-up occurred. Glossip, however, wasn't kept in the loop. Not long before he was to be taken into the execution chamber, guards came to his cell to confiscate his clothes. Had the execution proceeded, he would have been given a hospital gown to change into before being put on the gurney. Instead, clad only in his underwear, he waited, wondering what was going on outside the walls of his cell. He describes the day as chaotic. "I kept asking people what was going on," he says. "Nobody would tell me anything, but I knew something was up because the guys in suits were coming out to talk to the guards. It was pretty interesting watching the interaction between them and I knew something was happening, but I didn't know what." 10 minutes before 3 PM - the scheduled time of his execution - he could hear his fellow death row inmates pounding on their cells. It was their way of saying goodbye. "Before an execution, [death row inmates] start kicking and beating on the doors," he explains. "It is a send-off - so you know people are thinking of you as you are going through what you are going through - letting you know that you aren't alone. These guys hadn't heard that I had gotten a stay. I didn't even hear myself." Glossip says around 5:30 PM, he was moved from the unit adjacent to the death chamber and placed back in the 1st cell. He didn't fully understand what was going on until he saw the words scroll across a television screen mounted on the wall, blaring the news. "I'd try to do anything to keep my mind occupied. Even in a horrible place like this, I would always wake up and make sure that I have a purpose for every day." "The bottom of the TV says, 'Richard Glossip was granted a 37-day stay by Governor Fallin,'" he says. "I still had no clue of what it was that actually stopped the execution." The 50-day-long execution experience was over - at least for now. Oklahoma officials have agreed that they won't reschedule the execution until at least 150 days after the conclusion of their investigation. Until then, Glossip has been returned to death row. Now housed back in his former cell, he no longer has to spend sleepless nights under the lights in isolation - but those stressors, he says, continue to take a toll. "When I looked at myself in the mirror for the 1st time, I was really in total shock," Glossip describes. "I looked like somebody who just walked out of a war camp. Just skin stretched over a skeleton." Now, more than a month later, he says he is still struggling to put on weight. Though he is 6-feet-tall, Glossip shares that he plummeted to 130 lbs. at his lowest weight. Still, he is now grateful to be able to flip the lights on and off - something he did repeatedly when he was finally given the chance. "I turned the light switch on and off a few times. I thought I only did it once," he explains. The guard grew concerned and asked him what was going on. "I go, 'I am just turning the switch to make sure the light goes off.' I thought I only did it once but he said I did it several times. [The guard] just didn't quite understand, but when you are in a place where you can't turn the light off for such a long period of time." He pauses a beat before adding, "I just had to make sure that light would go off." Glossip's legal team is hoping the extra time allotted by the execution stay will enable them to prove their client is innocent. He says he maintains faith that his team of attorneys will find something that will enable him to go home. Glossip hopes he won't have to endure the process again. Even if Glossip's team succeeds and he again escapes execution, Glossip vows he will use his life to fight against capital punishment. "I want people to understand what [inmates] are having to go through before you take their life from them," he explains. "I definitely don't want anybody else go through this - it's just not right." (source: upvoted.com) UTAH: Utah man accused of killing ex-wife's new husband still not competent for trial A Lindon man accused of killing his ex-wife's new husband last year is still not competent to stand trial. Fred Richard Lee, 60, is charged in 4th District Court with 1st-degree felony aggravated murder - which carries the possibility of the death penalty - and 8 other felonies related to a July 2014 rampage at a Lindon townhouse complex. The defendant was in court Tuesday for a competency review hearing, and another review was set for May 17, 2016. Lee was found incompetent to stand trial in February, according to court records, but a bed was not available for him at the Utah State Hospital until August. On the evening of July 3, 2014, Lee allegedly went door to door at the townhouse complex with a shotgun and a handgun, and broke into 3 apartments, while searching for his ex-wife, according to charging documents. At the 1st apartment, he encountered 42-year-old Mike Sidwell, who attempted to stop Lee from entering the townhouse, about 166 N. 400 West, which he had shared for about 5 years with his wife, who is Lee's ex, according to charging documents. But Lee reached into the home and shot Sidwell twice, according to charging documents. Sidwell died at the scene. After the shooting, Lee allegedly went to 2 other neighboring apartments looking for his ex-wife, but never found her, so he left the area. Police found him shortly after, and he allegedly admitted that if he had found his ex-wife he would have killed her and then himself, charges state. Lee also said that he had not killed himself because his mission was not complete because he "did not get" his ex-wife, according to charges. (source: Salt Lake Tribune) USA: Report: Veteran Mental Health Ignored in Capital Cases Veterans sentenced to death in Texas murder cases - and nationwide - might have escaped the punishment if juries had been told about their military service and any ensuing mental health problems, according to a Death Penalty Information Center report released Tuesday. About 300 veterans are on death rows across the country, Richard C. Dieter, the center's senior program director, found in his report "Battle Scars: Military Veterans and the Death Penalty," released on the eve of Veterans Day. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice says it knows of 15 Texas death row inmates who are veterans. "PTSD is not an excuse for all criminal acts, but it is a serious mental and emotional disorder that should be a strong mitigating factor against imposing the death penalty," Dieter says. But often juries, judges and even a defendant's own lawyer might not know about a veteran's mental condition, he said. The report cites several examples of veterans who have been executed or sentenced to death in Texas with little or no consideration of their mental state. --Vietnam War veteran Robert Black was executed in 1992 for killing his wife. His trial attorneys knew about his PTSD diagnosis but did not present the evidence out of fear it would hurt his case. --In 1995, Gulf War veteran Louis Jones Jr. kidnapped, sexually assaulted and killed a woman from Goodfellow Air Force Base. He did not have a criminal record. He was executed in 2003. Jones was exposed to nerve gas in Iraq and suffered post-traumatic stress, according to attorneys. --Timothy Adams was executed in 2011 for shooting and killing his son after his wife threatened to leave him. He was a veteran with no previous criminal record. His mental state related to service is not available. --Cleve Foster was executed for rape and murder in 2012. His attorneys did not investigate his military service background, but he was diagnosed with PTSD. --Death row inmate John Thuesen, who killed his ex-girlfriend and her brother, was sentenced to death in 2010. He is awaiting a ruling on whether he will receive a new trial after a Brazos County District Court judge ruled evidence of his service-related mental illness was not thoroughly presented in his double-murder trial. Not every veteran has seen combat, said Kathryn Kase, executive director of Texas Defender Service, which represents death row inmates. But those who served and saw combat often face difficulties bringing that information into a trial, she added. "Part of this is jurors can't know about military service," Kase said. "They can't know if somebody has served his country unless his lawyers actually go and look for that information and obtain the records. And the further back it is, the more difficult it is to obtain complete records." But military experience should factor into consideration of a defendant's mental state in capital cases, Kase said. "That ought to be taken into account before we decide whether they should live or die." (source: Texas Tribune) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Nov 11 13:55:48 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2015 13:55:48 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 11 AFRICA: Africa and the Death Penalty - Time to Let Go On Tuesday, 6 June 1995, over a year after electing the late Nelson Mandela as its President, South Africa ended the use of the death penalty, with a ruling of its constitutional court. Mandela's personal involvement in this outcome has been significant: 5 years earlier, freshly out of prison, he had successfully pressed his predecessor - then President F W De Klerk - to announce a moratorium on executions. At the inauguration of the court 4 months before the ruling, President Mandela had opened his speech with telling words, referring to the 1963-64 trial in which he and his comrades had feared for their lives: "The last time I appeared in court was to hear whether I would be sentenced to death," he had said. For decades, South Africa had executed thousands of its citizens, overwhelmingly among its Black population, earning a top ranking among countries with the highest rates of capital punishment in the world. Announcing the court's decision, Arthur Chaskalson, its president, noted: "Everyone, including the most abominable of human beings, has a right to life, and capital punishment is therefore unconstitutional." Remarkably, each of the court's 11 judges issued a written opinion backing the ruling. With that ruling, the new South Africa stood at a turning point of what was to follow across the continent. It heralded a momentous shift in the use of the death penalty in Africa, as more countries joined the global trend away from it. Once common, the practice was now being abandoned. By 1999, 21 African countries were abolitionists in law or practice. Of those, 10 had abolished capital punishment and 11 had de-facto moratoriums. Today, 20 years since South Africa's ruling, 37 out of 54 countries on the continent are abolitionists in law or practice, according to the International Federation for Human Rights. Among them, 18 have abolished the death penalty, 19 have de-facto moratoriums. Last December, at the United Nations General Assembly, 27 African countries joined 90 others from around the world in voting in favour of a resolution calling for a progressive end to the use of the death penalty. 5 months earlier, in July 2014 in Cotonou, Benin's capital, the continent had adopted a declaration urging countries still imposing it to "consider abolishing the death penalty." The African Union is now considering an additional protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the abolition of the death penalty, a major development that will further put the continent on the footsteps of Mandela, one of its most illustrious sons. Yet, as Africa makes major strides away from the death penalty, worrying developments cloud the horizon. Among them, the continued imposition of mandatory death sentences for some crimes in a handful of countries such as Kenya and Nigeria. Uganda, thankfully, has recently taken steps to repel similar provisions from its criminal code. Another persisting problem is the lack of fair trial guarantees. In March 2014, The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concerns that the hasty judicial process in Somalia, in which there were only nine days between the alleged killings and the executions, deprived the suspects of their rights to legal representation and appeal. More visible in recent months is the resurgence of the death penalty in contexts marked by a significant deterioration of the security climate. Faced with the mounting threat of violent extremism by Boko Haram, Nigeria has joined the list of countries prescribing the death penalty for vaguely defined "terrorist" activities. More strikingly, Egypt has resorted to mass trial. In 2013, a court imposed death sentences on more than 1,000 people in two such trials for the alleged killing of a police officer and other violent activities. All these developments point to the need for a stronger advocacy against the use of the death penalty. Across Africa, much like on the global stage, the direction is now clear, but the mobilisation must continue. Leaders should be part of the debate. Civil society actors and academic institutions must join in too. And everyone should know the facts, starting with those that are no longer in dispute. First, there is no conclusive evidence that the death penalty deters crime, as researchers in various countries have shown. Countries where the death penalty has been abandoned did not, in general, record a rise in crimes. Second, and most unfortunately, the death penalty is a most final punishment. Even the best justice systems have sentenced innocent people to die. In the United States 20 persons on death row have been exonerated through DNA testing, according to the Innocence Project, a non-profit legal organisation based in New York. Third, those who end up executed are almost always and everywhere vulnerable because of poverty, minority status or mental disability. These are just some of the many reasons why, at the United Nations, we strongly believe that, as the Secretary-General puts it, "the death penalty has no place in the 21st century." Or, in the simple words of the great Madiba himself: "The death sentence is a barbaric act." It is time to let it go! (source: Ivan Simonovic is the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights----All Africa News) SOMALIA: Somali Military Tribunal Sentences 2 Soldiers to Death Over Killings The military tribunal of Somalia has sentenced 2 soldiers of the country's armed forces to death penalty after they were found guilty of killing innocent people in Mogadishu. Hassan Mohamed Nur Shuute, military court Chief read the verdict to the reporters in Mogadishu, and he said that both soldiers had committed the crime that they had been accused for. The defendants were identified as Isack Mohamed Hashi and Muhaydin Mohamud Alasow, who were members of Somali army. Meanwhile, the judge said that the court has ruled to release 2 other soldiers after finding no guilty on the alleged murder crime. Death penalty is legal in Somalia, a mostly anarchic state in East Africa. (source: All Africa News) SINGAPORE/MALAYSIA: Adenan to write to Singapore Embassy to appeal for clemency for Kho Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Adenan Satem will write to the Singapore Embassy to appeal for clemency for Sarawakian Kho Jabing who has been sentenced to death for murder in Singapore. The Chief Minister???s Office had responded to an appeal by Minister in Prime Minister's Department Nancy Shukri yesterday to the state government to intervene when she met Adenan to save the 31-year-old convicted murderer. Nancy sought the help from the state because the federal government had exhausted all avenues to plead for leniency on Kho's behalf. Kho was to be hanged last Friday but was given a stay of execution on Thursday after his newly appointed lawyer Chandra Mohan K. Nair convinced the court to give him more time to prepare another appeal. The lawyer has until Nov 23 to present a Motion of Crisis for his case to be re-submitted. In 2008, Kho and another Sarawakian Galing Kujat attacked Chinese nationals Wu Jun, 44 and Cao Ruyin, 40 along Geylang Drive, Singapore. Wu survived while Cao, who was hit on the head with a tree branch died of head injuries 6 days later. Both Kho and Galing were sentenced to death in 2010. On appeal, Galing escaped the gallows in 2011 while Kho's appeal was denied. However, he was given a reprieve by Singapore High Court and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2013 but the prosecution appealed against it, arguing that his savage actions warranted a death penalty. A court had heard then that the multiple fractures on Cao's head were as severe as those suffered by victims in high-impact traffic collisions. In January, Kho was sentenced to death again by a 5-judge court and his appeal for clemency was rejected by President Tony Tan Keng Yam on cabinet's advice. Meanwhile, Land Development Minister Tan Sri James Jemut Masing had earlier commented on the case that the Sarawak government would not interfere as Kho was not convicted of the crime in Malaysia. Masing held the view that it was inappropriate for any Malaysian authorities to interfere in the Singapore court system as Malaysia would not want other countries to interfere in its justice system. (source: theborneopost.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Nov 12 15:00:09 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2015 15:00:09 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., OHIO, OKLA., CALIF., USA Message-ID: Nov. 12 TEXAS: Woman gave birth before being charged in connection with son's death A 21-year-old mother went into labor Tuesday before she could be charged with capital murder in connection with the death of her 10-month-old child. Fabiola Lopez was more than 9 months pregnant when she was arrested Tuesday in connection to the death of her son and went into labor while in custody. She was taken to a local hospital, where she delivered, according to Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office spokesman J.P. Rodriguez. After giving birth, she was charged with capital murder of person under 10 years old, a capital felony, by Justice of the Peace Marcos Ochoa. She remained in the custody of the Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office with a $500,000 bond at a local hospital Wednesday night. The sheriff's office began their investigation Nov. 3, when they were called to Rio Grande Regional Hospital in reference to a 10-month-old boy suffering from critical injuries. The child died Nov. 6 after spending several days on life support, Rodriguez said. Lopez told doctors her child had fallen off the bed at their home near Edinburg. An autopsy determined the cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head, but during the investigation deputies found probable cause that Lopez caused the death of her child, Rodriguez wrote in an email Tuesday. Investigators obtained an arrest warrant for Lopez and took her into custody. If convicted of a capital murder, Lopez faces the death penalty or life in prison. (source: The Monitor) FLORIDA: Admitted cartel hit-man faces death penalty trial for 2 murders in Florida An admitted Mexican cartel hit-man convicted of murders in California and Alabama is also facing a possible death sentence in Florida for 2 additional killings. Authorities say 53-year-old Jose Manuel Martinez is being charged with 1st-degree murder in the slayings of 20-year-old Javier Huerta and 28-year-old Gustavo Olivares-Rivas in Florida. The victims were found in a pickup truck bound and shot multiple times on a road in Ocala National Forest. Martinez has already been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty to 9 murders in California over 3 decades. Last year, Martinez pleaded guilty in Alabama to killing a man for making derogatory remarks about his daughter. The Ocala Star-Banner reports (http://bit.ly/1ROM2KP) that prosecutors in Marion County will seek to extradite Martinez from California. (source: Associated Press) OHIO: Youngstown murder now death penalty case A Mahoning County grand jury indicted a Youngstown man in what is now a death penalty murder case. Lance Hundley, 46, of Warren, was charged with aggravated murder, aggravated attempted murder, aggravated felonious assault, and aggravated arson in connection to the Nov. 6 beating death of 41-year-old Erika Huff. Prosecutors say Hundley beat Huff inside a Cleveland Street house and then set it on fire to cover up the crime. Huff's mother was also beaten by Hundley, but survived the attack, according to police. Police say Hundley went to the house and beat Huff, leaving her unconscious. The victim's mother came later after her daughter's medic alert alarm went off and encountered Hundley and was assaulted. Hundley set fire to the house and tried to leave as police were arriving. Hundley is being held in the Mahoning County Jail on $2 million bond. (source: WKBN news) OKLAHOMA: Tulsa County prosecutors no longer seeking death penalty against 1999 double-murder convict Tulsa County prosecutors are no longer seeking the death penalty for a man who remains convicted of murdering a retired Tulsa banker and an Owasso trucking company owner in 1999. Victor Cornell Miller, 52, has been fighting a legal battle against the state since before a jury first convicted him in 2002. First Assistant District Attorney John David Luton announced in court Tuesday that he will no longer seek the death penalty for Miller. Luton said the decision came after talking with the victims' family members. "The consensus of the family was that this was a way to create some finality in the case," Luton said, noting that the matter is already 16 years old. Miller was convicted in the shooting deaths of Mary Agnes Bowles, 77, a retired Tulsa banker and a former Saint Francis Hospital Auxiliary president, and Jerald Thurman, 44, the owner of an Owasso trucking company. Prosecutors maintained that Miller shot Thurman before Miller's accomplice, John Fitzgerald Hanson, shot Bowles. Thurman's son, Jake Thurman, said Wednesday that while this was not his preferred outcome of the case, he and his family are ready to move on. "I'm not really happy with all of it, but at the same time I'm happy that the family will get some closure and not have to keep opening the wound and stitching it closed again," he said. At a trial in 2002, Miller was convicted of both murders and was sentenced to die for killing Thurman. He got a no-parole life term for Bowles' murder. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals court overturned those convictions and sentences in 2004 and granted Miller a new trial. He was convicted by another jury in 2008 and was sentenced to death for both murders. The appeals court in 2013 affirmed Miller's 2 1st-degree murder convictions but modified his death sentence for one of the murder convictions to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In that decision, the Court of Criminal Appeals directed the Tulsa County District Court to resentence Miller for the other murder conviction, with the death penalty still on the table. Since the state is no longer seeking the death penalty, a Tulsa County judge will have the option of sentencing Miller to life without parole or life with the possibility of parole after serving at least 85 % of his sentence in prison. For calculation, a life sentence is usually equated to 45 years. Jake Thurman said he and his family hope the judge will sentence Miller to life without parole. "As long as he can't ever get out, he won't be able to do this to someone else's family," Thurman said. Closing the case will allow the family to finally heal, he said. "We can pick up the pieces and start putting the puzzle back together and move on," Thurman said. District Judge Dana Kuehn is scheduled to sentence Miller on Dec. 18, court minutes show. (saource: Tulsa World) CALIFORNIA: Federal appeals court reverses ruling that said California's death penalty system is unconstitutional A federal appeals court upheld California's death penalty system Thursday, reversing a judge's order last year that had decried the state's system as unconstitutional because of its extensive delays. The ruling impacts a state with the largest death-row population in the country, and while California has rarely carried out executions in the modern era, it has shown signs recently that it may be inching closer to resuming lethal injections. In an order last year, U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney had said California's system was "completely dysfunctional." "California's death penalty system is so plagued by inordinate and unpredictable delay that the death sentence is actually carried out against only a trivial few of those sentenced to death," Carney wrote in his July 2014 order. That order was reversed Thursday by a unanimous 3-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which said that while many people agreed with Jones's argument "that the delay between sentencing and execution in California is extraordinary," the district court was not allowed to consider "novel constitutional theories" in reviewing cases like this. The opinion from Judge Susan P. Graber also added that because it was asked to consider this type of theory, the court could "not assess the substantive validity of [Jones's] claim." California has more death-row inmates than any other state, with more than 740 inmates currently sentenced to death. That is more than the combined death-row populations of the next 2 states on the list (Florida and Texas, both of which regularly put inmates to death). Inmates on California's death row have been there for an average of a little more than 16 years, a little more than a year longer than the national average, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. And while California has not executed an inmate since 2006, the state proposed a new execution protocol last week that would involve using a single drug, replacing the 3-drug combination that had been struck down by a judge. Carney's order, and the appeals court's ruling Thursday, involve the case of Ernest Dewayne Jones, who was sentenced to death in 1995 for raping and killing Julia Miller in 1992. Carney had vacated Jones's death sentence in the order, writing that letting California's system threaten Jones with death nearly 2 decades after his sentencing "violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment." California authorities had argued in favor of overturning Carney's ruling, which the state called "fundamentally misguided" in 1 filing submitted by Kamala D. Harris, the state's attorney general, and Edward DuMont, its solicitor general, among others. The state had argued that there was "no legal basis" for the district court to declare a system they described as thorough, careful and necessary. In a concurring judgment Thursday, Judge Paul J. Watford said that Carney's order should have been reversed because Jones has not exhausted his appeals through the state courts. The case is Jones v. Davis. (source: Mark Berman, Washington Post) ************** Federal Appeals Court Upholds California's Deliberative Death Penalty Process A federal appeals court has upheld California's deliberative death penalty, which keeps prisoners on death row for decades. Last year, a federal judge ruled that the long and dysfunctional process violated the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. As we reported at the time: "[U.S. District Judge Cormac] Carney noted that the death penalty has been imposed more than 900 times since 1978, but only 13 of those prisoners have been executed. "Carney, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, wrote that Jones was far from alone in waiting decades to find out when and whether he would be put to death. "Such uncertainty and systemic delays are unconstitutional, he decided. Carney wrote that 'the random few' who are put to death wait so long to face execution that capital punishment serves 'no retributive or deterrent purpose. "'No rational person can question that the execution of an individual carries with it the solemn obligation of the government to ensure that the punishment is not arbitrarily imposed and that it furthers the interests of society,' Carney wrote." 2 of the 3 judges on the panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called that constitutional interpretation "novel," and reversed the judgment. "Many agree with Petitioner that California's capital punishment system is dysfunctional and that the delay between sentencing and execution in California is extraordinary," the judges wrote. However, they added, the idea that the delay has turned sentences from "one of death to one of grave uncertainty and torture" is not "supported by logic." (source: npr.org) ********* Calif. Seeks Comment From Death Row Inmates About Lethal Injection Prisoners on death row in California are being invited to comment on the procedure that could kill them. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has proposed a single lethal injection to replace the 3-drug method struck down by courts. The state created the rule after a legal settlement to restart the death penalty process, which has stalled since 2005. The public has until January to comment on the proposal. "The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has an additional and a unique requirement that no other state agency has," says deputy press secretary Terry Thornton. "Under the law we also must notice the inmate population, and that includes condemned inmates." Thornton says the rule is designed to give inmates a voice in the policies that govern them and all 747 on death row have received copies. The state must consider and respond to public comments before finalizing the rule. (source: capradio.org) USA: Death Penalty and the Law To the Editor: Re "Death Penalty Foes Torn on When to Press Case" (front page, Nov. 4): It's not surprising that opponents of the death penalty are "bitterly divided" after Justice Stephen G. Breyer's powerful dissent about whether to urge the Supreme Court to decide if capital punishment is constitutional. Even when the death penalty was overwhelmingly accepted, it was administered in so contradictory a manner as to suggest deep ambivalence. It was supposed to deter, but executions were conducted privately after the crime was forgotten. The condemned were thought depraved but rarely treated as mentally ill. Many people talked tough on crime, but then jurors picked only a random few for execution. The dissent makes the failure to create a just system clear, but I don't think that we will see abolition until the focus is on the system - costly, discriminatory and error-prone - rather than on any particular offender's horrendous crime. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy has shown in his landmark opinions that he understands the difference between a single case and the social costs of a broad policy, but none of the lawyers cited in your article presented the slightest evidence of how he would vote if a test case came before the court. MICHAEL MELTSNER Cambridge, Mass. (source: Letter to the Editor; The writer, the author of "Cruel and Unusual: The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment," was one of the lawyers in Furman v. Georgia, the 1972 case that decided capital punishment laws violated the Eighth Amendment----New York Times) ************** Talk It Out: Death Penalty Say no to the death penalty----By Madison Teague No one should hold the right to take another person's life. The death penalty is a barbaric practice that does nothing but seek vengeance against one person to appease the feelings of another. It is not justice. Deciding the fate of another human being by taking their life makes one no better than the criminal they are condemning. A major defense of the death penalty is that it is okay because it is legal. Legality does not equal morality, and the law does not define what is right. Besides, the death penalty is only legal in 31 states, which shows how abhorrent 19 states believe the death penalty to be. The opposition would assert the death penalty is a better option than life in prison because it saves citizen tax dollars. This statement is simply untrue. In California, keeping each death row prisoner costs taxpayers $90,000 more per year than an inmate in general population. This wouldn't seem like too much of a problem if the execution happened in a timely manner. However, that is not the case. According to a 2011 New York Times article, the typical prisoner on death row has spent 13 years in prison. Because of this long stay on death row, more than 1/4 of all inmates sentenced to death died of a cause other than execution from 2000 to 2013. Do those who die awaiting their execution escape justice? Not only is it cheaper to house regular inmates, but also giving the offender the option of pleading guilty in exchange for life without parole saves taxpayers millions in court fees. It is ridiculous to claim a person who has been caught and held in the custody of the law is somehow a great threat to anyone. We have the ability to contain criminals so they are no longer a threat. Death is not necessary. All human beings possess the right to life, but not the right to take life away. To claim it is justifiable to revoke someone???s natural-born right to life simply because it would make the victim or their family feel better is asinine. Humans make errors. For every 10 people executed on death row, 1 has been exonerated and set free. If there is even a chance an innocent life could be taken by the death penalty, it should not be seen as a good or moral practice. Innocent people should not be put to death to pacify the masses. I have seen firsthand how murder can tear apart a family, but what continues to torture the victims of a crime is not the misconduct itself but the inability to forgive. I do not want to be a part of a society that does not believe in forgiveness. Forgiveness should not be seen as a novelty one can turn to if they wish, but as a necessity. Killing the assailant will do nothing to help a family heal after the murder or attack of a loved one. The only way those family members, and society as a whole, can move on is if they make peace with what happened. Death allows a criminal to escape the reality of what they have done. It is a far better punishment to force a person to acknowledge the wrong they have inflicted on another and live with the consequences of their actions. The death penalty is an expensive, inhumane and immoral practice that should be illegal in not just part, but all of the United States. *********** Why we need the death penalty---- By Shannon Davies Special to The Star The death sentence has been used by most societies for centuries. While it is not a new concept, the ways people are put to death are far less gruesome than they have been in years past. Granted, the American justice system is highly flawed. The death penalty should not be taken lightly and just handed out to anyone who commits a crime. Imposing stipulations on the practice is a necessity to ensure no mismanagement. However, enforcing the death penalty nationwide remains up to each state. In each case, the crime must fit the punishment and the jury must be sure of their sentencing. According to data from the Vera Institute of Justice, taxpayers pay an average of $31,286 per inmate in order to provide shelter, medical care and food for the incarcerated. Relegating the money of citizens to the housing and bedding of someone who has committed murder or rape is not something society should stand for. Detractors often assert that the death penalty does not serve as a real deterrent, but this kind of thinking could be applied to any law on the books. Fining motorists for texting while driving does not deter them from committing the offense. People still routinely text and drive, but the thought of a pretty hefty fine probably prevents some from doing it. Minimization is all we can aspire to when attempting to resolve criminal activity. Studies about the deterrence are inconclusive. Not killing gruesome murderers could result in a total lack of deterrence, so instead of weighing the odds, it is better to use the death penalty for whatever small benefit it provides. Without it, who knows the number of innocent targets who could be victimized? During less modern times, being put to death used to range from actions like hanging or a firing squad, which are all very cruel ways to die. Lethal injection is basically dosing the criminal with a combination of drugs to give them a fairly simple death. The three-shot system includes sodium thiopental, which is meant to put the inmate to sleep. The inmate is then injected with pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes the entire muscle system and stops the inmate's breathing, and the process finishes with potassium chloride to still the heart. Compared to the deaths of their victims, most perpetrators get off fairly easily. While violence is never the answer, there needs to be some kind of system in place to keep the offenders at bay. While states try to figure out what they want to do about having the death penalty, the people who are currently waiting on death row will be met with a relatively painless death. Criminals who commit capital offenses will always be around, and what to do with them punishment-wise will always be up for debate. Until the death penalty has its own fate decided, I'm all for it. (source: The (Texas State) University Star) ********************* Vets suffering from PTSD need our help: Column The 1st person executed in the United States this year, Andrew Brannan, was a Vietnam veteran who had been granted 100% disability because of his Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and other problems stemming from his military service. Approximately 300 other veterans remain on death row and face execution. As retired Army general officers, lawyers and a psychiatrist, these facts concern us greatly, and they should disturb many other Americans, as well. On Veterans Day, we honor those who bravely served their country and offer our helping hand to assist those who have returned from war with wounds and physical disabilities. Countless veterans have endured violence and trauma that few others can fully imagine. They deserve our thanks. But some are left behind. Our hospitals and therapists have performed wonders in assisting wounded veterans who lost limbs. A prosthetic is not the same as the original, but with the courage of service-members, combined with an understanding and supportive community, we are making progress. We wish the same could be said for our veterans who come back with deep brain and mental wounds. Their requests for understanding and compassion are too often dismissed. A new report from the Death Penalty Information Center is a wake-up call for an issue that few have focused on. Even as the use of capital punishment is declining, veterans suffering with PTSD and other service-related problems languish on death rows across the country. Brannan was executed in Georgia this year for one irrational act of violence that occurred 17 years ago. He killed a police officer who had stopped him for speeding. That is a terrible crime, but as the Veterans Administration had determined, Brannan was mentally disabled with deep scars from his combat in Vietnam. James Davis is also a Vietnam veteran with PTSD. He belatedly received his Purple Heart medal on death row in North Carolina, thanks to the work of a fellow veteran and therapist and a pastor, Jim Johnson, who visited Davis. When Johnson pinned the medal on him, Davis saluted proudly, before retreating back into the darkness of his mental problems. He could still be executed today for the murders he committed in 1995, and he has all but given up his appeals. John Thuesen is on death row in Texas - a veteran of the Iraq conflict. His PTSD was not properly diagnosed or treated, and his lawyers did not do enough to explain his condition to the jury that convicted him of murdering his ex-girlfriend. Texas executes far more people than any other state in the country, so there is a real concern that his current appeal could be denied. PTSD is not as obvious as a missing limb, but it can be deeply debilitating. The trauma from combat can simmer under the surface for years, then erupt in violence, often against family members. It can be triggered by anything that jars a memory of a time when a person was under violent attack, demanding immediate and forceful reaction. Years later, the previous danger is no longer present, but the memory may set off a similar reaction, with deadly consequences. PTSD can be treated, but in one study only about half of the veterans who needed treatment received it. In a criminal sentencing hearing, PTSD should be a strong mitigating factor. It's not an excuse or a demand for acquittal. However, the very symptoms that define PTSD can be frightening to a jury if not carefully explained by a mental health expert familiar with the illness. Defense attorneys are often not adequately prepared to investigate and present this kind of evidence; prosecutors or judges might dismiss it because others with similar combat experiences did not murder anyone. Perhaps some of the blame should be more broadly shared because we sometimes choose to look away when a veteran's scars are not the kind that we know how to cope with. We are not arguing here about the morality or the utility of the death penalty. But at a minimum, when a judge or jury is weighing a person's life or death, they should have full knowledge and understanding of that person's life history. Veterans with PTSD - and, in fact, all those with serious mental illness at the time of their crime - deserve a complete investigation and presentation of their mental state by the best experts in the field. Decision-makers - jurors, judges and governors - should be informed that such information is a valid reason to spare a defendant from capital punishment. There are alternatives, such as life in prison without parole. We should begin by determining the exact scope of this problem: Who are the veterans on death row? How could their military experience have affected their commission of a crime? How well were their disabilities investigated and presented in court? And what should be done when the system fails them? Veterans facing the death penalty deserve this assistance. (source: Opinion; Brig. Gen. (Ret.) James P. Cullen, USA, is a former judge for the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals. Brig. Gen. (Ret.) David R. Irvine, USA, is a former Deputy Commander of the 96th U.S. Army Reserve Command. Brig. Gen. (Ret.) Stephen N. Xenakis, USA, M.D. is an adjunct clinical professor at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences----USA Today) *************** An Invitation to End the Death Penalty----The time is now, and this opportunity might not present itself again soon. The death penalty in the United States will end. In the scholarly community, the debate is over. The proof that capital punishment doesn't work is as conclusive as the evidence that human activities have caused global warming. After 50 years of research, we know that capital punishment either doesn't deter or deters very little, and then only if practiced with such regularity that it virtually guarantees errors. We know that since 1973, 156 people have been sentenced to die and subsequently exonerated. We know that whether a murderer is executed is largely the product of the victim's race and geographic bad luck. We know that the penalty is expensive to implement and, if one is serious about preventing mistakes, cruelly slow. For these reasons, among others, the international community has largely rejected capital punishment. Of the 193 United Nations members, 137 have abolished the death penalty either by law or practice. In 2013, only 22 countries conducted an execution. Only 8 conducted 10 or more: China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, and the United States. It's simply impossible to imagine the United States remaining on this list for much longer. The question is how much longer. Those who hope that the end will come sooner rather than later have reached a momentous crossroads. One path requires a plodding march to eradicate the death penalty state by state. This route isn't entirely hopeless. Indeed, Maryland, Nebraska, and Connecticut have abolished the death penalty since 2013, and 4 other states have governor-imposed moratoriums. But most of the low-hanging fruit has been picked, and the remaining states will be increasingly intransigent. It's easy to imagine Texas, which has executed 530 people since 1976, holding out for a very long time. The potentially faster track is to seize upon Justice Stephen Breyer???s dissent last term in Glossip v. Gross - in which he comprehensively challenged the constitutionality of capital punishment - and push a case to the Supreme Court. This path is not without its own perils, which need to be understood in historical context. In 1963, Justice Arthur Goldberg issued his own maverick dissent against the death penalty. Perceiving an opportunity, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund began a systematic litigation campaign, culminating in a 1972 decision, Furman v. Georgia, ruling that the death penalty as it was then practiced was unconstitutional. The victory was short-lived. Following a massive backlash, the Supreme Court reversed direction four years later and upheld revised capital punishment laws that included modest procedural protections. Breyer is saying that he believes Kennedy's vote is available. Many observers believe that the net of the Legal Defense Fund???s well-intentioned efforts was negative and that the 1976 decision, Gregg v. Georgia, set back the death penalty abolition movement by decades. In the last Gallup poll before Furman, 50 % of respondents said they favored capital punishment. After Gregg, support soared to 66 % and reached an all-time high of 80 % in 1994. The numbers have been dropping since then - down to 61 % in the latest poll. The risk is that if abolitionists do press a case to the Supreme Court and lose, public opinion might surge again, believing that the court has somehow fixed the problems with the death penalty. Following Breyer's dissent, the need to confront this dilemma has taken on an increased sense of urgency. In the New York Times, Adam Liptak made public the split in the death penalty community over whether a case should be pressed to the Supreme Court. As I reported last year here in Slate, it's a complicated gamble with reasonable arguments on both sides. But those who urge caution today are drawing the wrong lesson from history. Breyer's dissent means more than Goldberg???s did. When Goldberg and his law clerk Alan Dershowitz penned the opinion, only one legal scholar had ever advanced the argument that the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment. Certainly no Supreme Court justice believed it to be unconstitutional. Quite consciously, Goldberg was beginning a conversation. Breyer's dissent, by contrast, is situated in a judicial-political conflict that has been running for nearly four decades. The modern battle turns entirely on Justice Anthony Kennedy. On one side, it's clear that Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice John Roberts will never vote against the death penalty. On the other side are Breyer and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who joined Breyer in saying that the death penalty violates the Constitution. Though they didn't sign on to Breyer's dissent, Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor are safe bets to reject capital punishment if and when the issue is ever put before the court again. Everything comes down to Kennedy. Over the past 13 years, Kennedy has joined a series of decisions limiting the use of the death penalty for juveniles, child rapists who did not kill, and people with mental retardation. In the juvenile and child rapist cases, Kennedy wrote the majority opinions and cast the decisive vote. In Hall v. Florida, another 5-4 case, he again wrote the majority decision holding that mental retardation couldn't be determined by a hard-and-fast numeric rule, which Florida and other states had used to limit the impact of the Supreme Court's ban. Executing an intellectually disabled individual, Kennedy wrote, with the colorful rhetoric that characterizes his most passionate opinions, "violates his or her inherent dignity as a human being" and serves "no legitimate penological purpose." Breyer isn't beginning a conversation. He is saying that he believes Kennedy's vote is available. A student of history, Breyer knows the impact that Goldberg's dissent had on the bar. Breyer wouldn't issue a dissent so clearly evocative of Goldberg's unless he wanted to send a loud and clear message that he believes the time is right for abolitionist leaders to push an Eighth Amendment challenge to the Supreme Court. Breyer could be wrong, of course. Any student of this history knows that it has been fraught with unpredictable twists and turns. But abolitionists have more reason for optimism than the Legal Defense Fund did in 1972, when no one believed they had a chance of winning Furman v. Georgia, and they also have less to lose. For one thing, there are few, if any, lesser battles to be contested before the Supreme Court. Almost all the exceptions to the death penalty one could imagine have already been carved out. For another, it's hard to imagine an adverse decision galvanizing support for the death penalty, as it did in 1976. The truth is that despite decades of public education campaigns by abolitionists and abundant evidence that the death penalty is unreliable and ineffective, the public opinion dial hasn???t moved very much. Since Gregg, support for the death penalty has never dipped below 60 % in Gallup's annual poll, and for each of the past seven years it has come in between 61 and 65 % in favor. More importantly, public opinion is firmly entrenched in the states that drive the "American" death penalty. Really, it makes no sense to speak of capital punishment as national policy. The death penalty is almost entirely a Southern phenomenon, driven by a handful of states - and really, as research by the Death Penalty Information Center shows, a handful of prosecutors in a handful of counties within those states. Since 1976, Texas has accounted for 37 % of American executions. Texas plus 2 other states - Oklahoma and Virginia - are responsible for a majority of executions. In Texas, polling shows 73 % support for the death penalty. In Oklahoma it's 74 %. If capital punishment is going to end in these outlier Southern states, the U.S. Supreme Court will need to act. Today's opportunity may not present itself again soon. Justices die. Presidential elections and Senate confirmations are unpredictable. It's possible to imagine that a stronger majority against the death penalty will emerge on the court someday. It's just as possible to imagine that another bare majority won't again emerge this century. That's why Breyer's invitation needs to be taken so seriously. The direction of history's arrow is clear. Capital punishment will end. But to finish this fight once and for all, abolitionists at some point will need to seize the moment and force the Supreme Court to a decision. There may not soon again be another moment so promising as this one. (source: Evan Mandery is a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and author of A Wild Justice: The Death and Resurrection of Capital Punishment in America----slate.com) *************** GOP Candidates Suck Up to Hatemongers Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, and Mike Huckabee fete a man who thinks the Bible says we should execute gays. Sometimes I think Republicans get a bad rap from mainstream journalists, who tend to be more sympathetic to liberals and Democrats. The problem may be particularly acute when it comes to social conservatives, whose views seem especially unpopular among journalists. But right now 3 conservative Republican presidential candidates are mostly getting a free pass from the media on their appalling judgment over the weekend. Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, and Mike Huckabee spoke at a conference in Des Moines called "Freedom 2015: National Religious Liberties Conference," a 2-day event that began last Friday. Now, that doesn't sound so bad. In fact, my colleagues at the Cato Institute and I have recently defended the rights of Hobby Lobby, the Little Sisters of the Poor, and the bakers and photographers who don't want to participate in same-sex weddings. But this conference was about something far different from liberty, although you wouldn't know that from bland media coverage like this CBS News article. So it's a good thing that The Daily Beast and Rachel Maddow of MSNBC picked up the story, with video from People for the American Way's RightWingWatch. The conference was organized by Kevin P. Swanson, a minister in Colorado and host of the Generations Radio Show. Swanson is part of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and the far-right fundamentalist Christian Reconstructionism movement, which author Walter Olson wrote about at length in 1998. Swanson gave the conference's opening and closing talks and interviewed Cruz, Jindal, and Huckabee. And in his closing keynote address, Swanson ranted at length about topics that would hardly be characterized as religious liberty: YES! Leviticus 20:13 calls for the death penalty for homosexuals. YES! Romans Chapter 1, Verse 32, the Apostle Paul does say that homosexuals are worthy of death. His words, not mine! And I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And I am not ashamed of the truth of the word of God. And I am willing to go to jail for standing on the truth of the word of God. To be sure, he did say that "civil leaders" should not apply the death penalty today, not until the culture has changed and gays have been put on notice that they must repent or be put to death. Thanks for small favors, I suppose. But it's also worth noting that at least 2 other speakers at the conference likewise have advocated the death penalty for gay people. And as Maddow notes, this is not just something that the conference host has said in the past, though he had said it plenty of times, as a Google search would have revealed. This is what he said in the keynote address at the conference attended by 3 candidates for president. That wasn't the full extent of the crazy at the conference. As the gay website Towleroad reported: Swanson has also said that the government should put gay people to death, warned that the Girl Scouts and the movie "Frozen" turn girls into lesbians and blamed natural disasters on gay people and women who wear pants. Swanson has also said that churches accepting gay couples will lead to the persecution, imprisonment and murder of Christians, and wished for the good ole days when country singer Kacey Musgraves would have been hanged for her pro-gay lyrics. Jake Tapper asked Cruz about his attendance at the conference, and Cruz responded that he did not "know what this gentleman has said" but that religious liberty is a very important issue. Would Cruz accept that answer from a presidential candidate who spoke at a conference where the host and keynoter yelled "God damn America" or said that Christians should be executed? I doubt it. He should be asked about his participation again, as should Jindal and Huckabee. And American conservatives should be asked if they find all this acceptable. Can you actually support presidential candidates who stand on such a stage, answering questions from such a person? If the 3 Democratic presidential candidates accepted the invitation of, and answered the questions of, an equally extreme leftist, a person who advocated the execution of peaceful people he disliked, conservatives everywhere would be outraged. I hope they start holding their own candidates to the same standard. (source: David Boaz is executive vice president of the Cato Institute and author of The Libertarian Mind----The Daily Beast) *************** Reform leaders advocate 'restorative' justice for US offenders Hopeful that the death penalty in the U.S. is reaching its demise, justice reform advocates affiliated with the U.S. Catholic church are shifting efforts, in part, to tackle the massive problems beleaguering the country's criminal justice system. Capital punishment, in fact, sits atop a highly retributive criminal justice system, like the jewel in the punitive crown, reserved -- in theory -- for the worst cases and irreversible. But many systemic, and arguably more intractable, problems lie beneath it: mass incarceration and high rates of recidivism among them. "Once we get rid of the death penalty, all the problems in our criminal justice system are going to rise up and we will have to deal with them," said Karen Clifton, executive director of the Catholic Mobilizing Network to End the Use of the Death Penalty at the "New Path to Justice: Criminal Justice Reform in the Year of Mercy" on Nov. 6 at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. The approach -- supported by Pope Francis, the U.S. Bishops Conference and a growing numbers of secular experts -- is an alternative, "restorative," type of justice. In his statements, the pope has made clear that for a society to be humane, justice is justice only if it is restorative, that is, without retaliation or revenge. Trudy Conway, emeritus professor of philosophy at Mount Saint Mary's University, presented the underlying principles of restorative in philosophical counterpoint to the current U.S. justice system. Under a restorative lens, crime is viewed as a violation against people and relationships, rather than simply a violation of the law, Conway explained. Offenders have an obligation to repair the harm they have done. However, today's system generates no incentive for offenders to admit wrongdoing, said Tim Wolfe, associate professor of sociology and criminal justice at Mount St. Mary's University. Instead, they are pitted in a war against the state with the express goal of avoiding punishment. Offenders never get to come into personal contact with the consequences of their offenses and therefore never fully understand the harm they have caused. This, in turn, severely lowers their chances of rehabilitation. "Cops, courts, corrections: our current system is criminogenic -- it creates more crime instead of reducing it," Wolfe said. But practicing restorative justice doesn't mean offenders can't be punished -- it's just that punishment isn't the whole picture. "Restorative justice is not being soft on crime, it's being smart: it will improve safety, and hold people accountable," said Wolfe. Janine Geske, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice, knows a lot about what restorative justice looks like in action. She leads Marquette University Law School's Restorative Justice Initiative and regularly facilitates restorative encounters between offenders and victims at the Green Bay Correctional Institution. These can take months of preparation, depending on the readiness of victims, she said. With support from Marquette law students, she oversees highly delicate "circle" dialogues between victims and offenders. At the heart of them: deep listening and personal story telling -- on both sides. In some dialogues, victims or victim family members meet the offenders who were not involved in same crime. In others, victims and family members meet their actual offenders. And while it's clear that rehabilitation of offenders is a positive long-term outcome of restorative justice, Geske emphasized that the victims are the focus. She prefers to call victims of crime "survivors." Many of them do too, Geske said. "It's about what survivors want," Geske said. "It's their chance to tell the person responsible for the crime about the harm they caused. Often victims will have questions they want to ask like 'What were the last words of the loved one? What were their last moments like?'" And forgiveness doesn't necessarily have to be a part of it, she said, because some survivors aren't ready for it. "It's an incredibly healing process for both sides to go through this. But these are really, really tough conversations," said Geske who called her work "a ministry of presence." Geske and other practitioners at the conference are still outliers in the U.S., where restorative justice is rarely introduced into the system unless by motivated individuals. Instead, some countries, most notably New Zealand, have integrated restorative justice methods systematically into some of their criminal justice processes. Howard Zehr, of Eastern Mennonite University, is considered the grandfather of the modern restorative justice movement and his work was cited liberally at the conference. Margaret Pfeil, of the University of Notre Dame's theology department and Center for Social Concerns, said the spiritual foundation of restorative justice is the Golden Rule. She referenced Francis' speech before Congress, where he connected the Golden Rule to advocating for the abolition of the death penalty and the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes. But how to build up the restorative justice movement? Pfeil said it's not just about implementing a "set of practices." It's a way of being in the world, one that everyone can adopt. "The restorative path might start with each of us opening our hearts to those on the fringes of society, and to the outer edge of those fringes, which are those in the incarceration system and on death row," Pfeil said. (source: Dani Clark is a writer and editor at an international development organization in Washington, D.C., and a member of the Community of Sant'Egidio----National Catholic Reporter) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Nov 12 15:01:42 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2015 15:01:42 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide----BANG., INDON., ST. KITTS, IRAN, S. ARAB., AUST. Message-ID: Nov. 12 BANGLADESH: Oishee Rahman given death sentence for murder of parents The verdict delivered by Judge Sayed Ahmed of Dhaka's Third Speedy Trial Tribunal found the teenage girl's friend Mizanur Rahman Rony guilty of abetment and handed him a sentence of 2 years' rigorous imprisonment. A fine of Tk 5,000 has also been clamped on Rony, failure to pay which will have him spend another month in jail. The court acquitted Asaduzzaman Jony, another friend of Oishee, who also faced charges of abetment in the crime. Police Inspector Mahfuzur Rahman and his wife Swapna Rahman were found murdered in their apartment in Dhaka in 2013. Police pressed charges against their daughter Oishee Rahman, her 2 friends and house help Khadija Akter Sumi for murders at the couple's residence in the capital's Chamelibagh. The underage house help is being tried before a juvenile court. In its verdict, the court said that Oishee had 'planned the murder well ahead'. "She was in her senses while committing the murder. The defence claimed she was a minor but failed to prove it. She was a drug addict but was normal when she killed her parents," it said. Oishee took shelter at the home of her friend Rony, who was found guilty of abetment on Thursday and given a prison term. "Rony has already spent 19 months in jail since his arrest, which period will be adjusted with his 2 years jail sentence," said Prosecutor Mahabubur Rahman. Meanwhile, defence counsel Faruk Ahmed said that the defence would appeal against the verdict. The case was filed by the slain police officer's brother Mashiur Rahman, who had maintained that his niece was not involved in the killings. He kept to his stance while testifying in court. bdnews24.com reached him on Thursday after the verdict. "I am ill and will speak later," was his response. The bloodstained bodies of the Special Branch inspector and his wife were found in a locked bathroom in their apartment on Aug 16, 2013. The autopsy report said that Rahman and his wife died of stabbing, which appeared to have been inflicted by amateurs. Oishee along with the house help turned herself in at the police station the next day. Her friends Rony and Jony were arrested later. The DNA of Mahfuzur and his wife matched the samples taken from Oishee's bloodstained clothes and ornaments, according to police. According to the police statement, Oishee mixed sleeping pills in the coffee consumed by her parents. As they fell unconscious, she first stabbed her mother and then her father to death. Police had initially come under strong criticism for taking into remand an 'underage' Oishee, whose school documents showed she was below 18. Following an order by the court, an examination was subsequently conducted to determine Oishee's actual age. Oishee was sent to Dhaka Medical College and Hospital for physical examination. Doctors concluded that she was nearly 19 years old and Sumi 11. In March 2014, police submitted the charge sheet in court, according to which Oishee had acted alone in killing her parents. The other 3 were charged with abetment to murder. During interrogation, Oishee confessed to killing her parents with the help of Sumi. But she later pleaded for a retraction of her confession, claiming police had tortured and forced her into making the statement. The trial at a juvenile court of the underage house help Sumi is yet to be concluded. The court indicted the 11-year-old girl in May last year and granted her bail. She was released from the Gazipur juvenile correctional facility in June last year and placed in her mother's custody. (source: bdnews24.com) ************* Roundup: Bangladesh girl gets death penalty for killing parents A Bangladesh court in capital Dhaka sentenced a girl to death on Thursday after convicting her of murder of her parents about 2 years ago. Judge MD Sayeed Ahmed of the Dhaka's Speedy Trial Tribunal-3 said Oishee Rahman, the only daughter of slain inspector of Special Branch (SB) of Bangladesh Police and his wife, was an adult when she killed her parents. He said, "Therefore, there is no way to consider her a minor." "I've no alternative but to give death sentence to a child like girl as as she had committed the per-planned killings in a cool head," said the judge while delivering the judgement. On Aug. 16, 2013, police found the bodies of Special Branch Inspector Mahfuzur Rahman and his wife Swapna Rahman at their flat in Dhaka. In the charge sheet, DB Inspector Abul Khair pointed to Oishee, an O level student, as the murderer of her parents by stabbing them indiscriminately after mixing sleeping pills with their coffee after they tried to stop her from taking drugs. According to the charge sheets, the girl alone killed her parents. The girl's friend Mizanur Rahman Roni was given 2 years of rigorous jail term for giving shelter to her while her another friend Asaduzzaman Johnny was acquitted of the charges. The charge sheet also said the couple had been given seven sedatives mixed in tea or coffee before they were killed. Oishee was reportedly furious with her parents, specially her mother as they did not allow the drug-addict daughter to get out of the house. The medical report also found her mentally unstable as she had been taking the contraband yaba tablets before and during the murder. Defending Oishee at the court, her lawyer Faruk had earlier argued that since the girl was a minor when the murders took place, her trial must be held at a juvenile court instead of a general court, as per the law. In her written statement on Oct. 20 this year, the girl reportedly alleged that police had coerced her to falsely confess to the murder of her parents. Her lawyers say they will move an appeal with the High Court Division of the Supreme Court against the court's verdict. (source: Xinhua News Agency) INDONESIA: Greater Jakarta: Hong Kongers could face death penalty The West Jakarta Prosecutor's Office has said it will indict two Hong Kong men for allegedly attempting to smuggle 49 kilograms of methamphetamine into the country and demand that they be handed the death penalty at a court hearing scheduled for Thursday. The office's head, Reda Mantovai, said on Tuesday that the 2 suspects, Kwok Fu Ho and Ko Chi Yuen alias Acuan, had violated Article 114 of the Narcotics Law. "We will read out our indictment for the 2 suspects on Thursday," he said as quoted by tribunnews.com. The 2 suspects were arrested by the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) in a raid on an apartment in West Jakarta recently. The 2 said they just fulfilled an order to pick up the methamphetamine from a person identified as Andrew, who is still at large. The government has been imposing strict penalties on drug traffickers in what it calls "an emergency call against drugs traffickers". In April, the government executed 2 Australian drug ringleaders, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, despite intense lobbying efforts by the Australian government and international human rights organizations to save their lives. The government plans to continue imposing the death sentence on drug traffickers even though local and international organizations have demanded that the government amend the law. President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said recently that he would not give clemency to anyone found trafficking drugs within the archipelago. (source: The Jakarta Post) ST KITTS-NEVIS: Pressure on St Lucia to abolish death penalty The United Nations Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group has called on St Kitts-Nevis to establish a moratorium on the use of the death penalty with a view to its abolition. The UPR yesterday conducted an examination of St Kitts-Nevis human rights record and called on the twin-island Federation to also "take active measures to abolish corporal punishment of children in all settings". As it did in the case of St Lucia last week, the UPR also called on the Caribbean Community (Caricom) country to adopt legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. It also called on Basseterre to repeal all legislation that may discriminate against LGBTI persons, to decriminalise same-sex relations between consenting adults and to prosecute all perpetrators of sexual and domestic violence. This was the twin-island Federation's 2nd review and the UPR said it was aimed at highlighting human rights developments in the country since its 1st review and provided an opportunity for States under review to spell out steps taken to implement recommendations posed during their 1st reviews. In her presentation to the UPR, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in St Kitts-Nevis, Kaye Bass, noted that the twin-island Federation has not imposed the death penalty for several years and only 3 people have been executed within the last 30 years, and none in almost 7 years; She said Parliament had also passed the Police Complaints Act in 2014, which provided for the receipt, investigation and determination of complaints by the public against the police and for related matters. In July this year, the police unveiled its Crime Action Plan to enhance public safety which stressed crime prevention and intelligence-led policing. She said the government was reviewing criminal justice procedures to reduce the length of detention without trial and aimed to reduce the backlog of criminal cases and that the state was continuing to adopt measures to put an end to corporal punishment. (source: Jamaica Observer) IRAN----executions At Least 5 Prisoners Hanged in 2 Days (East Azerbaijan and Kerman) On Tuesday November 10, 3 prisoners were reportedly hanged at Baft Prison on alleged rape charges. A day earlier, 2 prisoners were reportedly hanged at Tabriz Prison on alleged murder charges. An official report by Kerman's Judicial Department identifies the 3 prisoners from Baft as: E.M., A.A., and N.H. Although Iranian official sources have been silent on the 2 executions carried out in Tabriz, East Azerbaijan, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network identifies the prisoners as: Rahim Ahmadi and Mohammad Ali Moradi. (soure: Iran Human Rights) SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi authorities executing one prisoner every 2 days Saudi Arabia has doubled the number of prisoners they have killed in the last year - 151 in total. The Saudi authorities are currently executing at least 1 prisoner every 2 days. Not only are we seeing an escalation in the number of prisoners executed in Saudi Arabia, the large majority of them are being sentenced to death for non-violent offences and the 'crime' of attending protests. Some, like Ali al-Nimr and Dawoud al-Marhoon, were just children when they were arrested and sentenced to death. "This dramatic spike in executions should be cause for strong condemnation from the Saudis' closest allies, like the UK and the US. The international community and Saudi Arabia's closest allies must call for an end to the tide of senseless killing."----Maya Foa, director of Reprieve???s death penalty team Ali and Dawoud were both convicted on the basis of 'confessions' they signed after being tortured, at secretive trials in which their lawyers were largely blocked from representing them. Reprieve's research has found that the use of torture to extract 'confessions' is widespread in Saudi. Some prisoners on death row had been beaten so badly they had broken bones and teeth. Separate studies by the European-Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) and Amnesty International have found that 2015 saw the Saudi authorities carry out at least 151 executions. Of those, the majority appear to have been convicted for non-violent crimes, including drug offences. The surge indicates that the country is executing at least 1 prisoner every 2 days. Last month, Reprieve research found that, of those identified as awaiting execution in Saudi Arabia, some 72% were convicted for non-violent offences - including attendance at political protests - including juveniles, Ali and Dawoud. Ali Mohammed al-Nimr On 14 February 2012, at the age of 17, Ali was arrested for participating in an anti-governmental protest in the eastern district of Qatif of Saudi Arabia. 2 years later he was sentenced to death by 'crucifixion', based solely on a fabricated statement he was tortured into signing and that was used as an alleged confession. Ali is now facing imminent execution. Dawoud Hussain al-Marhoon A 2nd Saudi juvenile is facing imminent death by beheading for his role in pro-democracy protests. Dawoud al-Marhoon was 17 when he was arrested without a warrant by Saudi security forces in May 2012. He was tortured and made to sign a 'confession' that was later relied on to convict him. (source: reprieve.org.uk) *********** IHR Condemns Execution of 3 Iranians in Saudi Arabia Iran Human Rights condemns the execution of 3 Iranian citizens in Saudi Arabia. They were reportedly beheaded by Saudi authorities on alleged drug charges. According to a statement released by the Saudi Ministry of Interior, the executions were carried out on Monday November 9 in the city of Dammam, capital of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The 3 Iranians have been identified as: Bani Bakhsh, Mohammad Akram Baluch, and Omid Boolideh. "The death penalty is an inhumane punishment and we condemn it for all charges, regardless of where it happens. Based on international human rights laws, the death penalty may only be carried out for the most serious crimes, and drug related offenses are not considered to be among the most serious," says Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson for Iran Human Rights. *************** Sunni Kurd Faces Imminent Execution for His Activism Shahram Ahmadi has been sentenced to death in Iran due to his activism as a Sunni Muslim and a Kurd. Members of ethnic or religious minorities in Iran who engage in criticism of the government are singled out by authorities for particularly harsh treatment, and there is a well-documented history of the Judiciary disproportionately meting out capital punishment to minority activists. "Making speeches, distributing books and pamphlets, or opposing the government are not capital offenses. Unfortunately Judge Moghisseh said that Shahram's first 2 crimes are that he's a Sunni and a Kurd. Therefore he was presumed guilty from the start," a source told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. The source added that Ahmadi's lawyer was planning to deliver a petition to halt the death sentence which has been approved by the Supreme Court and could be carried out imminently. His co-defendants, his younger brother Bahram and his friend Asghar Rahimi, were executed in December 2012. Shahram Ahmadi, 40, was shot and wounded during his arrest by intelligence agents on April 26, 2009, an event that coincided with supreme leader Ali Khamenei's visit to Sanandaj in Kurdistan Province. He was held in solitary confinement for 34 months in the Intelligence Ministry detention center in Sanandaj and Zanjan and then transferred to Evin and Rajaee Shahr Prisons. He was sentenced to death for moharebeh (enmity with God) as a member of a Salafist Sunni opposition group by Judge Moghisseh of Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court on October 9, 2012. Even though the death sentence was initially rejected in August 2015 by Branch 31 of the Supreme Court, it was reinstated by Judge Moghisseh, a judge well known for the harsh sentences he hands down in politically motivated cases, and eventually approved by the Supreme Court. A source told the Campaign that in his youth Ahmadi attended Sunni religious classes in Kurdish mosques with his neighborhood friends and distributed books and CDs to raise awareness about Sunni Islam. "We want a fair trial in front of a jury. If they act according to the law, Shahram will not be condemned to death," the source added. (source for both: Iran Human Rights) ************ Remembering Ehsan Fattahian Authors note: The year 2009 was important and memorable for all Iranian activists both inside and outside. Ehsan's martyrdom in November of that year solidified him as an inspirational figure for Iranians everywhere. I remain inspired by Ehsan's heroic resolve and hope to continue his path for freedom in our country. November 11th marks the anniversary of the execution of Ehsan Fattahian, a Kurdish activist and freedom fighter arrested by the Iranian regime. Ehsan's life was noteworthy, particularly because of his defiance against the Iranian regime, and his dedication to the struggle for the freedom of Kurds and all Iranians. His legacy is significant as a representation of the sacrifices made by those who stand up to this regime and put their ideals and beliefs before their own self preservation. Fattahian was arrested in 2008, for his membership in the Kurdish opposition organization Komala, and was subject to torture and threats while imprisoned. According to Amnesty International, Fattahian was denied access to an attorney during his trial, and sentenced to death for 'waging war against God". He was denied the right to appeal his death sentence, in contravention to international human rights laws, reportedly because he refused to provide a televised confession denouncing his beliefs. Fattahian was executed on November 11, 2009, his body was never returned to his family and was buried secretly in Kermanshah, before the family was notified. Despite the fact that he denied the charges against him, Fattahian should be remembered as a Kurdish militant and activist, who did not hesitate to take up arms to fight for the dignity and freedom of his people. Ehsan represented what the regime in Tehran fears the most: a young person with ideology, courage, and the commitment to stand against the fascist regime in Iran. The story of Ehsan Fattahian is like that of many other Iranian freedom fighters, standing tall and unrepentant in the face tyranny and death. Fattahian remained steadfast until his last days, and maintained not only his dignity, but defiance toward the injustice imposed by the Iranian regime. In one of his last statements he said: I never feared death. Even now, as I feel its odd and honest presence next to me, I still want to smell its aroma and rediscover it. Death has been the most ancient companion of this land. I don't want to talk about death, I want to question the reasons behind it. Today, when punishment is the answer for those who seek freedom and justice, how can one fear his fate? Those of "us" who have been sentenced to death by "them" are only guilty of seeking an opportunity for a better and fair world. Are "they" also aware of their deeds? (source: Hamid Yazdan Panah is an Iranian-American human rights activist and attorney focused on immigration and asylum in the San Francisco Bay Area; Persian2English) AUSTRALIA: Queensland MP calls for the death penalty to be reintroduced for terrorists A QUEENSLAND MP says the government should consider reintroducing the death penalty to deal with terrorists. Moggill MP Dr Christian Rowan used a speech during a debate about Queensland's Counter-Terrorism and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2015 to call for "strong action" against terrorists. "I certainly support the suspension of privileges, including the right to vote or receive social security or other governmental entitlements, if convicted of terrorism-related offences," Dr Rowan told Queensland's parliament last night. "A reintroduced death penalty for certain or specified terrorist acts should also be considered in my view." Dr Rowan is the former president of the Australian Medical Association's Queensland branch and was a specialist in addiction medicine before switching to politics for the Liberal National Party. He also has a Masters degree in Diplomacy. "We need strong action against those people, whether Australian born citizens or otherwise, who follow and promote transnational terrorism," he said in his Remembrance Day speech, reminding the community that although the occasion marked the end of historical battles, there were many diplomatic challenges ahead. "The further evolution of global terrorism and the radicalisation of young Queenslanders and Australians is not only deeply disturbing but also very tragic. "Stopping the spread of extremist agendas and insular ideologies can only be addressed through engaging the disenfranchised, the disaffected and the marginalised from a very young chronological age. "Developing strategies and practical programs to address social, economic and educational disadvantage must be a top priority of successive governments in Queensland." (source: news.com.au) **************** Terrorism death penalty 'not a deterrent' A call to consider reintroducing the death penalty for terrorists would have the adverse affect of more people joining terror groups, a leading civil libertarian has warned. Terry O'Gorman, the president of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, says Queensland MP Christian Rowan's call for capital punishment debate is nothing more than a political stunt as it doesn't deter offenders. "The reality is that there will always be politicians who take an extreme stance not because they believe in it but because they think it will benefit their political profile," Mr O'Gorman told AAP. "(Reintroducing the) death penalty will just run the risk of radicalising even greater numbers because they will be pushed more towards the fascist Islam philosophy that we see exemplified in ISIL and its activities." The Brisbane lawyer said long jail sentences already handed to terrorists were adequate and that introducing the death penalty ran the risk of turning these "thugs" into martyrs. Even conservative Republican governors in the US were changing their stance on the issue because it wasn't a deterrent and can lead to innocent people being killed, he added. Dr Rowan made the extraordinary comments while debating Queensland's Counter-Terrorism and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2015 in parliament on Wednesday night. The Liberal National Party MP said the reintroduction of the death penalty for "certain or specified terrorist acts" should be considered among other penalties. When questioned further on Thursday he said he stood by the remarks, saying there needed to be a debate on the issue across Australia. Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg said he understood people had passionate views on the subject but he didn't agree with his colleague's stance. "It is not the view that is shared by the LNP, but we have no problem if people advocate their view, but it doesn't mean that they're able to have their view get majority support," he said. Queensland abolished the death penalty in 1922, becoming the 1st state in Australia to do so. It was a fact not lost on Health Minister Cameron Dick, who rubbished Dr Rowan's comments. "Almost a century after the Labor government abolished the death penalty in Queensland, we will not be following down the frolic path, the disgraceful path the Member for Moggill has now suggested that it be reintroduced," Mr Dick told parliament on Thursday. (source: 9news.com.au) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Nov 13 11:25:04 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2015 11:25:04 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., N.C., S.C., FLA., OHIO, TENN. Message-ID: Nov. 13 TEXAS: Some changes would improve the death penalty process There is little common ground between those who favor the death penalty and those who want to abolish it. Still, if we assume that only guilty people should be punished and that taxpayers want to save money, the system can be improved. Cost is always an issue. In 1992, The Dallas Morning News calculated that the cost of an average Texas execution was $2.3 million compared to $750,000 for life imprisonment. Since 1992, the costs of lawyers, extra time in jury selection, inmate housing and appeals have risen substantially. Data reported by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice show Tarrant County has had 38 offenders executed since 1976, the 4th-most in the state. Dallas County ranks 2nd with 55 executed, while nearby Parker County has had 2 and Denton County 6. Johnson and Hood Counties have not fulfilled a death penalty sentence since 1976. Some suggestions: -- Videotape all confessions. Many states and the U.S. Department of Justice already require this, but not Texas. According to the Innocence Project, false confessions were a factor in 25 % of convictions overturned after DNA testing. Younger offenders, those who have mental or emotional handicaps, those "under the influence" or faced with law enforcement pressure have all falsely confessed. In the past, videotape would have been costly and cumbersome, but smart phones, tablets and the like have foreclosed any excuses. -- Require regional mental health panels. When the mental state of the accused is an issue, experts are hired by both prosecution and defense. As most capital murder cases involve indigents, taxpayers pay for both sides of the fight. Smaller counties often have no resident experts. Regional, neutral panels nominated by their peers could review the defendant's interview and other evidence, yet only one would testify. While not totally dispositive of other experts, their objective views would carry great credibility. -- Set national standards for scientific testing. I once defended a murder case in Corpus Christi in which the main issue was the defendant's location. The state's expert used cellphone "pings" and tower locations to demonstrate that the defendant was in the wrong spot at the right time. We had an attorney who rattled off scientific terms and numbers that no one understood, resulting in a costly, hung jury and re-trial. Other "science" such as hair microscopy, bite mark analysis and shoe print comparisons have all resulted in errors. Faulty analysis is behind 47 % of wrongful convictions, according to the Innocence Project. -- Have a fair division of costs. To "get away with (capital) murder" in Texas, or at least not be executed, commit your crime in an average or small county. A Texas Tribune study found more than 1/2 (135) of Texas counties have never executed anyone, and 60 % of the death sentences in the past 5 years have originated from 2 % of our counties. The state, not the county, needs to pick up the tab. Without more safeguards, innocent people will inevitably be executed. We can't placate those with extreme positions, but we can cut costs, improve our justice system and enhance our reputation as a state. (source: Opinion; Steve Fischer of Rockport has been Willacy County district attorney, a criminal lawyer and a professor of criminology----Fort Worth Star-Telegram) ************ Jury delivers verdict in death penalty trial A Houston man escaped the death penalty Thursday when jurors opted for a punishment of life without parole. Jurors deliberated more than 12 hours over 3 days before deciding to spare Johnathan "J-Boi" Sanchez in the shooting deaths of 3 people. The same jury convicted the 27-year-old last week of capital murder for killing 3 people and wounding 2 others in a Copperfield-area apartment on the afternoon of Nov. 20, 2013. Sanchez went to an acquaintance's apartment and opened fire, killing Yosselyn Alfaro, who was celebrating her 21st birthday, and Daniel Munoz and Veronica Hernandez, both 17. The 2 survivors, who were also shot in the head, were able to tell police Sanchez was the gunman. The trial, in state District Judge Mark Ellis' court, was the 1st death penalty trial in Harris County this year. (source: Houston Chronicle) CONNECTICUT: Crime and punishment in Connecticut In 2012, Connecticut's Democrat dominated General Assembly abolished capital punishment but carved out an exception for convicted murderers awaiting the death penalty on death row. The carve-out for the 11 death row prisoners was a blatant violation of what used to be called the natural law, a series of political, philosophical and penological assumptions that informs all laws, statutory and constitutional. The abolition should have been applied retroactively to Connecticut prisoners awaiting death, for reasons lucidly stated by Samuel Johnson when he was reporting on debates in the House of Commons. The Nulla poena sine lege doctrine - "where there is no law, there is no transgression" - Mr. Johnson wrote, "is a maxim not only established by universal consent, but in itself evident and undeniable; and it is, Sir, surely no less certain that where there is no transgression, there can be no punishment." By abolishing the death penalty yet leaving the penalty in force for those convicted of capital murder then awaiting punishment on Connecticut's death row, the General Assembly and Mr. Malloy were arranging to execute prisoners in the absence of a law prescribing the death penalty for capital felony. But - where there is no law, there can be no punishment. The carve-out, however, was POLITICALLY necessary. The abolition bill was signed into law only 5 years after a horrific murder in Cheshire, and wounds were still bleeding. Time, the old adage has it, heals all wounds. In the fullness of time - only 5 years after 2 parolees had invaded Dr. William Petit's home, beat the doctor senseless with a baseball bat, forced his wife to withdraw money from a bank account, raped and murdered both his wife and one of his younger daughters and murdered 3 women by setting fire to the house - the General Assembly and Mr. Malloy at long last had achieved their purpose. In due course, the Connecticut Supreme Court vacated the death penalty for the 11 death row inmates - for the wrong reason. The court did not argue that it was a violation of justice itself to execute a capital felon in the absence of a law prescribing the death penalty for felony murder; instead, adopting a sociological pretense, the court arbitrarily ruled that "the death penalty was an outdated tool of justice at odds with today's societal values," a judgement correctly characterized by Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers as "a house of cards, falling under the slightest breath of scrutiny." Those politicians favoring abolition of the death penalty most vigorously - co-chairs of the state's judiciary committee Michael Lawlor, now Mr. Malloy's undersecretary for criminal justice policy and planning, and Andrew McDonald, recently appointed to Connecticut's Supreme Court by Mr. Malloy - argued implausibly that the death penalty had no deterrent value. If the prospect of death is not a deterrent, then NO PUNISHMENT may be regarded as a deterrent; such is the ruling in the court of common sense. Actually, it was the failure to impose capital punishment, a feature designed into Connecticut's rococo death penalty process, that made deterrence less effective. Mr. McDonald has yet to be asked why he did not recuse himself in the death penalty abolition decision. Death penalty abolition is only one of the carrots in Mr. Malloy's penological reform quiver. Mr. Lawlor, also a prosecutor, has constructed a Rube Goldberg penological machine that permits violent criminals such as rapists to earn get-out-of-jail-early credits while in prison. One of his students, a card-carrying member of a violent gang who burned his mattress while in jail, served as a drug mule and assaulted guards and other prisoners, Frankie "The Razor" Resto, acquired an illegal weapon on release - not, one may be sure, at a gun show -- waltzed into an EZMart store in Meriden, and shot and murdered the co-owner of the store AFTER the victim had obligingly turned over his cash register receipts to Mr. Razor. The vicious murderer plea bargained his sentence and, in any case, presently has nothing to fear from Connecticut's repealed capital punishment law - or, for that matter, from Mr. Malloy's penological reforms, which are all carrots and no stick. Michelle Cruz, Connecticut's Victims Advocate at the time, who performed her duties much too conscientiously, was effectively replaced by pro-abolition activist Malloy and his factotums. Mr. Malloy's latest attempt to repeal reality by redefining settled concepts involves proposed legislation that would redefine the parameters of juvenile behavior, and never mind that including convicted criminals up to age 24 in the juvenile law bucket is itself a juvenile attempt to change reality through magic thinking - which has little to do with genuine penological reform. A more comprehensive penological reform would abolish ALL punishments on the grounds that only therapeutic forgiveness deters crime. The Malloy administration is not there yet. (source: Don Pesci; Middletown Press) NORTH CAROLINA: 'Tarboro 3' members reflect on SPLC case, life after death row They were sentenced to die in 1973 for a rape they didn't commit, but found freedom after Morris Dees and the SPLC took on the racially charged North Carolina case. Jesse Walston sounds like many men in their 60s when he speaks. He talks about life in semi-retirement. He talks about spending time with family and friends. When he speaks about his grandchildren, his voice swells with pride. And when he reflects on life, he speaks with the authority that comes only from life experience. But what sets him apart from many men his age is what he has experienced. 4 decades ago, Walston and 2 other men were sentenced to die in North Carolina's gas chamber. The black men were wrongly convicted of raping a white woman in Tarboro, North Carolina. Walston and the others - who became known as the "Tarboro 3" - might have remained in prison awaiting their execution had it not been for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which appealed the case and freed them. "There's no point in feeling bitter about it," said Walston, 65. "You just have to be happy that things turned out the way they did. I don't hold no grudges or no ill feelings for anybody. I'm just glad that the truth came out." But it took time for the truth to come out. Walston and his 2 friends - Vernon Brown and Bobby Hines - spent 2 years in prison before they were freed. Convicted of rape in 1973, they remained steadfast in declaring that they had not raped the woman they had given a ride to a popular late-night hangout after spotting her walking alone at night. They even rejected a plea deal that would have spared them the death penalty. After the story of the Tarboro 3 reached SPLC founder Morris Dees, he took the case. "When I met these men, they were locked up only 30 feet from the gas chamber," Dees said. "I am so proud that the Southern Poverty Law Center was able to free them and give them a 2nd chance at life. I only wish that the racial injustice at the heart of this case was no longer an issue today. Unfortunately, our nation is still grappling with many of the same issues that almost cost the Tarboro 3 their lives." Dees found evidence that wasn't introduced at the trial, winning a new trial. Rather than retry the men, prosecutors agreed to release them from prison if they pleaded "no contest" to reduced charges. They accepted the offer, even though they had earlier refused to plead guilty to rape charges in exchange for a lighter sentence, saying they could not admit to a crime they didn't commit. "When Morris stepped in we felt a little more relaxed and we knew it was just a matter of time that the truth was going to come out because he let us know that he was going to get to the bottom of it," said Walston, who still remains in contact with Dees today. Life after the Tarboro Three Once the case ended and the headlines faded, the Tarboro Three had to resume their lives. Walston was reunited with his wife, daughter and 2-year-old son, who was born just before he went to prison. He was even rehired to the job he held before the ordeal. Today, he's a part-time truck driver and lives in Camp Springs, Maryland, with his wife. A proud father of 6 adult children and grandfather of 10, Walston exudes a content and grateful demeanor. He speaks about summer vacations in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Virginia Beach, Virginia, as well as visits with family - time that he clearly savors. "The whole life after that [case] has been happy," he said. On Labor Day, Walston visited Brown in Tarboro. The 2 men's friendship, which began in high school, has endured over time. "I guess we'll be friends for life," Walston said. The 3rd member of the group, Hines, died in a work-related accident years after the case. 'Looking forward' As for Brown, he found work shortly after being released from prison. He took a job at a factory that created pressboard for use in furniture and worked there for 31 years. At age 64, this father of 3 adult children and grandfather of 7 now works part-time at a rental car company. "I'm so grateful for Mr. Morris Dees," he said. "I'm indebted to him for the rest of my life. I'm just glad everything is behind me. I'm just looking forward." But Brown also admits life is never the same after such an experience. "I'm never going to forget it," he said. "But I'm doing OK." Brown still lives in Tarboro, which keeps him near family and friends. He describes himself as a "homebody" - echoing a comment his mother made in a story published by the SPLC 4 decades ago where she questioned how her son, who "stuck by the house," could have ended up in prison. There are still people who recognize Brown as a member of the Tarboro 3 today, something that's to be expected in a small town of about 11,000 residents. The younger generation, however, seems unaware, he said. Brown just pushes on with life, possibly finding strength and resolve from the memory of the day he was released. "It looked like a whole new world," he said of that day. "The air was sweet - everything!" Despite the decades that have passed, both men recognize that the issues at the center of their case are still relevant today, issues such as the mass incarceration, racial injustice and the death penalty. Walston believes there have been some improvements to the justice system since the case but that there is still more work ahead. Brown is more apt to point out that the justice system doesn't always work equally for everyone. "I hate that it happens to people ... but I know it can happen," he said of people wrongfully convicted. Walston offered one piece of advice for someone in a similar situation as the Tarboro 3. "Never plead guilty to something you're not," he said. "Never." (source: splc.org) SOUTH CAROLINA: Judge sets hearings for defendants in SC church shooting A federal judge has set hearings in the cases of the 2 men facing various charges in the shooting of nine parishioners at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel meets Friday with attorneys representing 21-year-old Joey Meek to discuss the status of his case. Prosecutors allege Meek lied and failed to report all he knew about Dylann Roof's plans for the church shooting. Meek's attorneys want his trial delayed. Roof, also 21, faces 9 counts of murder in state court and dozens of federal charges, including hate crimes. Gergel meets with attorneys in that case on Dec. 1. During a similar hearing last month, the judge urged prosecutors to press for a Justice Department decision on whether the government will seek the death penalty against Roof. (source: Associated Press) FLORIDA: Florida Supreme Court overturns death sentence of former Jabil executive 3 years ago, Patrick A. Evans stood before a judge as he received his sentence for the 2008 murders of his wife and her friend: death. But Evans will now get a 2nd chance. In an opinion released Thursday that cited errors in the testimony of a detective and a prosecutor's remarks during Evans' trial, the Florida Supreme Court overturned his 1st-degree murder convictions and death sentences. They remanded the former Jabil Circuit executive, now 48, to receive a new trial. "The whole thing is disappointing," said William Loughery, the Pinellas-Pasco assistant state attorney involved in the 2011 trial. "These families have to go through this all over again. The person is clearly guilty." Evans was a Jabil vice president, earned a 6-figure salary and lived in a St. Pete Beach waterfront home. His wife, Elizabeth Evans, was a sales director and had a daughter. They did not have children together. They were married for about 3 years when they separated in 2008. Evans, who had been married twice before, filed for divorce, but later dismissed his petition. Elizabeth Evans, 44, later filed for divorce and moved out. She rented a condo at 6080 Gulfport Blvd. S in Gulfport. On Dec. 20, 2008, she was on a date with a co-worker, Gerald Taylor, 43. At her condo later that day, Evans showed up and confronted them inside her bedroom, prosecutors said during his trial. Someone called 911, but hung up. When a dispatcher called back, the call was picked up. Although no one answered, the call recorded Elizabeth as she said "Rick," a name that Evans went by. A man can be heard on the audio ordering them to sit on the bed. At one point, Taylor can be heard ordering the intruder to put the gun down. Moments later, shots were fired. Pinellas sheriff's deputies found Elizabeth and Taylor. Both had been shot in the neck. She died at the scene. He later died at a hospital. The recording was among the strongest pieces of evidence in the case. Shell casings at the scene also matched shells fired from the .40-caliber Glock handgun that Evans owned. Evans was arrested and indicted on 2 counts of 1st-degree murder. A jury convicted him and recommended the death penalty in 2011. The next year, then-Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Richard Luce sentenced him to death, calling the murders "premeditated . . . without any provocation." Luce, now retired, could not be reached for comment. An appeal was filed in October 2012. Cynthia Dodge, an assistant public defender in Polk County who handled the appeal, did not return a reporter's call for comment. 3 justices dissented in the 52-page opinion, but the others questioned Pinellas sheriff's Detective Edward Judy's testimony and several remarks by Loughery, the prosecutor. Judy testified that he believed the voice of the intruder in the 911 call was Evans because he had listened to his jail phone calls several times and was familiar with Evans' voice. But the court ruled that Judy "did not have prior familiarity with Evans or special training in voice recognition." "It's extremely disappointing, a huge waste of taxpayer money," Judy said Thursday. He retired from the Sheriff's Office in 2013. "My opinion is it's still his voice. That doesn't change. I did say it, and I'm saying it again." The Supreme Court also flagged the prosecutor for being too speculative. While cross-examining Evans, Loughery asked if he had hired a private investigator to spy on Taylor. The court ruled that the question was "based on hearsay," and "inadmissible." The court also took issue with other comments, including Loughery failing to explain to the jury that manslaughter is also considered a "heat of passion killing" or his remarks about the defense's theory, at one point saying "that wouldn't even make it on TV" and "only in a world populated by defense attorneys would that be true." Reached by phone Thursday, Loughery said: "As a prosecutor, I don't think it's my duty to acquiesce to absurdities, which is apparently what the court is asking us to do." David Parry, the attorney who represented Evans during the trial, said he was pleased to learn of the court's decision. "There's so many easier ways to do a case where you don't have to degrade the defense and the defendants," he said. "I'm glad that the court was able to look at it." Loughery, who retired this year, said that several people had told him Elizabeth believed Evans had hired an investigator. The jury receives instructions, he added, which would have clarified his statement about heat of passion killings. "That was totally made in good faith," he said of his question to Evans, "and I would ask it again." (source: Tampa Bay Times) OHIO: Prosecutor seeks death penalty for 2013 murder and shooting The man recently arrested for the 2013 murder of a woman and shooting of her boyfriend in Norwood, could face the death penalty if he's convicted. Prosecutor Joe Deters announced Jaleel Smith-Riley was indicted on charges of aggravated murder, murder, felonious assault, attempted murder and aggravated robbery. Police say Smith-Riley shot Porshia Brooks and Aron Martin as they sat in a car on Carthage Avenue on November 16, 2013 during a robbery. According to Deters, Smith Riley ordered Martin to get out of the car. He held Martin at gunpoint and searched him. When he didn't find anything of value to steal, investigators say Smith-Riley shot him in the head. He then reached into the car and shot Brooks. Brooks died from her injuries. Martin survived, but suffered devastating injuries. Recent leads and Crimestoppers tips led police to Smith-Riley and 2 other suspects. 1 of the other suspects is in jail on other charges. The 2nd is dead. Says Deters, "We don't seek the death penalty unless the perpetrator is the worst of the worst and proof is not an issue. Smith-Riley and his case fit both criteria." (source: WKRC news) **************** Warren man could face death penalty A Warren man has been indicted by a Mahoning County grand jury with the possibility for the death penalty. 46-year-old Lance Hundley was charged with aggravated murder with a death penalty specification, attempted murder, felonious assault, and aggravated arson. Hundley's charges are in connection to the killing of 41-year-old Erika Huff. Prosecutors say Hundley attacked Huff at her home on Cleveland Street. Youngstown police say the victim's mother encountered Hundley and assaulted. Police say they believe Hundley set the house on fire to cover the up crime. (source: WFMJ news) TENNESSEE: State not yet decided on death penalty in Jonesborough triple murder case State prosecutors are deciding if they will seek the death penalty in the case of a Jonesborough man accused of killing 3 of his family members. Daniel Henry is charged with 3 counts of 1st degree murder in the deaths of his parents and aunt last month. Henry was back in court Thursday. A judge reset his preliminary hearing date for the 2nd time. We asked District Attorney General Tony Clark if he is seeking the death penalty for Henry. "We've discussed that but we have not made a decision on that. There's a lot of factors that weigh in as far as his mental capacity and other factors, prior criminal history, and all that's being looked at right now, but we've not made a decision yet on the death penalty," Henry said. After the murders, Henry sparked a multi-state manhunt that ended in New Orleans. Clark also tells us they may bring in the officers from New Orleans who took statements from Henry right after his arrest to testify at the preliminary hearing. Though we won't know until the hearing what Henry has told officers, we do know after his arrest he told investigators he threw the gun off a Greene County bridge. Henry's preliminary hearing is now set for December 15. (source: WJHL news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Nov 13 11:30:58 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2015 11:30:58 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----NEB., CALIF., WASH., USA Message-ID: Nov. 13 NEBRASKA: UNK Hosts Death Penalty Forum Nebraska's death penalty continues to be a hot button topic, regardless of what side you're on. Representatives from each side met at UNK Thursday night for a public debate-one side arguing that the capitol punishment system is broken, the other advocating for it to stay. "The death penalty is a lot more expensive than life without parole," said Nebraskans for Alternative To Death Penalty's Matt Maly. "It seems counter- intuitive but with the lengthy appeals process the complex and longer expensive trial, it's a lot more expensive and that's tax payers' money that we worked so hard for." "The cost, you hear about the cost from defendents who plead guilty rather than have the death penalty," said Nebraskans For Death Penalty's Bob Evnan. "And we have a lot of those in the state as well." Nebraska voters will ultimately have the final decision in the general election in November, 2016. (source: nebraska.tv) CALIFORNIA: Testimony begins in death penalty case----Man accused in 2004 double murder in Indio An Indio woman testified Thursday that she watched hysterically for several minutes as her brother bled, gasped for air and then died after being shot multiple times as he sat in his car near her Towne Street apartment 11 years ago. Vicki Loera Castro was the 1st prosecution witness in the trial of Elias Carmona Lopez, charged with 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in the execution-style shooting deaths of Erineo Perez and Martin Garcia on Oct. 10 and Oct. 26, 2004. Both victims were shot several times in the face, authorities said. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Lopez, who faces special circumstance allegations of lying in wait, committing multiple murders and murder in furtherance of a criminal street gang. (source: KESQ news) ************ California's death penalty process upheld----747 people are on death row in California A federal appeals court on Thursday announced it has reversed a lower court's ruling that California's death penalty process was unconstitutional because of systemwide delays. Last year, District Court Judge Cormac J. Carney vacated the 1995 death sentence of Ernest D. Jones, who petitioned the court to determine whether his death sentence was valid. Carney wrote: "Allowing this system to continue to threaten Mr. Jones with the slight possibility of death, almost a generation after he was first sentenced, violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment." Judge Susan P. Graber, who wrote the opinion for the 3-judge appeals panel, said Jones' legal team had asked the court to consider what would be a new constitutional rule in a habeas corpus case (ones that determine whether imprisonment is valid). Most are barred by a 1989 ruling in Teague v. Lane, she wrote. She said the decision was based on the legal maneuvers in the case, not whether the many years death penalty cases take in the system was unconstitutional. "Many agree with petitioner that California's capital punishment system is dysfunctional and that the delay between sentencing and execution in California is extraordinary," she wrote. "But 'the purpose of federal habeas corpus is to ensure that state convictions comply with the federal law in existence at the time the conviction became final, and not to provide a mechanism for the continuing re-examination of final judgments based upon later emerging legal doctrine,'" she added, quoting a 1990 habeas case In California, lawyers can appeal the decision of the appeals court. There are 747 people on death row in California. No one has been executed since 2006. Since 1978, more than 900 people in the state have been sentenced to death row, where inmates spend 23 hours alone in their cells. Of those people, 13 were executed; as of 2014, 94 have died of other causes. Many have been on death row longer than 19 years. Jones was convicted and sentenced to death 20 years ago for raping and killing his girlfriend's mother, Julia Miller, a 50-year-old defense industry accountant. During the trial, Jones was portrayed as the product of a broken home with alcoholic parents. An aunt described his childhood as "a living hell." He grew up in poverty, and his parents used drugs in front of the children and battled violently. His mother beat him and his siblings. He developed a drug habit of his own, which included marijuana and cocaine. The court record indicates Jones spent several years in prison for raping the mother of a previous girlfriend. The California Supreme Court in 2003 upheld the conviction of Jones on 1st-degree murder and rape charges. (source: bigcountryhomepage.com) ***************** Why California's death penalty is back in play A federal appeals court on Thursday reversed a lower court's ruling that found California's death penalty was unconstitutional because of excessive delays. In a unanimous decision, the 3-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals found that the long delays prisoners face on death row do not constitute cruel and unusual punishment. The case centered on a novel constitutional theory that claims death row inmates' sentences have been transformed from one of death to one of "grave uncertainty and torture." The judges wrote in their decision that the theory has "no support" in legal precedent, "nor is it supported by logic." US District Judge Cormac Carney put the new legal theory to the test last year when he called California's system "completely dysfunctional" and ruled that it led to arbitrary executions. "California's death penalty system is so plagued by inordinate and unpredictable delay that the death sentence is actually carried out against only a trivial few of those sentenced to death," Judge Carney wrote in his order. The appeals court said it would not weigh the validity of the claim by a murderer on death row for 2 decades because the lower court had to apply federal law at the time of his conviction and not a novel constitutional rule. Nonetheless, the 3-judge panel agreed that California's capital punishment system is dysfunctional. Prosecutors appealed Carney's ruling in the case of Ernest DeWayne Jones, a Los Angeles man sentenced to die for the 1992 rape and murder of his girlfriend's mother. Mr. Jones said in his appeal that the state didn't provide a fair and timely review of his case and that the conditions on death row constituted torture. His lawyer could appeal Thursday's ruling to a larger panel of the 9th Circuit, reports the Los Angeles Times. California has the largest death-row population in the country, but the state has rarely carried out executions in recent years. Of the more than 900 people who have been sentenced to death since 1978, only 13 have been executed. Yet California has shown signs that it may be getting closer to resuming lethal injections, reports the Washington Post. While the state has not carried out an execution since 2006, the state proposed a new execution protocol last week after a federal judge ordered an overhaul of the state's procedures for lethal injection. (source: Christian Science Monitor) ********************** Hijacked and Hitchhiked: America's schizophrenic attitude to the death penalty There's no room for error in the capital punishment biz. You'd think that alone would inspire the country's distaste for it. Guess again. I've asked my talk radio audiences throughout the years a very simple question: How many people would you allow to be erroneously killed via state-sponsored murder (capital punishment) before you would demand either a moratorium or all-out abolition of the death penalty? Silly me. I thought for sure the answer would be a resounding ZERO! None. Nada. Just the way the question's phrased, surely gives away the answer. Well, to my shock and horror the answers have varied from an inexplicable number (4. 4?!) to no number or amount was too great. The death penalty was critical and necessary and like they say when you make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs. Mistakes happen. No system's perfect. You win some, you lose some. The appellate process is enough to weed out the mistakes and if some slip through the cracks, those are the breaks. Apparently they weren't in school for Blackstone's admonition, "For the law holds, that it is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that 1 innocent suffer." Blackstone, they'd surely posit, was another lily-livered liberal. And, remember, these were God-fearing reasonably good and kind and compassionate folks, usually, but when the subject comes to our American pastime, hard justice, they clung to the idea of the death penalty's criticality with a tenacity that's inexplicable. I'm a lawyer by profession and I've been a prosecutor and I've seen firsthand what the system's like. And if for no other reason than the inefficacy of the determination of guilt, the death process must be stopped. Now. It's meted out haphazardly, it's proved to be in no wise a deterrent and when it's repealed murder rates don't rise and when it's added the don't fall. You will ofttimes hear the quip that it is in fact a deterrent because the executed defendant will be unable to kill again. Let's talk methodology. The means of exacting the punishment have been barbaric and the current illusion of compassion, lethal injection, has suffered a spate of problems including administering the death cocktail in reverse order (resulting in the wide-awake condemned suffocating without the ability to utter a protest). Let me remind the reader that the reason for lethal injection was intended primarily to spare the witnesses having to endure a more efficacious, though messy, means of administering final justice. An overdose of barbiturates would be far more humane (after all, it's the method of choice for dispatching an ailing pet) as would the guillotine, which is problematic to everyone save the condemned. There are a number of attendant problems associated with the American death penalty system that require review. First, let's look at the caliber of trial counsel that's usually afforded and accorded the defendant. In many jurisdictions court-appointed lawyers are provided who are paid by the county, state or local jurisdiction and in too many cases they've not the experience to handle the complexity of the ultimate criminal sanction. It's not beyond the realm of possibility for a lawyer to be handed a case, a lawyer whose main criterion for selection is being friends with the judge. A lawyer who might have never tried a criminal case in his/her life, much less a capital case. In these matters it's beyond critical to file the necessary pretrial motions and preserve the record for the inevitable appeal when the defendant will inevitably be found guilty and inevitably sentenced to death. If you've any question about this, just look at the frequency of ineffective assistance of counsel post-trial and post-conviction motions and appeals. Then there's the issue of investigatory costs. The state has unlimited resources, law enforcement personnel, investigators, forensics experts, name it, at its disposal. The amount allocated for pretrial investigation, not to mention the de minimis legal fees involved, is never enough. Just look what happens when an industrious court-appointed lawyer tries to secure additional funds for an experienced investigator or forensics expert to assist. Good luck. And I haven't even mentioned the hurdles that are encountered when an already-convicted defendant tries to secure release or exoneration when newly-discovered evidence is acquired. But that's for another discussion. And then the issue of guilt itself. Contrary to popular belief, most capital cases don't involve DNA or forensics but eyewitness testimony or the jailhouse snitch. The Judas who'll say anything to anyone to avoid or minimize his or her own criminal fate. And keep in mind; it's hardly rare that the defendant in question is not in possession of a lengthy and most significant criminal history. Defendants are often guilty, but not necessarily of the offense they're charged with. Let me remind the reader that 1st degree murder is the charge that accompanies the death penalty: willful, wanton, malicious, premeditated murder with malice aforethought. Not 2nd degree murder or heat of passion or depraved mind but murder one. The issue of the imposition itself is complicated in its own right because of the factors that may not necessarily involve guilt per se but the frequency of certain demographics being sentenced. To most folks, it's merely about being guilty. Ah, yes. Guilt. Too bad that the chances of Black-on-White murder receiving the jury's recommendation of death are inordinately more likely than any other permutation. In all of criminal law, the most difficult to explain is the notion of the insane being ineligible for guilt. Ineligible because they lack the capacity to form the requisite criminal intent to commit a particular specific intent crime. What does that mean? Mumbo jumbo to many who believe that criminal defendants all too often escape the necessary snare of justice. They feel that the actus reus, the physical act of the crime itself, is all that matters. Did this dirtbag shoot, stab, choke or otherwise kill the victim? If yes, case closed. Next! Criminal intent, mens rea, capacity and/or mental wherewithal mean absolutely nothing. And to be fair, when a jury of ordinary citizens is exposed for the 1st time to the proverbial 8X10 glossies of the mostly mind-blowingly horrible murder scene imaginable, especially when involving a child, the last thing on their mind is mental capacity and culpability. They want justice, better yet; vengeance - and they want it now. And that???s completely understandable, if not unfortunate. That's why the death penalty must be abolished. There's no room for error when a human life is involved, even when that human life took another. And it has nothing to do with whether anyone "deserves" it. Lock away and warehouse those convicted. I in no wise am arguing for the release of the dangerous. What I am advocating is sober reflection and a mature review of this barbaric system. You can't appeal an execution. (source: Op-Ed; Lionel (ne: Michael Wm. Lebron) is an Emmy Award winning trial lawyer----rt.com) WASHINGTON: Washington prosecutors want death-penalty referendum State prosecutors say they'll ask lawmakers to send a death-penalty referendum to voters next year. The Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys issued a statement Thursday saying prosecutors "overwhelmingly believe that the people of the state should vote on the question of whether the state should retain the death penalty as an option in cases of aggravated murder." The death penalty has been on hold in Washington state since last year, when Gov. Jay Inslee issued a moratorium for as long as he's in office. 9 men are now on death row in Washington state. King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg said a public vote would tell prosecutors "1 way or the other" how Washingtonians feel about the death penalty. The impetus for the prosecutors' action, according to an email from Tom McBride, executive secretary of the association, were the jury decisions in the murder cases involving the killings of a Carnation family in 2007 and a Seattle police officer in 2009. In the Carnation case, Michele Anderson is accused of joining her then-boyfriend Joseph McEnroe in killing six members of her family. McEnroe was convicted of participating in the killings and sentenced in May to life in prison after the jury could not agree on the death penalty. In July, Satterberg said his office would not seek the death penalty against Anderson, an announcement made after Christopher Monfort was sentenced to life in prison for killing Officer Timothy Brenton. The lack of pending death-penalty cases provides "a window where we don't have to think through" immediate impacts, McBride said in his email, noting that the group's Thursday statement had almost "unanimous support from elected prosecuting attorneys who both support and oppose the death penalty." Rep. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle, said the prosecutors' statement is a "really important and momentous step forward" in public conversation over the law. But Carlyle, who has sponsored bills to ban the death penalty, said he believes any change should come from the Legislature. There's a lot of complexity surrounding a change in the law, he said, and a public referendum would spur an expensive and difficult campaign. Carlyle added he plans to again sponsor a bill to end the death penalty in the next legislative session, which starts in January. Death-penalty cases in Washington are still being tried and continue to work through the system. Inslee's moratorium means that if a death-penalty case comes to his desk, he will issue a reprieve, which means the inmate would stay in prison rather than face execution. In response to the prosecutors' Thursday statement, Jaime Smith, spokeswoman for Inslee, called the death-penalty debate an important one. She added that "The governor made clear his reasons for enacting a moratorium and his support for a discussion among legislators and the people." Since 1981, most death-penalty sentences in Washington have been overturned and executions rare, according to the prepared remarks of Inslee's 2014 moratorium announcement. "When the majority of death-penalty sentences lead to reversal," Inslee said in the remarks, "the entire system itself must be called into question." The death penalty is allowed in 31 states, as well as by the federal government and the U.S. military, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Since 2009, 5 states - New Mexico, Illinois, Connecticut, Maryland and Nebraska - have abolished it. In a national Gallup poll in October, 61 % of U.S. adults said they favored the death penalty. The number continues a gradual decline in support since a high of 80 % in 1994, according to the poll findings. (source: Seattle Times) ***************** Washington prosecutors want death penalty referendum on ballot next year State prosecutors say they'll ask lawmakers to send a death penalty referendum to voters next year. The Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys issued a statement Thursday saying that prosecutors "overwhelmingly believe that the people of the state should vote on the question of whether the state should retain the death penalty as an option in cases of aggravated murder." The death penalty has been on hold in Washington state since last year, when Gov. Jay Inslee issued a moratorium for as long as he's in office. Currently, 9 men are on death row in Washington state. Death penalty cases in the state are still being tried and continue to work through the system. Inslee's moratorium means that if a death-penalty case comes to his desk, he will issue a reprieve, which means the inmate would stay in prison rather than face execution. The next legislative session begins in January. (source: Associated Press) USA: Why Some Prosecutors Want All-White Juries for Death Penalty Cases----Dahlia Lithwick asks, "What goes on in the heads of prosecutors?" 3 decades ago, the Supreme Court ruled in Batson v. Kentucky that race cannot be a determining factor in the process of jury selection. But because it's so difficult to know what is really motivating prosecutors and defense attorneys to strike potential members of a jury pool, Batson has proven very hard to enforce. Last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Foster v. Chatman, a case in which the paper trail strongly suggests that race was a factor in the dismissal of potential jurors. On the latest Amicus podcast, host Dahlia Lithwick spoke with Stephen Bright, president of the Southern Center for Human Rights and lead counsel for the convicted murderer at the center of Foster. Here's an excerpt from the conversation: Lithwick: Can you just put yourself in the head of a prosecutor for a minute, and explain to me why they are so confident that striking black jurors is a smart initial move, and that it's worth going through the contortions of justifying it later. Why is there such a deep, deep tradition, particularly in the South, of just saying, "We're going to default to all-white juries"? Bright: Well, I think what happened in this case is what happens so often - that people are just not treated as individuals but put in groups. I mean, the prosecutors said at one time, "This woman had the most potential of all the blacks in the jury pool," as opposed to just treating her like one of many people - 50 people - in this pool from which the jury was selected. I think in this case, the prosecutors wanted the death penalty. They argued to the jury to give the death penalty, to deter people in the projects, which were 90 % African-American. It is less likely that that appeal and getting the death penalty - at least the prosecutors figured - if they had African-Americans on the jury. Now I think what Batson teaches is that you just have to accept people, without regard to race. If the jury decides not to impose the death penalty, you have to accept that. But I think when you've got young, ambitious prosecutors - as both these prosecutors were - they want to win at any cost. And if the cost is to strike all the blacks so that you have an all-white jury that's more likely to impose the death penalty, that's what they're going to do. Lithwick: Steve, it strikes me, listening to you talk, that there's such a common thread in so many of the kind of race doctrines we talk about on this show. And the thread is, look, we can't really search your heart. We don't know, at the end of the day, what's going on, but just don't be obvious, right? Don't be ugly about it. We see that in the affirmative action cases. We've seen that in so many strains of constitutional law. It feels like, at the end of the day, the Supreme Court at Batson said, "Just don't be yucky about being racist. If you're going to be racist, just do it quietly." Certainly, it seems that the takeaway of Foster is, if you're going to be racist, don't put it on paper with the green highlighter. It seems like a very, very short-sighted and kind of naive view of how to combat entrenched racial discrimination in this country. Bright: Oh, it certainly is. We've had a lot of attention in the country lately to relationships between law enforcement and communities of color. What there's been too little attention to, in my opinion, is, what happens to those people once they get in the criminal justice system - whether they're accused of a minor crime, or whether accused of a crime that carries the death penalty? There are all these discretionary decisions, from whether to grant bail, what to charge, what plea offer to make - if there's plea bargaining in the case - and 95 % of all cases are resolved with plea bargains and the striking of the jury. You have to remember, 95 % of all prosecutors in this country - the chief prosecutors - are white. So, the criminal justice system does not reflect the society, and the decisions in these cases that have a tremendous effect on communities of color and are really destroying people, families, and communities. These decisions are mostly being made by white people and mostly white men. (source: Dahlia Lithwick, slate.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Nov 13 11:32:06 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2015 11:32:06 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 13 AUSTRALIA: Readers disagree with death penalty for terrorists After Moggill MP Dr Christian Rowan said he believed terrorists should face the death penalty, Sunshine Coast Daily readers have voiced their opinions on the issue. A poll on the Daily website had 52% of people in favour of reintroducing the death penalty for terrorists to 36% against it. Many Facebook commenters disagreed with the death penalty though as they believed it was the easy way out. "That's what they want - to die as Martyrs," Judith Hayes said. "They want to die. I say keep them in a tiny cell with just enough food and water to keep them alive," Zahnn Hopping said. "Death is an easy way out compared with spending your life in prison," Lachlan McKay said. "At the end of the day life imprisonment in some ways is even harsher than death," Karl Valenta said. "And as if this would deter terrorists who are already more than happy to kill themselves," he added. A few thought the death penalty would send a strong message to potential future terrorists. "Totally agree we need to bring back the death penalty and send a message we mean business as in protecting all Australians," Robert Parker said. "Rid them from society. Doesn't matter about deterrent or not, just get rid of them," Tony Crowley said. (source: Sunshine Coast Daily) EGYPT: Irish Teen Who Faces The Death Penalty In Egypt "Witnessed Torture" In Prison----Ibrahim Halawa, who was arrested in 2013 during anti-government protests, said he has witnessed prisoners being forcefully electrocuted. Halawa, a 19-year-old from Dublin, was arrested along with his 2 sisters while participating in anti-government demonstrations in 2013. Halawa was one of hundreds of activists arrested in Ra???abaa Square during the demonstrations, where it is estimated that around 800 people were killed by Egyptian police. He is currently being held in the Wadi Natrun prison - one of Egypt's highest-security jails - awaiting a mass trial with other protesters. His lawyers and human rights organisations have warned that if he is found guilty, he could face the death penalty. During his time there, Halawa has seen prisoners forced to undergo "experimental torture" techniques such as electrocution, his lawyers say. Free Ibrahim Halawa campaign In a statement, the human rights organisation Reprieve said: "A caseworker was told by Ibrahim that some prisoners were being tied naked in a crucifix position in the prison's halls, while others had been electrocuted, using pools of water to increase the pain. "Ibrahim added that he was regularly beaten with rubber bars,and was singled out by one senior guard for particular abuse." Caseworkers have also noted that Halawa's health was deteriorating, in a statement his legal team gave BuzzFeed News earlier this year. "Ibrahim Halawa has been through a horrifying ordeal - arrested and tortured as a child, held in deplorable conditions for over 2 years, and now faced with the threat of a mass death sentence" said Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at Reprieve. "The latest reports of the torture meted out in his prison are deeply shocking - and it's utterly clear that his trial alongside 493 other prisoners has precious little to do with justice. Governments that are closely allied to Egypt - including the UK and Ireland - must urge Sisi's government to release Ibrahim and the many others like him." The statements come following meetings last week between David Cameron and the Egyptian president Abdel Fatah el-Sisi. The visit was met with large protests, with many opposed to the meetings due to Sisi's record on human rights, particularly in relation to the large number of arrests of Muslim Brotherhood activists. Earlier this month, Halawa's sisters appealed to David Cameron to raise their brother's case during the Egyptian president's visit to the UK. Omaima Halawa told BuzzFeed News that her brother's health was deteriorating due to bad conditions inside the prison, and that he was also on a hunger strike to protest against his treatment. "We'd say the only way [the Prime Minister] can justify this meeting is to question Sisi on his human rights abuses, the murders he is responsible for in Egypt. Not just my brother, but also the thousands like him." BuzzFeed News has contacted the Egyptian embassy in London for comment. (source: BuzzFeedNews) AFRICA: Let's kick out the death penalty, now! There is no conclusive evidence that the death penalty deters crime, and countries where the death penalty has been abandoned did not, in general, record a rise in crimes. And again, even the best justice systems have sentenced innocent people to die. On Tuesday, 6 June 1995, over a year after electing the late Nelson Mandela as its President, South Africa ended the use of the death penalty, with a ruling of its constitutional court. The death sentence is a barbaric act Mandela's personal involvement in this outcome has been significant: 5 years earlier, freshly out of prison, he had successfully pressed his predecessor - then President FW De Klerk - to announce a moratorium on executions. At the inauguration of the court 4 months before the ruling, President Mandela had opened his speech with telling words, referring to the 1963-64 trial in which he and his comrades had feared for their lives: "The last time I appeared in court was to hear whether I would be sentenced to death," he had said. For decades, South Africa had executed thousands of its citizens, overwhelmingly among its Black population, earning a top ranking among countries with the highest rates of capital punishment in the world. Announcing the court's decision, Arthur Chaskalson, its president, noted: "Everyone, including the most abominable of human beings, has a right to life, and capital punishment is therefore unconstitutional." Remarkably, each of the court's 11 judges issued a written opinion backing the ruling. With that ruling, the new South Africa stood at a turning point of what was to follow across the continent. It heralded a momentous shift in the use of the death penalty in Africa, as more countries joined the global trend away from it. Once common, the practice was now being abandoned. By 1999, 21 African countries were abolitionists in law or practice. Of those, 10 had abolished capital punishment and 11 had de-facto moratoriums. Today, 20 years since South Africa's ruling, 37 out of 54 countries on the continent are abolitionists in law or practice, according to the International Federation for Human Rights. Among them, 18 have abolished the death penalty, 19 have de-facto moratoriums. Last December, at the United Nations General Assembly, 27 African countries joined 90 others from around the world in voting in favour of a resolution calling for a progressive end to the use of the death penalty. 5 months earlier, in July 2014 in Cotonou, Benin's capital, the continent had adopted a declaration urging countries still imposing it to "consider abolishing the death penalty." The African Union is now considering an additional protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the abolition of the death penalty, a major development that will further put the continent on the footsteps of Mandela, one of its most illustrious sons. Yet, as Africa makes major strides away from the death penalty, worrying developments cloud the horizon. Among them, the continued imposition of mandatory death sentences for some crimes in a handful of countries such as Kenya and Nigeria. Uganda, thankfully, has recently taken steps to repel similar provisions from its criminal code. Another persisting problem is the lack of fair trial guarantees. In March 2014, The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concerns that the hasty judicial process in Somalia, in which there were only nine days between the alleged killings and the executions, deprived the suspects of their rights to legal representation and appeal. More visible in recent months is the resurgence of the death penalty in contexts marked by a significant deterioration of the security climate. Faced with the mounting threat of violent extremism by Boko Haram, Nigeria has joined the list of countries prescribing the death penalty for vaguely defined "terrorist" activities. More strikingly, Egypt has resorted to mass trial. In 2013, a court imposed death sentences on more than 1,000 people in 2 such trials for the alleged killing of a police officer and other violent activities. All these developments point to the need for a stronger advocacy against the use of the death penalty. Across Africa, much like on the global stage, the direction is now clear, but the mobilisation must continue. Leaders should be part of the debate. Civil society actors and academic institutions must join in too. And everyone should know the facts, starting with those that are no longer in dispute. First, there is no conclusive evidence that the death penalty deters crime, as researchers in various countries have shown. Countries where the death penalty has been abandoned did not, in general, record a rise in crimes. Second, and most unfortunately, the death penalty is a most final punishment. Even the best justice systems have sentenced innocent people to die. In the United States 20 persons on death row have been exonerated through DNA testing, according to the Innocence Project, a non-profit legal organisation based in New York. Third of those who end up executed are almost always and everywhere vulnerable because of poverty, minority status or mental disability. These are just some of the many reasons why, at the United Nations, we strongly believe that, as the Secretary-General puts it, "the death penalty has no place in the 21st century." Or, in the simple words of the great Madiba himself: "The death sentence is a barbaric act." It is time to let it go! (source: By Ivan Simonovic, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for human rights; Theafricareport.com) SINGAPORE: Family of Sarawak man Kho Jabing, who is on death row, pleads with Singapore to spare his life The family of Sarawakian Kho Jabing is pleading with Singapore to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment, claiming he is not a bad person. Jabing, 31, who is from Ulu Baram, Sarawak, faces the gallows for killing a Chinese construction worker with a tree branch back in 2008 during a robbery attempt. His mother Lenduk Ak Baling, 54, said that her son was not a bad person and had regretted his actions deeply. "From the time he was born until he was in school he never fought with his friends, teachers or anyone else ... He is not a bad person," she said, sobbing uncontrollably at a press conference to highlight the case on Friday (Nov 13). Ms Lenduk said that she hadn't been able to sleep or eat properly since hearing that her son was going to be executed. Jabing was scheduled to be executed on Nov 6, but received a stay the day before, after his lawyer filed a motion raising points of law about the way the case was handled. The case will be heard by Singapore's Court of Appeal on Nov 23. Jabing's sister Jumai Kho, 27, said that her family was initially shocked to learn that he was involved in the case. "He isn't a bad person... he is loving and always took care of us. I hope Singapore won't give him the death penalty... He is the only brother I have," she said, adding that Jabing was drunk and influenced by his friends when the incident occurred. At the press conference, several activist groups called on Singapore's President Tony Tan Keng Yam to grant clemency to Jabing. We Believe in Second Chances founder Kirsten Han said that the group was troubled that Jabing would be executed for a simple majority decision by the Court of Appeal. "No intent to kill was ever found, nor was a clear sequence of events established. The irreversible nature of the death penalty leaves absolutely no room for error," she said. Jabing was sentenced to death in 2010 but in August 2013, following revisions to Singapore's mandatory death penalty laws, the High Court sentenced him to life and 24 strokes of the cane instead. The prosecution challenged the decision before the Court of Appeal, which again sentenced Jabing to death in a 3-2 majority decision earlier this year. On Oct 19, Dr Tan rejected a clemency petition before a stay of execution by the Court of Appeal. (source: Straits Times) INDONESIA: Indonesian court sentences Hong Kong drug leader to death An Indonesian court sentenced a drug leader from Hong Kong to death on Friday for possession of more than 860 kg of methamphetamines in one of the country's biggest drug busts in years. Indonesian authorities in January arrested Wong Chi Ping and members of his drug syndicate in the capital, Jakarta, after a nearly 3-year investigation. "This was our biggest catch so far in 5 years," said Slamet Pribadi, spokesman for the National Narcotics Agency. "The harsh penalty on drugs will provide a deterrent effect for those who are looking to do such crimes." Wong's lawyers said they would appeal against the sentence. "We hope that our client still has a chance to prove himself," said defence lawyer, Rando Vittoro Hasibuan. "We believe that he doesn't deserve to get the death penalty." Wong was believed to have been the mastermind behind the smuggling of methamphetamines from Hong Kong, on southeast China's coast, to Indonesia, packing the drugs into coffee containers, media reported. After the arrests, police forced Wong and other members of his group to burn 1 trillion rupiah (RM320.9 million) worth of the drugs. President Joko Widodo has declared war on what he has called a "narcotics emergency" since taking office a year ago. He has repeatedly refused clemency to traffickers and more than a dozen drug convicts, most of them foreigners, have been executed this year after a 5-year moratorium on the death penalty was lifted. (source: themalaysianinsider.com) **************** Wong Chi Ping Faces Death Penalty West Jakarta District Court will be sentencing drug dealer Wong Chi Ping along with his 3 associates, Sujardi, Ahmad Salim Wijaya, and Andika for the death penalty today, November 13. "There are 4 trial verdicts for Wong Chi Ping and his associates," Wong Chi Ping's attorney, Hazmin A, said after the hearing in West Jakarta District Court on Thursday, November 12. Wong Chi Ping reportedly had been assisted by Ahmad Salim Wijaya, Surjadi, Syarifudin Nurdin, Tam Siu Luing, Sui Cheuk Fung, Tan See Ting, Cheung Hon Ming and Andika. Those 9 defendants are all charged with capital punishment by the prosecutor. On Wednesday, 5 of Wong Chi Ping's associates had been given a lighter sentence, Cheung Hon Ming with 20 years imprisonment plus Rp 1 billion fine and Syarifuddin with 18 years imprisonment. Tan See Ting, Siu Cheuk and Tam Siu Liung was sentenced to life imprisonment. Last Thursday, the West Jakarta District Court postponed the verdict against Ahmad Salim Wijaya and Andika due to incomplete papers, and will be announced the next day (Friday). 4 defendants including Wong Chi Ping, Sujardi, Ahmad Salim Wijaya and Andika will undergo separate trials on November 13. (source: tempo.co) KUWAIT: Appeals court looks anew into Al-Sadeq mosque blast case - 7 suspects face death penalty The Court of Appeals, presided over by Justice Hani Al-Hamdan, begans proceedings yesterday in the case of the Imam Al-Sadeq Mosque blast, allowing the suspects' lawyers to deliver their defense. On November 5th, the court hearing focused on the civil claimants' pleadings. On October 29, the court heard the testimony of the case's officer in a closed-door-session. On October 25, the Court of Appeals heard the testimony of defendant Abdulrahman Aidan who was sentenced to death by the Criminal Court, where he and other defendants denied their previous confessions. The Criminal Court had sentenced 7 suspects to death, 8 to 2-15 years in prison, but acquitted another 15 suspects. The defendants are accused of spreading terror, committing murder, joining an internationally-banned group that promotes toppling the ruling system with illegitimate means, namely terrorism, thus threatening the country's national unity. The court had held its 1st session on the explosion on August 4th, to look into the cases presented against 7 Kuwaiti defendants, 5 Saudis, 3 Pakistanis, 13 illegal residents and 1 fugitive with unidentified nationality. The Public Prosecution had demanded tough sentences against the defendants, as the prosecution's representative had presented thorough details on the case. They also provided visual evidence on the role of the 29 defendants in the blast, including hiding vital evidence and helping the driver, Abdulrahman Eidan, to escape. The terrorist attack took place on June 26 during the holy month of Ramadan, leaving 26 worshippers dead and 227 others wounded. The blast sparked wide-scale condemnations from Arab, Muslim and other countries which rejected all forms and manifestations of terrorism. (source: Kuwait times) IRAN----executions 4 Prisoners Hanged in Northern Iran on Drug Charges On the morning of Sunday November 8, 4 prisoners were reportedly hanged at Karaj Central Prison on drug related charges. According to close sources, the names of the prisoners are: Kambiz Shahbazi, Iraj Tizmaghz, Mehdi Aflaki, and Cyrus Cheshmeh. According to the human rights group, HRANA, the 4 prisoners were transferred from their prison cells to solitary confinement last Wednesday in preparation for their executions. Their family members were reportedly allowed to visit them for the last time on Friday November 6. Iranian official sources have been silent on these 4 executions. ******************* President Rouhani Defends Executions of Hundreds For Drug Offenses in Iran In an interview with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, President Hassan Rouhani defends Iran's execution of alleged drug offenders. Responding to a question about Iran's large number of executions, Rouhani repeated the answer often given by Iranian authorities: "Most executions in Iran are related to drug trafficking crimes, due to the long and porous border shared with our Afghan neighbour. If we abolish the death penalty, we would make it easier for drugs to be trafficked to European countries, and that would be dangerous for you." The comments were made on Thursday November 12, 2 days before the start of Rouhani's scheduled visit to Italy and France. Iran Human Rights calls on the Italian and French governments to put the dead penalty on top of the agenda during President Rouhani's visit to these countries. "When the president of a country which executes an average of 3 people a day comes to visit, the death penalty must be the main issue of discussion with him. Italy and France are 2 of the world's foremost countries engaged in the abolition of the death penalty, it is expected that Iran's use of the death penalty will be on top of the agenda in their talks with Mr. Rouhani," says Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson of IHR. Iran is the country with the highest rate of executions per capita. According to reports by IHR, more than 830 people have been executed in Iran since the beginning of 2015, the highest number in more than 25 years. The number of executions has increased by more than 30% since Hassan Rouhani became the Iranian President. Most Executions in Iran For Drug Offenses Since 2010 more than 2500 people have been executed for drug offences in Iran. Unlike what Rouhani says, executions have not deterred drug offenses. Official reports indicate that drug problems, including trafficking and addiction, have been on the rise during the past years. Drug offenders often belong to the poor and marginalized groups in Iranian society; and there are many reports of torture, forced confessions, unfair trials and lack of access to lawyer. (source for both: Iran Human Rights) SAUDI ARABIA----executions Saudi Authorities Deny Medical Help for Protester Sentenced to Death as a Child The Saudi authorities are refusing to allow Ali al-Nimr, who was sentenced to death aged 17, access to a doctor, according to his family. Ali was arrested following anti-government protests in 2012, and sentenced to death in a secretive trial on the basis of a "confession" extracted through torture, even though he was a child at the time. However, despite international criticism over the case, the Kingdom's authorities are refusing to allow Ali access to a doctor, and today defended their plans to behead him in the UK's Daily Telegraph. A statement on planned "reforms' provided by King Salman's advisers to the newspaper said that they "cannot understand" calls to stop the execution of Ali and other protesters. The statement comes in the wake of an opinion piece written by the Saudi Ambassador to the UK, in which he criticised the British Government's refusal to provide services to the Saudi prison system due to human rights concerns. Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at international human rights organization Reprieve said: "Despite claims of reforms, the Saudi Government remains unrepentant over plans to execute protesters, many of whom were sentenced to death as children. It is astonishing that they 'cannot understand' why there is such outrage over this issue. Worse still, they are now denying Ali al Nimr - sentenced to 'crucifixion' after severe torture when he was just 17 - access to a doctor. The international community should demand real reform, not smoke and mirror measures to hide these vile abuses." (source: commondreams.org) MALAYSIA: G seeking to abolish mandatory death penalty Attorney-General Tan Sri Apandi Ali said he will propose to the Cabinet that the mandatory death penalty be scrapped, so that judges are given the option to choose between sentencing a person to jail or the gallows. He said mandatory death sentences were a "paradox", as it robbed judges of their discretion to impose sentences on convicted criminals. "If I had my way, I would introduce the option for the judge in cases where it involves capital punishment. Give the option to the judge either to hang him or send him to prison. "Then we're working towards a good administration of criminal justice," Apandi told The Malaysian Insider in an exclusive interview. He said that this would be in line with the "universal thinking" of capital punishment, although he denied calling for the death penalty to be abolished altogether. "Not to say that I am for absolute abolition of capital punishment, but at least we go in stages. We take step by step," he said. A mandatory death sentence is imposed in Malaysia in cases involving murder, certain firearm offences, drug-trafficking and treason. In May, Prisons Department director-general Datuk Seri Zulkifli Omar reportedly said some 1043 prisoners are on death row, with many waiting for the outcome of their appeal to the Federal Court or Pardons Board. He reportedly said 46% of those awaiting their execution were convicted for drug offences. Apandi told The Malaysian Insider that many judges were actually reluctant to pass the death sentence on "mere mules", those assigned to carry drugs for syndicates. "The judges are also hesitant to pass the death sentence on mere mules, the drug trafficker who (is) just earning RM1,000 to feed his family," he said. He said the A-G's Chambers will prepare a memorandum to the Cabinet to scrap mandatory death penalties. If the Cabinet agreed, then it would propose for the relevant laws to be amended. (source: themalaysianinsider.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Nov 13 15:59:02 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2015 15:59:02 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, MO., CALIF., WASH. Message-ID: Nov. 13 TEXAS: Appeals court refuses to stop execution set for next week A federal appeals court has refused to stop next week's scheduled execution of an East Texas man condemned for setting a fire that killed his young daughter and her 2 half-sisters at their home 15 years ago. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late Thursday rejected a petition from an attorney for 36-year-old Raphael Holiday. Austin-based lawyer Gretchen Sween is arguing Holiday's court-appointed attorneys have abandoned him and his lethal injection scheduled for Wednesday should be stopped so new attorneys can be named for him and pursue appeals. Sween said Friday she'll appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Holiday's court-appointed attorneys say his legal issues have been exhausted. Holiday is facing execution for the three fire deaths at the rural Madison County home of his estranged former common-law wife. (source: Associated Press) MISSOURI: Missouri hearing in double killing postponed until next year A Missouri change-of-venue hearing on murder charges linked to a double slaying has been postponed for the suspect already serving life sentences for 6 killings in Illinois. 36-year-old Nicholas Sheley was to have had a hearing Friday in Jefferson County, where he argues he can't get a fair trial on charges related to the deaths of an Arkansas couple during an alleged 2-state killing spree seven years ago. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. But the hearing was pushed back Thursday until Jan. 8. Sheley was extradited to Missouri in February from Illinois. 4 of the people he was convicted of killing were bludgeoned with a hammer and ranged in age from 2 years to 29. The other 2 victims were 65 and 93. (source: Associated press) CALIFORNIA: Proposed death penalty fix may fall short Both friends and foes of the death penalty agree the state???s current system is broken and that voters should do something about it in 2016. Of course, the 2 sides part ways from there. Opponents want it replaced by a life sentence without the possibility of parole, a plan the non-partisan Legislative Analyst's Office has estimated would save the state more than $100 million annually. Proponents want to preserve and fix it with a plan that the LAO has said could save the state "tens of millions" in prison costs annually. That savings would reverse the current phenomenon of death-row inmates costing the state more than those serving life sentences, backers say. State voters have cast ballots in favor of the death penalty three times, most recently in 2012 when 52 % rejected a ban on executions similar to the one being prepared for next year's election. If both sides are succeed in qualifying their measures for the ballot next November, the outcome could be in the hands of the voters in the middle - those more concerned about the practical and financial aspects of the law than whether the death penalty is right or wrong. That's where the plan to resume executions may fall short. Waiting and waiting The state hasn't executed anybody since 2006, when the courts determined the 3-drug lethal injection used could cause "cruel and unusual suffering." Not that the death penalty was working well before then. The bureaucracy of the appeals process, the lack of available defense attorneys and a backlog of cases at the Supreme Court has resulted the state's death row population growing to 747. Since 1978, 87 have died of natural causes or suicide on death row - 6 times as many as have been executed during that period. Death penalty advocates cheered 2 incremental steps this month: the Department of Corrections will proceed with the review process toward replacing the 3-drug cocktail with a single drug and an appeals court made a narrow technical ruling that favors the death penalty. But neither move makes it any clearer if and when executions will resume. District attorneys throughout the state, including Orange County???s Tony Rackauckas and San Bernardino County's Mike Ramos, had already begun pushing for a ballot measure to get executions back on track. The measure, which is awaiting state approval so that signature petitions can be circulated, calls for several key changes: -- Streamlining the process for approving a single-drug injection that would address the 2006 court order. -- Expanding the pool of defense attorneys available to represent death row inmates in their appeals process. It now takes 3 to 5 years for an attorney to be assigned because there are so few. -- Streamlining the appeals process, which takes years to reach the state Supreme Court once attorneys are assigned. -- Eliminate the single-cell housing of death-row inmates. This, along with expediting the appeals process, would account for the projected savings. A remaining obstacle There are currently 18 inmates who've exhausted all appeals and are cleared for death once a suitable form of execution is approved. Ramos estimates there are another 140 who are awaiting their final appeal before the state Supreme Court. The proposed overhaul would get the inmates to this final-appeal stage more quickly, but would do nothing about the growing backlog of cases awaiting the 7 justices on the state's high court. "That's something the California Supreme Court is going to have to deal with," Ramos told me during an Orange County visit this month to raise money for the initiative drive. A 2014 version of the measure proposed a constitutional amendment that would have routed cases to appeals courts rather than the Supreme Court for the final hearing. But proponents failed to gather enough signatures to qualify it. Removing that provision allows the measure to be proposed as a statute rather than a constitutional amendment, meaning it has a lower signature requirement - 366,000 rather than 585,000. "I'll watch this closely," Ramos said, referring to the proposal if it becomes law. "And if it doesn't fix everything, we may have to go back to voters with a constitutional amendment." (source: Orance County Register) WASHINGTON: Prosecutors want vote on death penalty State prosecutors say they'll ask lawmakers to send a death penalty referendum to voters next year. The Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys issued a statement Thursday saying prosecutors "overwhelmingly believe that the people of the state should vote on the question of whether the state should retain the death penalty as an option in cases of aggravated murder." Jim Nagle, Walla Walla County Prosecuting Attorney and an association board member, agrees. "The public needs to advise the Legislature, the courts and the governor what needs to be done with these cases," he wrote today in an email to the Union-Bulletin. Washington voters approved an initiative in 1975, re-establishing the death penalty here. But it's been on hold since last year, when Gov. Jay Inslee issued a moratorium for as long as he's in office. A previous death penalty law was ruled unconstitutional in 1972 by the U.S. Supreme Court. In Thursday's statement, the prosecutors' association said, "Most of the people in the state of Washington today did not participate in the election 40 years ago that established our state as 1 of 31 U.S. states with the death penalty. "The citizens of Nebraska will vote on the repeal or retention of the death penalty in that state next year. Washington State voters should have a similar choice." The association's statement Thursday points out that since the current law was enacted, prosecutors have sought the death penalty in 90 of 268 most heinous murders in which it was a possible sentence. Jurors returned unanimous verdicts of death in 32 of those 90. "The 32 death sentences that have been imposed under the current statute have resulted in the execution of 5 men, 3 of whom were 'volunteers' who instructed their attorneys to not pursue appeals of their convictions," the statement says. Currently, 9 men are on death row in the state. Executions are carried out at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. The last execution was in 2010. Under a previous death penalty law, the last execution of a Walla Walla County defendant was in 1939. Death penalty cases in the state are still being tried and continue to work through the system. Inslee's moratorium means that if a death-penalty case comes to his desk, he will issue a reprieve, which means the inmate would stay in prison rather than face execution. The next legislative session begins in January. (source: Associated Press) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Nov 13 16:00:17 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2015 16:00:17 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide---- Message-ID: Nov. 13 BANGLADESH: A case for clemency If ever there was an appropriate case for judicial leniency or presidential clemency it is in the tragic case of Oishee, recently convicted of murdering her parents and sentenced to death as a result. We are not questioning the verdict nor the honourable judge's decision to impose the sentence that he did. He followed the law and his conscience, and there can be no questions raised about the probity of the process or the soundness of the judgment rendered. However, we feel that Oishee's tender age at the time the murders were committed together with her diminished capacity due to years of drug abuse make her an appropriate candidate for mercy. Whatever else she may be, she is not a hardened criminal with a long record of heartless crime behind her. She was a misguided girl, caught in a cycle of drug dependency and all its attendant ills, who made a catastrophic and unforgiveable moral choice. She has been found guilty of a terrible crime, and she must face punishment for it. However, we feel that for one of her years and record, a lesser punishment than the one served would not be inappropriate. She may have committed a heinous crime, but she is not a lost cause. With appropriate custodial punishment and rehabilitation, she has the potential to make something of her life and atone for her actions, a possibility the death penalty would foreclose. It should be noted that caught in a downward spiral of drug abuse and degradation from a vulnerable age, she never received the treatment, guidance, or support that could have led to a happier path. For all these reasons, we feel that society should not give up on her just yet. Even if she was not a child under the law, she was, without question, at a very young and impressionable age, and to be sentenced to death for a single act committed in her teenage years, that we are sure she will spend her whole life regretting, is a severe punishment indeed. None of this exonerates Oishee for her actions. However, if she were to receive leniency on appeal or, failing that, the president sought to exercise his august powers of clemency in her favour, we think justice would be well served (source: Editorial, Dhaka Tribune) SAUDI ARABIA----execution Saudi carries out 146th execution this year Most Saudi executions are carried out by beheading with a sword. Nabi Baksh, Mohammd Balouh and Omeed Bouledah were executed in the Eastern Saudi port of Dammam, Sabq newspaper said. Hundreds of people have been beheaded in Saudi Arabia on charges of smuggling drugs and a lot of them were Asians. Their cases, according to AFP tallies, bring to 145 the number of foreigners and locals executed in the conservative Islamic kingdom in 2015, compared with 87 in 2014. The last time Riyadh executed over 150 people in a single year was in 1995, when 192 executions were recorded, according to the statement. Rights experts have raised concerns about the fairness of trials in the kingdom. Nearly 1/2 of the 151 executions were for offences that do not meet the threshold of "most serious crimes" which involve intentional killing and for which the death penalty can be imposed under worldwide human rights law, Amnesty said. Deputy Foreign Minister Hassan Ghashghavi said that when the Iranians were originally arrested four years ago, Iran attempted to provide them with legal counsel but were prevented from doing so by Saudi Arabia. Nimr's nephew Ali Mohammed Baqir al-Nimr, and 2 other young Shia activists who were arrested as juveniles after taking part in anti-government rallies, also had their death sentences upheld, Amnesty said. Saudi Arabia also continues to impose death sentences on and execute people below 18 years of age, in violation of the country's obligations under global customary law and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. (source: financialspots.com) FRANCE/IRAN: Le Monde: 40 intellectuals urge France to denounce Iran executions On the eve of the trip to France by the Iranian regime's President Hassan Rouhani, a group of forty intellectuals signed an appeal on Friday published in the French daily Le Monde to denounce the surge in executions in Iran, stressing that no political or economic consideration can justify turning a blind eye to the disastrous state of human rights in Iran. The following is the text of the appeal by the 40 intellectuals which appeared in Le Monde on November 13, 2015: Appeal We are deeply concerned by the situation of human rights in Iran and the increasing number of executions. Amnesty International reported that from January to mid-July 2015, about 694 executions were carried out in Iran. That is the equivalent of more than 3 people per day. The NGO stated that "Iran's staggering execution toll for the 1st half of this year paints a sinister picture of the machinery of the state carrying out premeditated, judicially-sanctioned killings on a mass scale." In the 2 years that the "moderate" Hassan Rouhani has been president in Iran, some 2,000 people, including 57 women, have been executed, some in public, to terrorize the population. According to Ahmed Shaheed, the UN's Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, the country "continues to execute more individuals per capita than any country in the world." Hassan Rouhani has defended the executions by saying that "it is the application of divine commandments or laws adopted by parliament." The Iranian regime has so far executed 120,000 of its opponents, of which 30 % were women. The current Minister of Justice has been designated by human rights organizations as the "Minister of Death" for his involvement in the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in the summer of 1988. Women are the first victims of the misogynist regime in Iran. In the past year dozens of Iranian women have been the target of acid attacks under the pretext of mal-veiling. Freedom of speech and assembly are non-existent and repression of religious and ethnic minorities continues unabated. Rights abuses are enshrined in Iran's Constitution, Penal Code and the Iranian civil law. Punishments handed down include stoning, eye-gouging and amputation of limbs. The international community cannot remain indifferent to these atrocities for which the Iranian people rightly accuse the mullahs' regime of being the godfather of Daech (ISIS, ISIL, IS, Islamic State). No political or commercial considerations can justify turning a blind eye to this situation. Even from the perspective of realpolitik, the long-term interest of our nation would be better protected by staying true to our values and our principles and by partnering with those who seek democracy, respect for human rights and separation of religion and state. Therefore, we invite France and the President of the Republic to show firmness against violations of human rights in Iran in the dealings with that country. List of first signatories: Audrey Alwett (ecrivain), Georges Aperghis (Compositeur), Robert Badinter (ancien Garde des Sceaux), Elisabeth Badinter (Philosophe), Patrick Baudouin (President d'honneur de la FIDH), Brigitte Bellac (auteure scenariste), Pierre Bercis (president des Nouveaux droits de l'Homme), Jose Bove (eurodepute), Jean-Pierre Bequet (ancien depute-maire), Ingrid Betancourt (ex-otage), Herve Bismuth (enseignant-chercheur), Yves Bonnet ( Prefet honoraire, ecrivain), William Bourdon (avocat), Sorj Chalandon (ecrivain), Huguette Chomski Magnis (Secretaire generale, Coordinatrice du Collectif Contre le Terrorisme), Francois Colcombet (ancien depute et magistrat), Erica Dauber-Ziegler (Historienne des arts), Annie Ernaux (ecrivain), Odile Favrat (militante syndicale), Mgr. Jacques Gaillot, Andre Glucksmann (philosophe), Elise Groulx Diggs (Avocate), Elisabeth Helfer-Aubrac (enseignante-officier des Palmes academiques), Renaud Helfer-Aubrac (petit fils du couple Aubrac), Henri Leclerc (President d'honneur de la LDH), Brigitte Lemaine (sociologue et realisatrice), Damarys Maa Marchand (Presidente de la Federation Nationale des Femmes Africaines de France et d'Europe), Andree Michel (directrice honoraire de recherche au CNRS), Jean-Pierre Michel (parlementaire honoraire) Gilbert Mitterrand (Pdt Fondation Danielle Mitterrand - France Libertes), Virginie Molinier (avocate), Maudy Piot (presidente de l'association Femmes pour le Dire, Femmes pour Agir), Alain Piot (Sociologue), Sapho (Chanteuse, ecrivain), Olivier Steiner (ecrivain), Alain Vivien (Ancien ministre), Rama Yade (ancien secretaire d'Etat aux Droits de l'Homme), Jean Ziegler (sociologue, membre du Comite consultatif du Conseil des Droits de l'Homme de l'ONU)... (source: ncr-iran.org) CHINA: China sentences 2 convicts to death for jailbreak A Chinese court on Friday sentenced 2 convicts to death for a jailbreak and for killing a guard. Gao Yulun, 50, was sentenced to death for intentional homicide and breaking out of jail using violence, while Wang Damin, 35, was sentenced to death for breaking out of jail using violence, larceny, causing intentional injury and intentional destruction of property. Wang also was ordered to pay a penalty of 50,000 yuan ($7,840), China.org reported. A 3rd man, Li Haiwei, 29, was sentenced to life imprisonment for intentional homicide and breaking out of jail. Wang and Li said they will appeal to a higher court, while Gao accepted the punishment. The 3 escaped from a jail in Yanshou county, on September 2, 2014, after killing the guard. After the escape, over 15,000 police officers were deployed in the hunt and authorities offered a reward of 150,000 yuan for information leading to their capture. They were captured shortly. (source: Business Standard) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Nov 14 13:19:58 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2015 13:19:58 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, WASH., USA Message-ID: Nov. 14 OHIO: Death penalty possible for 2013 Norwood murder suspect The Hamilton County Prosecutor is seeking the death penalty for the suspect in the 2013 murder a then 20-year-old woman. Jaleel Markeith Smith-Riley, 22, shot Porshia Brooks during a robbery in Norwood in Nov. 2013, Prosecutor Joe Deters said. He was arrested by Norwood police earlier this month and is being held on a $5 million bond at the Hamilton County jail. Deters indicted Smith-Riley on aggravated murder, murder, attempted murder, two counts of felonious assault and aggravated robbery. If convicted of all charges, he faces the death penalty. Aron Martin was also shot in the head that night and survived. Surveillance video released after the shooting showed 3 potential suspects walking towards the scene of the double shooting. Martin called the act senseless. "At what point you just decide OK I'm going out and take someone's life without thinking about OK their loved ones are going to miss them," questioned Martin. Norwood Police Lt. Ronald Murphy says a 2nd suspect is currently incarcerated in an out-of-state jail with pending charges and Murphy says both suspects admitted involvement in the crime. The 3rd suspect in the case is deceased. Police have not released the identities of the other 2 suspects. (source: WXIX news) WASHINGTON: Lewis County's Jonathan Meyer Among Washington Prosecutors Seeking Public Vote on Death Penalty Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer said Friday he agrees with a plan to ask legislators to place a referendum on the death penalty on a 2016 ballot. "It was enacted by the people and the people need to decide whether they want it or not," he said. The Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys issued a statement Thursday saying prosecutors in the state believe voters should weigh in on whether Washington should have the death penalty as a sentencing option in aggravated murder cases. Gov. Jay Inslee enacted a moratorium on the death penalty in 2014. Meyer said he supports the death penalty. While expensive, he said it is the only deterrent left in some cases, citing the 2011 murder of Washington State Reformatory corrections officer Jayme Biendl by Byron Scherf, an inmate serving life in prison. Scherf was sentenced to death in 2013. "I think there definitely is a place for the death penalty in Washington," Meyer said. However, he's not confident the state Legislature will put the measure on a ballot. If they did, he said supporters would have to work hard to raise awareness of the vote to make sure each side has their say. "I have a concern about the vote because of how our voices tend to get lost in King County's," he said. "If it's going to be by popular vote, whoever votes the most will be able to carry the day." (source: The Chronicle) USA: Boston Marathon bombing case to be back in federal court in Dec. The case of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will be back in federal court in Boston next month. US District Judge George A. O'Toole Jr. has scheduled a hearing for Dec. 1 on several motions filed after Tsarnaev was sentenced to death in June. One of the motions is a request by prosecutors to order Tsarnaev to pay restitution to his victims, a largely symbolic gesture given Tsarnaev's lack of assets. Prosecutors have not disclosed the amount they are seeking, but it is expected to be in the millions of dollars. Meanwhile, Tsarnaev's lawyers have asked the judge to extend attorney-client privileges they had with Tsarnaev while he was on trial. Tsarnaev is now being held under tight security measures, and his lawyers argue that tighter restrictions proposed by the US Department of Justice would interfere with attorney client privileges that any prisoner is entitled to, such as the ability to examine work documents with his lawyers. O'Toole has also agreed to hear arguments on Tsarnaev's motion for a new trial. Such a motion is typical in any criminal case - Tsarnaev's lawyers continue to argue that his trial should have been moved outside of Boston - but O'Toole has agreed to hear arguments solely related to a recent Supreme Court decision that may have redefined some of the charges Tsarnaev was convicted of. In a June decision, the Supreme Court struck down certain provisions of a law that called for tougher penalties for the use of a firearm or explosive in a crime of violence, finding that the law is too broad and constitutionally vague. Tsarnaev's lawyers argue that the decision applies to 15 of the charges of which Tsarnaev was convicted. Though Tsarnaev was sentenced to death on separate charges, his lawyers argue that the jury could have been influenced by the 15 charges that were affected by the Supreme Court decision. It was not immediately clear if Tsarnaev will attend the Dec. 1 hearing. Tsarnaev, 22, admitted his role in the Boston Marathon bombing, which killed 3 people and injured more than 260, the fatal shooting of an MIT police officer, and a firefight with police in Watertown. His lawyers argued that Tsarnaev did not deserve the death penalty because he was influenced by his older brother, who was killed during the confrontation in Watertown. Tsarnaev is being held at the federal supermax prison in Colorado while he appeals his death sentence. (source: Boston Globe) ************************ Death Penalty Takes On New Dimension in 2016 Campaign Less than a month before the New Hampshire primary in 1992, Bill Clinton left the campaign trail and tended to a pressing matter. Rickey Ray Rector, a convicted killer, was scheduled to be executed in Arkansas. Mr. Clinton, then the governor, returned to Little Rock and was present in the state when Mr. Rector was put to death, a detour that demonstrated his toughness on crime. Democrats "should no longer feel guilty about protecting the innocent," Mr. Clinton had said at a debate a few days earlier, emphasizing, in general, the need to punish criminals. Nearly a quarter-century later, Mr. Clinton's wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, has taken a strikingly different tone. While stopping short of calling for the death penalty's abolition, she urged a "hard look" at its use, saying it had been applied too frequently, and often in a discriminatory manner. Last week, she said she would "breathe a sigh of relief' if the Supreme Court struck it down. Mrs. Clinton is one of several presidential candidates from both parties who are voicing skepticism about capital punishment, seizing on a growing national ambivalence. The issue has been a source of political pressure, but in a changed way: While Mr. Clinton leaned rightward, playing up his commitment to law and order, Mrs. Clinton is now contending with an expectant left, as well as passionate calls from her 2 Democratic rivals for the death penalty to be repealed outright. Presidential Candidates on the Death Penalty Most candidates support the existence of the death penalty, but many have acknowledged problems or reservations with the current system. "From Bill to Hillary is a remarkable signal of the changed climate surrounding capital punishment," said Austin D. Sarat, a professor of law and political science at Amherst College who has long studied the death penalty. But memories of an earlier political era, when crime was high and Democrats found themselves on the losing side of the issue, remain strong. So do memories of the fate of the party's 1988 nominee, Michael S. Dukakis, a death penalty opponent, whose campaign was damaged by his clinical response in a debate when he was asked if he would favor the death penalty if his wife were raped and murdered. He said he would not. Although public support for the death penalty has waned, 56 % of Americans still support it for people convicted of murder, according to a poll in March by the Pew Research Center. "Have minds been changed somewhat on the death penalty?" Mr. Dukakis, who supports Mrs. Clinton's candidacy, said in an interview this week. "Yeah, I think so. But I don't think coming out against the death penalty will win you points in this election. And it will certainly provoke plenty of criticism from the other side." Mrs. Clinton, for all her reservations, has been willing to move only so far. "Politicians were more comfortable saying 'civil unions' before they were comfortable saying 'gay marriage,'" Mr. Sarat said. "I think that's what you see in the Hillary Clinton kind of approach." The scrutiny of the death penalty is part of a broader look at the wisdom of the country's criminal justice policies, a discussion motivated in part by concerns over how racial minorities are treated. The parties have found common ground in the need for criminal justice changes, with Democrats and Republicans alike speaking of their desire to reduce the country's prison population. The use of the death penalty has changed significantly since Mr. Clinton was weighing the fate of Mr. Rector, who had killed two people, including a police officer, and then shot himself, destroying part of his brain. Jeff Rosenzweig, a lawyer for Mr. Rector, contended that he was "in the vernacular, a zombie," too impaired to grasp the punishment he was about to receive, and that "his execution would be remembered as a disgrace to the state." Mr. Rector, who saved a helping of pecan pie from his last meal so he could eat it later, was put to death by lethal injection, and the next day, Mr. Clinton said he respected death penalty opponents' right to their opinions. "All I ask is that you respect mine," he added, "for I have spent most of my public life worrying about what it would take to give our children a safe place to live again." Last year, only 7 states conducted executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, and the number of people executed, 35, was the lowest in 20 years. In his address to Congress in September, Pope Francis argued for the death penalty's abolition, saying, "Every life is sacred." And last month, the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents more than 45,000 churches and had for decades stood in support of capital punishment, adopted a resolution affirming that "evangelical Christians differ in their beliefs about capital punishment." Proponents of abolishing the death penalty said they believed candidates were freer to express reservations now than in past election cycles. For one thing, they have several pragmatic reasons to cite, including how minorities are treated; the high costs of litigation surrounding death penalty cases; and the large number of death row exonerations, including from DNA evidence. "It's not a litmus test in the same way that it used to be," said Cassandra Stubbs, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Capital Punishment Project. Although the death penalty is an enduring topic for presidential campaigns, the president's actual power to end capital punishment is limited, because a vast majority of executions are carried out at the state level. Only 3 people have been executed by the federal government in the last half-century; the most recent, in 2003, was Louis Jones Jr., who had kidnapped, raped and killed a female soldier. The president could indirectly influence the future of the death penalty, though, through Supreme Court appointments. But in the Democratic primary, Mrs. Clinton's rivals have been eager to use the issue as another way to draw a distinction with her, especially among left-leaning voters who may already have doubts about the depth and purity of Mrs. Clinton's liberalism. Only 40 % of Democrats support the death penalty, according to the Pew survey, and among Democrats who described their political views as liberal, only 29 % were in support of it. Asked about the death penalty last month while campaigning in New Hampshire, Mrs. Clinton said the country needed to be "smarter and more careful" about how it was applied. "I think there are certain egregious cases that still deserve the consideration of the death penalty, but I'd like to see those be very limited and rare, as opposed to what we have seen in some states," she said. The day after Mrs. Clinton's comments, her main opponent for the Democratic nomination, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, drew an implicit contrast by taking to the Senate floor to reaffirm his opposition to the death penalty. He said that the government "should itself not be involved in the murder of other Americans." The 3rd Democratic candidate, former Gov. Martin O'Malley of Maryland, went directly after Mrs. Clinton on the issue. As governor, Mr. O'Malley successfully pushed for the repeal of the death penalty in Maryland, and before he left office, he commuted the sentences of 4 men who had remained on death row because the repeal was not retroactive. In an interview on CNN, Mr. O'Malley said that Mrs. Clinton was "often a bit behind the times" about "what works in terms of public policy." The Republican field has been generally supportive of the death penalty, but not without some reservations. In a recent interview on NBC News's "Meet the Press," former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida described himself as "conflicted" and said the death penalty was "not a deterrent anymore because it's seldom used." A Roman Catholic, he invoked his faith, saying, "It's hard for me as a human being to sign the death warrant, to be honest with you." But he acknowledged that it could provide "closure" for victims' loved ones. During Mr. Bush's time as governor, Florida executed 21 people. His emails show him grappling with the subject, calling it, at one point, "an issue that tears at my heart." But other Republican candidates still take a firm stance in favor of the death penalty. After a woman was beaten and raped while jogging in Central Park in 1989, Donald J. Trump paid for full-page newspaper advertisements that declared in large capital letters: "Bring Back the Death Penalty." (It was reinstated in New York in 1995 - fulfilling a campaign promise by Gov. George E. Pataki, another presidential candidate - but the state's highest court effectively struck it down before anyone was executed.) In an interview this summer, Mr. Trump argued that the death penalty deterred crime. When someone is executed, he pointed out, "you know that person's not going to kill again." (source: New York Times) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Nov 14 13:24:02 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2015 13:24:02 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 14 BANGLADESH: Shudhangshu Murder ---- Coffin procession demands death penalty for killers With the coffin of slain Shudhangshu Boshak, agitating locals brought out a procession in Pabna town yesterday demanding death penalty for his killers. The demonstrators started marching from Pabna Medical College Hospital and paraded the main streets. A protest rally was also held before Pabna Press Club. The speakers sought bringing all the murderers to book for security of the minority communities. People from all the communities irrespective of religions joined the programme, they said Badol Voumik, president of Puja Udjapan Parishad in Pabna. Abdullah Al Hasan, officer-in-charge of Sadar Police Station, told The Daily Star that they were trying to arrest the accused as the family gave them their names. Shudhangshu, 55, a trader of brass-made goods and part-timer of a restaurant, was hacked to death in front of his family Thursday for protesting against drinking near his house. His widow Taposhi Boshak said some 7 men of Monzil, an alleged drinker, entered their house in the town's Radhanagar Rathghar and hacked Shudhangshu. (source: The Daily Star) TAIWAN: Prosecutors seeking death penalty in double murder Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Chen Fu-hsiang, who stands accused of a double murder at a Taipei car park in January, allegedly in a dispute over drug money. The hearing wrapped up at the Taipei District Court on Thursday, with prosecutors arguing that Chen had committed the murder with extreme cruelty by firing his handgun at close range, and that there is little possibility of reforming him. Prosecutors said evidence from surveillance footage showed that Chen shot Tsai Kai-yang and Tsai Tsung-yu late on the night of Jan. 13 before putting their bodies in a car in a parking lot in the Ximending area of Wanhua District. In separate civil lawsuits filed by victims' families, Chen is being sued for a total of NT$38.7 million (US$1.18 million) in compensation. The judge at the Taipei District Court has set Dec. 24 for rulings on both the public prosecution case and the civil lawsuit. After allegedly killing the men and taking money from their car, Chen fled and hid for 14 days before he was arrested on Jan. 24. Prosecutors said the investigation found the slaying was due to disputes over money owed from drug deals that went sour. The slain men, reportedly gang members, had allegedly set up a purchase of narcotics said to be worth NT$4.4 million. Police said that Chen Fu-hsiang was found to be deep in debt - about NT$20 million - because Chinese authorities intercepted a shipment of ketamine that Taiwanese officials linked to Chen Fu-hsiang and his gang. (source: Taipei Times) BAHAMAS: Death Penalty Sought For Brothers Convicted Of Killing Off-Duty Policeman A Supreme Court jury on Friday afternoon convicted 2 brothers standing trial for the murder and armed robbery of an off-duty policeman. After the jury concluded its 2-hour deliberations on 5 weeks' worth of evidence into the December 4, 2014, fatal shooting and accosting of Sgt Wayne Rolle for a $700 Samsung smartphone, prosecutor Uel Johnson informed Justice Ian Winder of the Crown's intent to seek the death penalty for the crimes committed by 26-year-old Dion Bethel and 30-year-old Kevin McKenzie. The 2011 amendment to the Penal Code provides that any murder committed in the course of/or in furtherance of a robbery, rape, kidnapping, terrorist act, or any other felony is punishable by death, with no explicit requirement of an intent to cause death. A felony is defined as any offence which is punishable by at least 3 years' imprisonment. Sgt Rolle was in a vehicle with a female friend on Durham Street off Montrose Avenue when he was shot in the head by 2 armed men. Police were able to recover the stolen smartphone from 19-year-old Kendira Farrington, who testified in court that she had purchased the item for $150 from McKenzie 2 days after the incident. The cellular phone's identification number, found on the battery of most cellphones, matched that of the one purchased by the deceased member of the police's Mobile Unit. Crown prosecutors produced a videotaped interview of McKenzie in police custody acknowledging that he sold the cellphone to Farrington, but at a much later date than alleged by police. Police also produced an alleged confession in which Bethel owned up to his involvement in the robbery and subsequent killing. Both Bethel and McKenzie alleged that the confessions were obtained as a result of severe beatings while in custody and were not given voluntarily. Both denied any involvement in Sgt Rolle???s murder and armed robbery. Monique Gomez and Donna Dorsett-Major represented the brothers, who were remanded to the Department of Correctional Services to await sentencing on January 25. Cordell Frazier prosecuted the case with Mr Johnson. (source: Bahamas Tribune) INDIA: Nitish Katara murder case: Govt wants death for accused? The AAP government is reportedly in the process of moving the Supreme Court to seek death penalty for Vikas, his cousin Vishal Yadav and accomplice Sukhdev Yadav in connection with the Nitish Katara murder case. The legal wing of the Delhi administration is reportedly set to move the apex court to seek death penalties for the 3 convicts. Nitish, son of an Indian Administrative Service officer, was killed by Vikas Yadav, his cousin Vishal Yadav and Sukhdev Pehlwan on the intervening night of February 16 and 17, 2002, after they abducted him from a marriage party in Uttar Pradesh???s Ghaziabad. Both Vikas and Vishal objected to Nitish's alleged relationship with their sister, Bharti Yadav. Recently, the Supreme Court rejected a petition seeking death penalty for Vikas and Vishal Yadav in the Katara murder case. Refusing to call it a case of honour killing, the apex court said that the case does not fall in the rarest of rare category under which death penalty is awarded. An apex court bench of Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar and Justice R. Banumati had said that while it was a murder and could even be pre-meditated, it certainly was not heinous or a matter of honour killing. Nitish's mother Neelam Katara had moved the Supreme Court questioning the Delhi high court order sentencing the duo to 25 and 5 years sentences which are to be run one after the other. She had sought an enhancement of the sentence to death or alternatively imprisonment for whole life. Soon after the ruling, Ms Katara had said: "I respect the court's decision. I will come prepared with more facts next time." Vikas Yadav was given an enhanced 30-year jail term without remission by the Delhi high court, including 25 years for murder and another 5 years for destruction of evidence. Sukhdev Yadav too was awarded an enhanced life sentence by the high court and is undergoing 20 years in jail without remission. In August, the Supreme Court had upheld the conviction of Vikas Yadav and Sukhdev Yadav alias Pehlwan, but issued a notice to the Uttar Pradesh government on the quantum of sentence. (source: The Asian Age) MALDIVES: Maldives budgets for execution chamber to enforce capital punishment Government has included funds in the proposed state budget for next year to establish an execution chamber at the country's main prison to carry out the death penalty. The proposed budget for next year, which is currently being reviewed by the parliament, includes MVR4 million to build an execution chamber. However, the correctional service was not immediately available for comment. Maldives adopted a new regulation last year under which lethal injection would be used to implement the death penalty. However, over mounting pressure from human rights bodies, companies have been refusing to supply the fatal dose to countries still carrying out capital punishment. Home minister Umar Naseer had earlier said the correctional service would be ready to implement the death penalty by the time a death sentence is upheld by the Supreme Court. There are around 10 people on death row at present, but none of whom has exhausted the appeal process thus far. However, the Supreme Court had issued new guidelines last week giving a month-long window for the last chance to appeal death sentences and public lashings backed by High Court. According to the guidelines, if a defendant fails to appeal a High Court verdict in favour of death sentences and public lashing rulings within a 30-day period, the appeal can then only be filed at the Supreme Court by the prosecution. (source: haveeru.com) EGYPT: Egypt executions: Figures show dramatic rise in death sentences and mass trials under presidency of Abdel Fatah al-Sisi----Europe accused of 'turning a blind eye' to repression by the former military chief, as 600 are sentenced to death this year Almost 600 people have been sentenced to death in Egypt since the beginning of last year, according to new figures which also indicate a disturbing rise in the number of executions and use of mass trials under the presidency of Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. The research, published in the wake of the President's 1st official visit to the UK, shows Egypt has passed the death sentence 588 times, with 72 % of cases involving people who attended pro-democracy protests. The figures, produced by the human rights group Reprieve, suggest Egypt's justice system has become considerably more brutal since Mr Sisi's rise to power following the army's overthrow in 2013 of President Mohammed Morsi. The current regime has also executed at least 27 people since the start of 2014, compared with just one execution carried out between 2011 and 2013. At least 15 mass trials have also taken place since March last year, where tens or sometimes hundreds of co-defendants are tried on almost identical charges. Accusing the Egyptian government of employing a policy of "mass incarceration, mass trials and mass death sentences as a tool of political repression', the report cites figures suggesting that around 41,000 people are currently imprisoned for supporting pro-democracy movements. 1 of these is the Irish teenager Ibrahim Halawa, who has been in prison for more than 2 years after being charged with taking part in a banned protest in Cairo in July 2013. His lawyers say he has endured beatings and other mistreatment as he awaits a mass trial scheduled for December involving almost 500 defendants. If convicted, he could face the death penalty. Egypt's widespread crackdown on dissent has resulted in an explosion in the number of people awaiting trial, forcing authorities to adapt Wadi El-Natrun prison near Cairo so "vast swathes of defendants" can be tried and sentenced simultaneously, the report says. During the mass trials, "little or no evidence" is produced against those accused, it adds. "President Sisi has overseen an unprecedented surge in death sentences as part of a wave of repression that should attract condemnation from Egypt's allies," said Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at Reprieve. "Since 2013, many thousands - including journalists, activists and juveniles like Ibrahim Halawa - have been locked up for attending protests. "Police torture is reported all too often, and Kafkaesque 'mass trials' have seen hundreds of death sentences handed down at a time. More than ever, the UK must use its increasingly close relationship with Egypt to urge an end to these terrible abuses - including the release of juveniles like Ibrahim." The Reprieve report also says that during the initial hearings for Mr Halawa's mass trial, the co-defendants were held in 3 soundproof glass cages, meaning they were unable to be heard unless the judge activated a microphone inside. "The defendants never had the chance to speak at their own death penalty trial," it adds. At least 9 of the accused were children at the time of the protest they are charged with attending. Despite the apparent rise in repression, governments such as the UK are increasingly "turning a blind eye" to abuses in Egypt, the report adds, accusing European administrations of adopting a "business as usual" approach to their dealings with Mr Sisi's regime. A Foreign Office spokesman said: "The Government opposes any use of the death penalty as a matter of principle and the human rights minister Baroness Anelay set out this position most recently on 10 October in a statement to mark World Day for Abolition of the Death Penalty." (source: The Independent) SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi protesters slam Sheikh Nimr's death sentence Protesters have taken to the streets in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province to express their anger at the Saudi top court's death verdict against the prominent Shia cleric, Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr. The demonstrators called for Nimr's release in a protest rally in the town of Awamiyah on Thursday, vowing to continue their protests until the verdict is overturned. On October 25, the Saudi court upheld the death sentence issued against the cleric last year. The execution warrant will be sent to Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to be approved and then carried out. The Interior Ministry can carry out the execution without any prior warning if the Saudi king signs the order. Nimr was attacked and arrested in the Qatif region of Eastern Province in July 2012, and has been charged with undermining the kingdom's security, making anti-government speeches, and defending political prisoners. He has denied the accusations. In October 2014, a Saudi court sentenced Sheikh Nimr to death, provoking widespread global condemnations. In a recent letter to United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Zeid al-Hussein, the Islamic Human Rights Commission called for exerting pressure on Riyadh to revoke the death sentence and release the cleric immediately. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has also called on Saudi Arabia to halt Nimr's execution. Peaceful demonstrations erupted in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province in February 2011, with protesters demanding reforms, freedom of expression, the release of political prisoners and an end to widespread discrimination against the people of the oil-rich region. Several people have been killed and many others have been injured or arrested during the demonstrations. International rights bodies, including Amnesty International, have criticized Saudi Arabia for its grim human rights record, arguing that widespread violations continue unabated in the country. (source: PressTV) IRAN: Iranian President claims drugs executions help Europe In a rare public comment on the death penalty since he took office in June 2013, President Hassan Rouhani claimed Iran has hanged hundreds of drug offenders to prevent drug trafficking into Europe. In an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera on the eve of his European visit, Mr Rouhani noted that "most executions refer to illicit drugs trafficking", and warned that "if we abolished the death penalty we would enhance their drug trafficking up to the European countries and that would be dangerous for you". At least 1,000 drug offenders have been hanged since President Rouhani took office, and the rate of drug-related executions has more than doubled this year, with at least than 694 taking place between January and September 2015. Those executed include teenagers like 15 year old Jannat Mir, a schoolboy who was reportedly denied a lawyer before being sentenced to death. Rouhani's visits to Italy and France present an opportunity for Iran to build support for its drug enforcement efforts. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is negotiating a 5-year funding deal for Iranian counter-narcotics operations, and European governments are expected to contribute significant sums. Italy is seen as a likely funder of the UNODC's new programme in Iran having long indicated it favours closer counter-narcotics cooperation, while France remains Europe's most committed funder of Iranian drug police. In August, UK Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond also commented that counter-narcotics was an area that Britain and Iran should now be "ready to discuss". According to the latest report by the UN's Special Rapporteur on Iran, Iranian officials have "pointed to statements about its efforts issued by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to demonstrate international support for its approach." Last month an overwhelming majority of MEPs voted for a resolution in the European Parliament advising EU member states that "the abolition of the death penalty for drug-related offences should be made a precondition for financial assistance, technical assistance, capacity-building and other support for drug enforcement policy". Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at the legal and human rights organisation Reprieve, said: "The suggestion that mass executions are the only way to prevent drug trafficking is as absurd as it is dangerous. It is perfectly possible to address drug trafficking without resorting to a brutal execution campaign that has seen over 700 people - many of them juveniles - hanged this year alone. Executions for non-violent drug offences have doubled in Iran this year - if European governments' statements on human rights are to stand for anything, they must make clear that funding for Iran's next drug enforcement programme is conditional on an immediate end to executions for drug offences." (source: ekklesia.co.uk) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Nov 15 08:16:33 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2015 08:16:33 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----TEXAS, CONN., PENN., GA., OHIO, NEB., ORE., USA Message-ID: Mov. 15 TEXAS: Human, monetary cost-cutting There is little common ground between those who are pro-death penalty, and the abolitionists. If we assume, however, that only guilty people should be punished and that taxpayers want to save money, the system can be improved. Cost is always an issue. In 1992 The Dallas Morning News calculated the costs of an average Texas execution was $2.3 million compared to $750,000 for life imprisonment. Since 1992, the cost of lawyers, extra time in jury selection, inmate housing, and appeals has risen substantially. Nueces County has had 16 executed offenders which ranks as 5th most in the state. San Patricio, Kleberg and Aransas counties have each had 1. Nueces County currently has three offenders on death row, which includes Larry Hatten who has been sitting there since January 1996 for shooting a 5-year-old boy. Neither Hatten, Richard Vasquez, nor John Ramirez, the other area death row offenders, has as of yet, received an execution date. Here are some suggestions: Videotape all confessions. Many states and the U.S. Department of Justice already require this, but not Texas. According to the Innocence Project, false confessions were a factor in 25 percent of convictions overturned by DNA testing. Younger offenders, those who have mental or emotional defects, those "under the influence," or faced with law enforcement pressure, have all falsely confessed. In the past, implementation of videotape would have been costly and cumbersome, but smartphones, tablets and the like have foreclosed any excuses. Regional mental health panels: If you think lawyers are expensive, try hiring a medical expert witness. When the mental state of the accused is an issue, experts are hired by both prosecution and defense. However, as most capital murder cases involve indigents, taxpayers have a dog, or perhaps are the dog, on both sides of the fight. Smaller counties often have no resident experts. Although we may think medical professionals are unbiased, there are lists of experts who always testify for just one side, and their testimony is not contrary to their paycheck. Regional, neutral panels nominated by their peers would be an improvement. They would review the defendant's interview and other evidence, yet only one would testify. While not totally dispositive of other experts, their objective views would carry overwhelming credibility. National standards for scientific testing: A few years ago I defended a murder case in Corpus Christi where the main issue was the defendant's location. The state's expert used cellphone "pings" and tower locations to demonstrate that the defendant was in the wrong spot at the right time. We had an attorney who rattled off scientific terms and numbers that no one understood, resulting in a costly, hung jury and retrial. Other "science" such as hair microscopy, bite mark analysis, and shoe print comparisons, have all resulted in errors. Faulty analysis is behind 47 % of wrongful convictions, according to the Innocence Project. Let's set some standards! Fair division of costs: To "get away with (capital) murder" in Texas or at least not be executed, commit your crime in an average or small county. When I was Willacy County District Attorney I feared capital cases, knowing we couldn't afford them, either in cash or personnel. A Texas Tribune study found more than 1/2 (135) of Texas counties have never executed anyone, and 60 % of the death sentences in the past 5 years have originated from 2 % of our counties. A check of the Texas execution "waiting" list confirms very few small to medium counties pursue the death penalty. The state, not the county, needs to pick up the tab. Without more safeguards, innocent people inevitably will be executed. Each day we are paying for the 60 % of death row inmates who have been there more than 15 years, as well as for 78-year-old Jack Smith, and 10 other inmates who waited more than 30 years. We can't placate those with extreme positions, but we can cut costs, improve our justice system, and enhance our reputation as a state. (source: opinion, Steve Fischer----Corpus Christi Caller-Times) CONNECTICUT: Komisarjevsky lawyer says uncovered police calls should be added to Cheshire case A lawyer for convicted killer Joshua Komisarjevsky is filing to rectify the record in his case after additional police calls from the deadly 2007 home invasion were found in a cabinet by town employees. The calls show police may have tried to stop Komisarjevsky's partner, Steven Hayes, as he drove back from a bank where he had forced Jennifer Hawke-Petit to withdraw money. The motion, filed Friday morning, claims the calls "support the defense's theory at the guilt-innocence phase that the police response in this case was inadequate" and provide evidence of Komisarjevsky's mental state when he was questioned by police. Moira Buckley, Komisarjevsky's attorney, declined to comment Friday and deferred to the motion. Komisarjevsky and Hayes were both convicted of murder and sentenced to death in the 2007 Petit family home invasion. The sentences were handed down before 2012 when the state abolished the death penalty. An August state Supreme Court decision found the death penalty unconstitutional and spared inmates on death row from execution. Thousands of calls recorded on CDs were found by town employees in a cabinet and provided to Buckley in November of last year. In a motion to file a record rectification after the deadline, Buckley writes that going through those calls took months and that some were difficult to understand. A call cited in the motion was from a police dispatcher to a police sergeant and later to other police units to intercept Hayes while driving from a Bank of America to the Petit home. "Despite the explicit instructions given to Sgt. Cote, neither he nor any other police officer stopped or in any way intercepted the Chrysler Pacifica on its way back to 300 Sorghum Mill Drive from the Bank of America," Buckley said in the motion. The calls also include police officers commenting on the demeanor of the 2 men, with 1 officer saying that Hayes "just looked evil" and another calling Komisarjevsky "simple." Komisarjevsky's lawyers argued that it was Hayes that incited the killings. The timeline of events and police actions is important, Buckley wrote, since it also impacts the credibility of police testimony in the case. That, in turn, could change how Komisarjevsky's motives are viewed. "At trial, (Komisarjevsky) did not dispute his involvement in crimes that occurred that day and, in fact, upon his arrest gave a detailed statement to the police admitting his involvement," Buckley wrote. "He did, however, dispute that he was guilty of capital felony, maintaining that he did not intend that anyone be killed." (source: Meriden Record-Journal) PENNSYLVANIA: Death warrant signed in Pennsylvania An execution scheduled for next month will likely not take place, as a moratorium on the death penalty in Pennsylvania remains in effect. The execution of 46 year-old Antayne Robinson in connection with a 1996 murder, has been scheduled for December 18th. The death warrant was signed, not by Governor Tom Wolf, but by Corrections Secretary John Wetzel. "The law specifically says that if it's not signed by the governor, I believe its within 30-days, then the Secretary of Corrections shall schedule it. So that's in essence what I am signing is to schedule the execution," Wetzel said. Governor Wolf has placed executions on hold until a commission studying the death penalty in Pennsylvania issues its findings. In the meantime, Wetzel says he will continue to follow the law and sign execution orders, leaving the rest to the Governor and the courts. (source: WITF news) GEORGIA----impending execution Debate continues whether Marcus Ray Johnson murdered 35-year-old woman Facing just days before his clien's execution, the lawyer for convicted murderer Marcus Ray Johnson is adamant his client did not kill Angela Sizemore 21 years ago. The state and the victim's family say it's past time for justice to be served. On Wednesday the state Parole Board will be asked to decide. If the board does not grant clemency, Johnson is to be executed Thursday at 7 p.m. Brian Kammer, a veteran in post-conviction capital defense, says his client's case is unlike others he has had. "The lack of physical evidence is extremely troubling," said Kammer. "The prosecution compensated for the lack of direct evidence by making extremely inflammatory arguments to the jury." The trial judge noted to the Georgia Supreme Court after the trial that the evidence was "sufficient to sustain the conviction, does not foreclose all doubt respecting the defendant's guilt." But he also wrote a death sentence was appropriate. Former Daugherty County District Attorney Ken Hodges, says claims of Johnson's innocence are "little more than hogwash, unsupported lies just to save his soul." Johnson admitted to police he had sexual relations with Angela Sizemore, a woman he met in an Albany bar just hours before her battered and bloody body was discovered on March 24, 1994. But, he said, she was alive when he left her sitting in a field and crying. However, Hodges says there is no question Johnson did it. "He raped her. He mutilated her body and he killed her. About that I have no doubt," he said. "You'd have to be less than human to do what he did to her." The victim's family agrees with Hodges. "They are grasping at straws," said Sizemore's daughter Katherine Barker, who was 5-years-old when her mother was killed. "There is evidence that puts Johnson at the crime and not just eye witnesses.... I'm not a blood-thirsty person but I do believe my mom deserves justice." Johnson was shooting pool when an inebriated Sizemore walked into a west Albany bar just after midnight that fateful night. They met. They drank. They danced. And after spending a while kissing in a back booth, they left the bar for a nearby field where they had sex. A few hours later, a man walking his dog discovered the 35-year-old woman's battered and bloody body on her SUV, parked miles away beside a retention pond. Kammer said there would have been "substantial amounts of blood" on her killer and not the single drop they found on Johnson's leather jacket. Johnson, now 50, told police he couldn't remember much from those early morning hours because he was drunk. He said he woke up on the front yard of his house after daybreak. In 2011, Johnson came within hours of execution before a Dougherty County judge stopped it to hold a hearing about a box of untested evidence that had been found 17 years after the crime. During that hearing, witness Janice Parsons provided information Johnson's lawyers said suggested someone else could have killed Sizemore. Parsons said her boyfriend and Sizemore were long-time partners in a drug business. She said her boyfriend gave Sizemore $3,000 in cash for a load of marijuana that she had brought from Florida to be sold in Albany. The cash was never recovered. That suggestion angers the victim's daughter. "My mom was a good mom," Baker said. "He's making her out to be this person wheeling and dealing. If it was a drug deal gone bad, who would want to torture my mom? Johnson tortured my mom death." (source: myajc.com) OHIO: Who will be executed last in Ohio? Ohio conducted its most recent execution in January 2014, putting to death Dennis McGuire for the rape and murder of a pregnant woman. The procedure did not go as planned. The state used an untested and untried combination of drugs for the lethal injection. McGuire gasped and snorted, death arriving in almost twice the time expected. The state has been searching for a better mix, something closer to what it used in the past, before drug-makers chose, in effect, not to participate in death sentences. The pursuit has come up short so far. So officials have put off any executions until November 2017 at the earliest. Which leads to the question: Will Ohio ever execute again? State Reps. Nickie Antonio, a Lakewood Democrat, and Niraj Antani, a Miamisburg Republican, argue the answer should be "no." They have joined in legislation that would make Ohio the 20th state to abolish the death penalty (7 taking the step during the past 10 years). Antonio makes many familiar - and persuasive - points about a system broken beyond repair. Antani takes a different approach, offering what he views as a conservative case for repealing the death penalty. He stresses the limits of government and applies heavy doses of skepticism and distrust in weighing what it can achieve. Thus, he looks at the nine Ohio men exonerated while sitting on death row, an average of more than 21 years wrongfully imprisoned, and doubts that government has the capacity to perform at the high level required. As he told the House Judiciary Committee last month, " ... our flawed death penalty system leaves too high of a chance that we may execute an innocent person." There is something utopian about the premise of the death penalty. The punishment is irreversible, and thus, the state presumes that each time it will get the result right. Justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court explored this thinking in a lengthy, informed and illuminating dissent last summer. He concluded that the time has come for the courts to look again at whether the death penalty violates the constitutional ban on "cruel and unusual punishments." Among other things, Breyer finds the death penalty cruel in its lack of reliability, or just what concerns Niraj Antani. Since 2002, the number of exonerations of those on death row has risen to 115, some having spent more than 30 years in prison. The most decisive advance has been DNA testing. Breyer cites research that calculates an error rate of 4 % in capital cases from 1973 to 2004. That puts the state at risk of being in the untenable position of killing an innocent person or committing the act it aims to punish. In 1972, the Supreme Court struck down the death penalty, Justice Potter Stewart famously concurring that "death sentences are cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual." The court reinstated the punishment 4 years later, holding that new procedures, standards and requirements would address the problem of its arbitrary application. Breyer lays out how those good intentions have proved no match for hard realities. The court wanted the death penalty reserved for the "worst of the worst." Instead, death sentences are driven by a range of factors, including racial bias, geography, the quality of defense counsel and political pressures. Still, the tinkering continues. Consider the Ohio task force put together by Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor to recommend ways to improve the death penalty. Its 56 proposals, delivered last year, are mostly sound. They also appear no match for the larger problem. That includes the excessive delays between sentencing and execution. In 1960, the gap was 2 years, then 11 years in 2004 and now close to 18. Might it be narrowed to something closer to 5 decades ago? Breyer frames the dilemma: Accelerate the process, and the risk of a grievous error increases. Allow the current delays, and the punishment loses any chance of a deterrent effect, let alone timely retribution, families and friends of victims waiting decades for the closing event. That helps explain why 30 states either do not have a death penalty or have not had an execution in 8 years. Or perhaps why polls show a majority of Americans prefer the option of life in prison without parole. Justice Breyer sees the shrinking presence of the death penalty as making it more unusual. And he doesn't address the higher cost. It is enough that in 2013, 8 countries conducted more than 10 executions: Yemen, China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan and us. (source: Michael Douglas is the Beacon Journal editorial page editor) NEBRASKA: Death penalty ?petition drive was most successful near Norfolk, site of 2002 murders that put 3 on death row In August, death penalty supporters plunked down the results of their 3-month petition drive a day before the official deadline. It was a bold move calculated to show how strongly voters supported their cause. But it could have come far sooner, according to a World-Herald analysis of petition signatures. Nebraskans for the Death Penalty needed just 30 days to collect the roughly 57,000 valid signatures - 5? % of all registered voters - necessary to put the issue on the ballot. In 2 months, the group amassed twice that amount, enough to put the death penalty repeal on hold. The World-Herald's analysis shows that the biggest successes came in and around Norfolk, the site of the 2002 attempted bank robbery that left 5 Nebraskans dead. 3 of the 10 men on Nebraska's death row were sentenced in that crime. In Norfolk's Madison County, 26 % of registered voters signed. In Pierce County, just 3 miles north of Norfolk, 35 % of registered voters signed - the highest rate in the state. Knox, Antelope, Wayne and Stanton Counties all had above-average turnout rates as well. "That's almost mind-boggling," said Chris Peterson, a spokesman for Nebraskans for the Death Penalty. "There's incredible passion in northeast Nebraska for this issue, and it's understandable why." Peterson said the organization did daily counts to ensure it hit the benchmarks to put the matter up to a vote and to put the law on hold until that election. But it was sometimes difficult to gauge whether a signature would be counted by election officials. If a record didn't include a person's date of birth, or had an address that didn't match a person's voter registration address, Nebraskans for the Death Penalty excluded it from its unofficial tally. The group also had to get 5 percent of registered voters to sign in 38 counties, which was another reason the campaign lasted so long, Peterson said. "We were very conservative," Peterson said. "That's part of why we ended up turning in 166,000 signatures. We wanted to make sure we had a healthy margin of error." The success of the petition drive means voters will decide next November whether to keep the repeal or reinstate the death penalty. All told, the petition effort collected signatures from 92 of Nebraska's 93 counties - skipping only McPherson County, population 500. More than 10 % of registered voters signed a petition in 74 counties. Having a connection to death row crimes didn't always equate to higher participation rates. 2 death row inmates, Raymond Mata and Jeffrey Hessler, were convicted of murders in Scotts Bluff County. Yet just 7 % of registered voters there signed the petitions. Peterson said it was harder to develop an organization there because of its location far from the main offices in Omaha and Lincoln. 3 death row inmates were convicted of crimes in Douglas County, where 10 % of registered voters signed. Peterson said the lower signing rates in the urban counties of Douglas, Lancaster and Sarpy may have been because of the presence there of activists against the death penalty. Dan Parsons, a spokesman for Nebraskans for Public Safety, said it makes sense that signature rates were lower where his volunteers were arguing for the other side of the issue. Polls, he said, show that support for the death penalty falls when other factors are considered. Anecdotally, he said, it appeared that death penalty advocates spent less time in urban areas, as well. Parsons found special meaning in the signature rates for a specific subset of voters: those senators who voted on the repeal in the first place. Not one senator who voted to repeal the death penalty in the final vote flipped to sign the petition. But not all senators who voted against the repeal signed the petition. 11 signed, and 8 did not. "It would not surprise me that some of the senators who were not with us during the debate may be now having s2nd thoughts," Parsons said. The World-Herald reached 5 of the 8 senators who supported the death penalty in the final vote on the matter - whether to override a veto from Gov. Pete Ricketts. None said there was a change of heart. "I just felt like the Legislature had made that statement on the part of the body, and I'm abiding by that," said State Sen. John Stinner of Gering. He added: "Even though I was a loser in this situation, I personally felt like we had all weighed in." State Sen. Jerry Johnson of Wahoo also didn't sign, though he had a simple explanation. "Basically, nobody approached me," he said. If he had seen someone circulating the petition, he would have signed, he said. State Sen. Jim Scheer of Norfolk supported the campaign, even loaning office space for the effort. Scheer said he was confident he signed the petition, but his name did not appear in the records The World-Herald obtained. Elizabeth Theiss-Morse, a political science professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said the success of the petition campaign doesn't necessarily mean smooth sailing for the effort to reinstate the death penalty. The issue will be on the ballot during a presidential election, she said, which means higher turnout - especially among Democrats. At the same time, she said, the death penalty issue isn't necessarily driven by political affiliation. The issue also is fundamentally different from petition drives around the country. In other states, she said, petition drives tend to be successful based almost entirely on how strong funding is. "But this one, it happened quickly. There wasn't this buildup we often have in other states, drawn out and driven by external folks. This struck me as much more, well, people feel strongly about it." While the petition drive was a huge success, she said there's still plenty of time for opponents to get out their message and change minds. The death penalty opposition will be taking the same arguments it made with lawmakers to the general public. Chief among them, she said, is whether a death sentence can even be carried out. "I don't think it's a slam-dunk," Theiss-Morse said. "If the state can't get the drugs they need by the time the election hits, that's going to be a real blow to that side." (source: Omaha World-Herald) OREGON: Death or life in prison for serial killer?----Rogers would waive right to appeal if he got life sentence, attorney says With prosecutors asking that serial killer Dayton Leroy Rogers be sentenced to death for a fourth time, defense attorneys Friday asked jurors to give him life in prison to bring final resolution to a 3-decades-old legal process. Rogers has been sentenced to death 3 times, and each time the sentence has been overturned on various legal grounds. 1 of Oregon's most prolific serial killers, Rogers tortured and killed several women in the 1980s, binding some of them, stabbing them repeatedly and in several cases cutting off their feet or other body parts. Now 62, quiet and balding, the former lawn-mower repairman was dubbed the Molalla Forest Killer because the bodies were discovered in a forest in the small town of Molalla. During Rogers' current sentencing trial in Clackamas County Circuit Court, defense attorney Richard L. Wolf said Rogers would waive his right to an appeal if he got a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. Wolf said sending Rogers to prison for life would give a resolution to victims' families and avoid costs of more legal proceedings. If Rogers is sentenced to death, Wolf said, various appeals could take up another 30 years, cost about $3 million and continue to drag families into court. "We stand before you today not to deny or excuse Mr. Rogers' crimes," Wolf told the jury. "We're asking you ... to stop the endless courtroom proceedings and permit (the families) to finally move forward, rather than seemingly move forward then backward ... stuck in a never-ending cycle of trial and automatic appeal." Wolf said Rogers had only 4 minor infractions during the past 27 years in prison. The possibility he'll be a victim in prison is much greater than that of him victimizing others, Wolf said. Wolf also argued Rogers' traumatic childhood - including sexual and physical abuse - and the brain damage he suffered should be considered as mitigating evidence. Prosecutor Bryan Brock said Rogers should get the death penalty because his acts were heinous and deliberate. He carefully planned his attacks and was driven by sexual gratification from inflicting pain, Brock said. Rogers was a "patient and cunning individual" who lived a double life, Brock said. On one hand, he had a wife, son, owned a house in Woodburn, attended church and ran a successful small business. On the other, he drove to Portland to solicit prostitutes, plied them with alcohol, and took them to remote locations where he tied them up, violently bit them and cut them. Those who resisted were killed and had their feet cut off while still alive, said Brock. He showed the jury a hacksaw recovered from Rogers. "Violence equals pleasure. He cut off their feet for his pleasure," said Brock, adding that Rogers later burned the dead women's clothes in his stove and cleaned out his blood-soaked truck. Brock said Rogers, who has spent most of the past 27 years in prison segregation, was a sexual sadist unfit to live in the general prison population. Rogers was convicted of 6 killings in 1989, and each of 3 juries has sentenced him to death. The state Supreme Court struck down his death sentences in 1992, 2000 and 2012. The first time was to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that invalidated Oregon's death penalty law. In 2000, the Oregon high court ruled that the jury incorrectly considered only the options of death and life in prison with the possibility of parole. There should have been a 3rd choice: life without the chance of parole. In 2012, the justices said jury selection was done improperly and the judge incorrectly allowed evidence of Rogers' gay experiences as a teenager. (source: Associated Press) USA: U.S. death penalties, executions slow as capital punishment is squeezed Capital punishment in the United States has moved into the slow lane, with the number of executions and new death sentences likely to hit lows not seen for more than 20 years. The last 2 executions of the year are set to be carried out next week, with Texas scheduled to put convicted murderer Raphael Holiday to death on Wednesday and Georgia scheduled to execute convicted murderer Marcus Johnson on Thursday. If those lethal injections proceed, there will have been 27 executions in the United States in 2015. That would be the least since 1991, before "a get tough on crime" movement swept the country and led executions to hit 98 in 1999, the highest since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. The death penalty, which is the law in 31 states, has been hit by the left and right in 2015. Court battles and a scramble to secure execution drugs after a sales ban a few years ago imposed by makers, mostly in Europe, have left about 8 states, most notably Texas, Florida and Missouri, as those that conduct executions. In 1999, 20 states put people to death. Last year nationwide, there were 73 new death sentences and that number is set to drop by at least a third this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Oklahoma, one of the most active death penalty states, has put a halt on executions after mistakes in protocols that led to a flawed execution in 2014 and the delivery of the wrong drug to the death chamber this year. The high costs of prosecutions and the option of life in prison without the possibility of parole are also cited as major drivers for the decline. The costs of a death penalty prosecution, with appeals, investigations and other items, can be at least double those of housing an inmate for life and are usually far higher, according to data cited by the Marshall Project, a nonprofit newsgroup that focuses on U.S. criminal justice. DROP IN DEATH SENTENCES Texas and Virginia have instituted changes in the way death penalty cases are taken through courts that have led to decreased prosecutions. Texas, with 530 executions, has put to death more inmates than any other state since the death penalty was reinstated and Virginia has executed the highest percentage of its death row inmates. Those states have instituted reforms in recent years to provide more resources for death penalty defenses and increased their access to evidence. "Both states have changed the way in which indigent capital defense is provided. Counsel makes a huge difference," said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment but whose data is used by both sides in the debate. So far this year, Texas has had three new death penalty convictions and is on track for its lowest number since the penalty was reinstated. Virginia has had no new death sentences. In 1999, Virginia had seven new sentences and Texas 48. Due to the costs, many prosecutors have become more selective about taking capital punishment cases to trial. Death penalty advocate Robert Blecker, a professor at New York Law School, said money should not be a factor. "The death penalty should not be a utilitarian issue in terms of weighing the costs against the benefits, but rather an issue simply of justice, of who deserves it," he said. Next year, voters in conservative Nebraska are set to approve or dismiss a move by Republican lawmakers, who this year made it the 1st Republican-controlled state in more than 40 years to abolish the death penalty. The lawmakers said the state should get out of the death penalty process due to high costs and the unreliability of the government to carry out the process correctly. Another Republican-controlled state, Arkansas, tried to resume executions this year after a 10-year hiatus but has been hit with lawsuits that could take years to settle over its protocols and choice of execution drugs. "The long-term trends both for executions and for new death sentences show the death penalty in decline. There may be from time to time bumps both up and down but the long-term trend is clear," Dunham said. (source: Reuters) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Nov 15 08:17:55 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2015 08:17:55 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide----IRAN, SING., INDON., PAKIS. Message-ID: Nov. 14 IRAN: "Pope Francis should call for a moratorium on Iranian death penalty"----A day before the Pope is due to meet Hassan Rohani, human rights organisations are circulating facts and figures about the excessive use of the death penalty It is a "deadly injustice". The figures on the implementation of the death penalty in Iran "are very worrying indeed", Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam tells Vatican Insider. Amiry-Moghaddam is an Iranian doctor who has lived in Norway for many years and is founder of the Iran Human Rights organisation. The NGO was created by Iranian citizens who sought political asylum abroad but are still in direct contact with the homeland. Hence, President Hassan Rohani's visit to Europe, which includes stops in Italy and the Vatican, is a chance to call for a moratorium on the death penalty. The figures contained in IHR's report titled "Deadly Injustice" are alarming: 648 people were executed in Iran in the 1st semester of 2015, a stark increase compared to 2014, when a total of 753 executions took place in one year and 2013, when 687 executions were carried out in total. "The average number of victims is almost 4 people a day. We are concerned because it's the highest average in the last 21 years and we do not know why Rohani's government promotes executions being carried out at such an intense rate," he explained. Most of the victims (463 out of 648 in 2015) are sentenced to death for drug-related crimes. "But the victims are often the smugglers who are paid pittance, certainly not those who organise the trafficking," Amiry-Moghaddam observed. Drug trafficking and dependency are growing among young people and the authorities are using the death penalty as a deterrent against crime. But the death sentence is not the solution and is not an efficient means of curbing crime. We want the executions to stop." "We believe that the meeting between Rohani and the Pope scheduled for 14 November, could be important" in drawing attention to the principle of respect for life and the inefficiency of a practice such as capital punishment. "Even though the Vatican is not a political power, it has a strong influence in terms of values as well as in symbolic terms. A comment from the Pope could have an impact: we are asking Francis to put the human rights issue on the discussion agenda." "Other states avoid this on account of economic, political and security interests. They avoid it out of convenience. The Pope has the freedom to ask for a moratorium on the death penalty in Iran," he continued. Assessing the standard of respect for human rights in Iran, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam remarked: "Besides the right to life which we mentioned, looking at the freedom of expression, there has been an increase in the number of blogs and the use of social media but there are also recurring waves of repression against journalists." Regarding freedom of conscience, he said: "we have been informed that those who convert from Islam to other religions are under pressure and society is faced with a new problem that is growing: discrimination against religious minorities. Blasphemy is punishable by execution. The system uses Islam to put pressure on the people and deny legitimate rights," he affirmed. But the IHR leader sees a glimmer of hope on the horizon: "Despite these difficulties, the international community has a role to play at the moment and can have a positive impact given the current climate of political and economic openness." This is where the Pope comes in: "Years ago, there was talk of a "dialogue between civilizations" between Iran and the Vatican and this is still possible: a frank, open and constructive dialogue is always useful and fruitful. When there is sincere dialogue, one can speak not just about the positive points but also about critical aspects, with a view to overcoming them," he said with a sense of hope. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam noted that "Pope Francis is popular in Iran, especially among young people. Some months ago, his words against the death penalty went viral and attracted support, particularly given that in the Middle East there are many other religious leaders who call for a more stringent application of it. Francis has created a very positive impression among the Iranian people who appreciate his stance on poverty, care for the environment, dialogue and welcome." (source: Iran Human Righs) SINGAPORE: Man, 41, charged with murder of 75-year-old father A 41-year-old man was charged in court on Sunday (Nov 15) with the murder of his 75-year-old father. Tan Kok Meng is accused of killing his father Tan Ah Hin on Friday (Nov 13) at around 5.22pm in their Bedok North flat. Tan appeared in court this morning wearing a red polo shirt. If convicted, he faces the death penalty. The prosecution has asked for him to be remanded at the medical complex in Changi Prison for 3 weeks for psychiatric evaluation, as he told the investigation officer that he has a history of mental illness. The case will be heard again on Dec 4. Neighbours told reporters that they heard a loud argument in Mandarin coming from 4th-floor unit at Block 416 on Friday evening. A police spokesman said officers found the elderly man lying motionless in his home with head injuries when they arrived, after receiving a call around 5.20pm. He was rushed to Changi General Hospital and was pronounced dead at 6.37pm. (source: Straits Times) INDONESIA: Indonesian court sentences 2 drug smugglers to death Indonesia sentenced 2 men to death Friday for running an worldwide drug syndicate that smuggled 840 kg (1,850 pounds) of methamphetamine into the country. The sentences, however, were lighter than those demanded by public prosecutors Teguh Ananto and Leila Qadria, who last week demanded the death penalty for all syndicate members, including the ring leader, Wong Chi Ping, for violating Article 114, Paragraph 2, of Law No. 35/2009 on narcotics. Wong was believed to have been the mastermind behind the smuggling of methamphetamines from Hong Kong, on southeast China???s coast, to Indonesia, packing the drugs into coffee containers, media reported. A former fisherman, Wong started a fish business in Indonesia and eventually married an Indonesian woman. Judges in the trials concluded that there were no reasons for lenience and both defendants deserved death sentences. "The harsh penalty on drugs will provide a deterrent effect for those who are looking to do such crimes", said Slamet Pribadi, spokesman for the agency, after the West Jakarta District Court delivered its verdict. Wong's lawyers said they would appeal against the sentence. The National Narcotics Agency said it appreciated the judge's decision to send the pair to the firing squad, although it had earlier expressed its disappointment that the other 7 were spared. Widodo has accelerated the death penalty campaign - so far 14 drug convicts have been executed during his presidency, 12 of them foreigners. (source: Rapid News Network) PAKISTAN: Walking the tightrope: Kaniza Bibi among 47 women on death row in Pakistan Kaniza Bibi has been languishing in jail since 1989. According to her relatives, she hasn???t said a word in eight years, since she was admitted to the Punjab Institute of Mental Health (PIMH) in Lahore due to her unstable mental condition. The resident of a small town in Kamlia, a sub-district of Toba Tek Singh, is among 47 women prisoners on death row in Pakistan, which has now made it to the list of the top 3 executioners in the world. Most of these prisoners are accused of murdering family members or husbands. They have been unable to hire lawyers to plead their cases because of extreme poverty, say interior ministry officials and representatives of civil activist groups. And sooner or later, the Punjab Home Department will hang them under the government's National Action Plan, which was formulated in the aftermath of the brutal Army Public School massacre in Peshawar on December 16 last year. "Kaniza Bibi recognised me but could not speak or hear me. Police not only harassed her, but also brutally tortured her in jail," alleges Kaniza's cousin, 25-year-old Parveen Bibi, while speaking to The Express Tribune. Parveen says her mother told her Kaniza was arrested in 1989, before Parveen was born. Kaniza was sentenced to death for murder under Section 302/34 of the Pakistan Penal Code. Not a single member of Kaniza's immediate family is alive, adds Parveen, claiming that jail authorities issued Kaniza's black warrant despite her long history of mental illness. She recalls the time when the President of Pakistan at the time, Pervez Musharraf, rejected Kaniza's plea for mercy. She says the entire village mourned the decision at the time. Around 50 other women had filed for mercy according to the villagers, says Parveen, but none of them were granted clemency. "She (Kaniza) has always maintained her innocence," says another cousin, 29-year-old Muhammad Munawar, who met Kaniza just before Eid. "Kaniza is almost dead now. Doctors say she suffers from severe schizophrenia." Framed? Kaniza was working at one Khan Muhammad???s residence in Kamila as a housemaid when her employer was accused of killing his entire family because he wanted to marry a girl from the same town, Munawar quoted the police as saying. According to the police statement, Khan allegedly killed his 5 children and his pregnant wife before running away, says Munawar. The police later arrested both Kaniza and Khan. Khan was executed in 2003, while Kaniza, who was sentenced to death for being an accomplice, still maintains her innocence, adds Munawar. Another relative of Kaniza, however, claims the real killers of Khan Muhammad's family were Mohammad Habib and Allah Yar, who both died of natural causes soon after the brutal murders. Kaniza's cousin Muhammad Akram, 47, claims Allah Yar had a family dispute with Khan Muhammad and ultimately managed to send him to jail. Akram also alleges that Allah Yar, who was a landlord in the area, was involved in the murder of 2 other villagers. "Khan Muhammad was innocent. No one can kill their own family members," he says. Other relatives of Kaniza are also of the opinion that both she and Khan Muhammad were framed for murders they did not commit. They say Mohammad Habib and Allah Yar were initially arrested for the offence but managed to obtain their release by bribing the local police and then filing a false police report implicating Khan Muhammad and Kaniza. The police, on the other hand, say there is no record of the case at the Kamila Police Station. Wishing to remain anonymous, police officers on duty said that since the case is 2 1/2 decades old, the file has perhaps been closed and the case gone to superior court. When approached, family members of Mohammad Habib and Allah Yar refused to comment, saying the case has been closed now. Forced confession? One of the counsels for Kaniza, Justice Project Pakistan's Namra Gilani says her client's mental health is deteriorating with each passing day. She adds they are also planning to move a petition to incumbent President Mamnoon Hussain to review the case. Gilani says Kaniza's health worsened after she was sentenced to death. Jail authorities and paramedics, too, are concerned about Kaniza, she says. "I visited her as her counsel but she is too ill and unable to record her statement. A fresh PIMH report prepared by a medical board also states Kaniza cannot be executed due to her poor mental condition." Kaniza's diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia has been confirmed by successive medical boards, claims Gilani. In the report sent to the superintendent of Kot Lakhpat Jail, the PIMH wrote that the patient has lost her ability to understand what is going on around her and is even unable to feed and clothe herself. The medical report also confirmed that Kaniza hasn't spoken a word in the last 8 years, says Gilani. Kaniza's extended family claims she was tortured while in custody to extract a confession. They say she was tortured so brutally at one stage that she had to be admitted to a hospital. Although Kaniza initially challenged the confession, saying it was involuntary, the court relied on it while handing the death sentence to her and Khan Muhammad. International concern Another woman prisoner on death row is Aasia Bibi, a Christian accused of blasphemy in 2009 and sentenced to death by a district court judge the following year. Her case has garnered a lot of international attention, with many rights groups flaying Pakistan's government for failing to protect minorities. The Supreme Court of Pakistan has now decided to hear the appeal of her high-profile case after the Lahore High Court upheld her death sentence last year. Other cases of female inmates on death row are also pending in the Supreme Court. Unlike Aasia, these women have no legal assistance, with no one pleading their cases. Gilani said these women would have won their cases had someone been representing them. "Pakistan's return to using the death penalty, an inherently cruel and irrevocable form of punishment, has been a tragic setback for human rights in the country," says Andrew Stroehlein, European Media Director of the Human Rights Watch. Amnesty International's Press Officer Asia/Pacific, Olof Blomqvist stresses that the government should impose a moratorium on the death penalty with a view to eventually abolish it completely. "Pakistan has gone from being a country that showed real progress on abolishing capital punishment to this year, becoming one the world's top 3 executioners - a shameful club no one should aspire to join." Research Director at Death Penalty Worldwide of the International Human Rights Clinic, Cornell University Law School, Delphine Lourtau fears the death penalty is being used against women as part of gender-based violence. "Many women are sentenced to death after being found guilty of killing a close family member, often their spouse, in a context of physical and emotional abuse. Only rarely, however, do courts recognise gender-based violence as a circumstance that should lead to lighter sentencing. Moreover, women facing the death penalty are often abandoned by their families and, having no wealth of their own in many cases, find themselves without resources and support required to ensure that they receive a fair trial," she says. The government, however, is adamant the death penalty is the only deterrent in the country. "Both, lifting the moratorium and quick executions, are the need of the hour. We are waging a war against militants who are killing our soldiers, our children, our leaders," stresses Minister of State for Interior Balighur Rehman. "Hangings have not only discouraged militants, but also remain a source for boosting the morale of our forces. We understand the concern of rights groups, but we believe that in war, execution is the right punishment for terrorists," he said in response to questions from lawmakers in Parliament recently. Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Zohra Yusuf says they have taken the issue up with the Ministry of Interior. "But no one has listened to us. There are only a few prisoners involved in terror-related incidents who have been hanged. Deterrence is very low. We have even protested across the country. Bring the official moratorium back, if abolishment is not possible" she urges, adding Pakistan should review the cases of individuals for lesser executions. "We wrote to the Ministry of Interior but their response is still awaited." The representative for Human Rights Watch in Pakistan, Saroop Ijaz, concurs with Yusuf's argument. He, too, thinks very few of those involved in terror attacks have been hanged. "It is a new low. Instead of making its citizens safer by reforming the criminal justice system to ensure prosecution and conviction of those involved in terrorist attacks, the Pakistan government went on a killing spree after the horrific Peshawar [Army Public School] attack. Only a small percentage of those executed were convicted of offences related to terrorism. And amongst those executed were juveniles and people with disabilities. The Pakistan government needs to reinstate the moratorium on the death penalty and devise and implement legislative and policy measures." (source: The Express Tribune) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Nov 16 09:27:42 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2015 09:27:42 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., KAN., CALIF., WASH., USA Message-ID: Nov. 16 ALABAMA: 2013 capital murder to begin today The capital murder case of a man accused of killing a former Deshler High School volunteer coach during Thanksgiving 2013 is scheduled to begin today. Court officials said jury selection in the capital murder case of Jeremy Williams will begin at 8:30 a.m. in Circuit Judge Mike Jones's courtroom. Williams, 31, of Florence, is charged in connection with the 2013 death of Brioni "Bree" Rutland. "We're ready to start the selection and move forward with the case," Lauderdale County District Attorney Chris Connolly said. Williams's defense team of Florence attorneys Chris Childers and Charlie Bottoms have a pending change of venue motion Jones said would be taken into consideration if an impartial jury could not be selected. More than 350 potential jurors have been called for the case. Williams is accused of stabbing and shooting Rutland before dumping his body off Old Railroad Bridge. Rutland was last seen alive Nov. 26, 2013. Authorities said according to a preliminary autopsy, Rutland was stabbed more than 30 times and shot once in the head at close range. Police said he had concrete blocks chained to his feet before he was dumped into the Tennessee River. Williams pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of mental defect. He claimed Rutland's death was self-defense after Rutland confronted him at his Florence apartment about a gambling debt and threatened to cut off his little finger if he didn't pay. He told police Rutland tried to choke him, and tried to cut off his finger. During a preliminary hearing detectives said Williams told police he stabbed Rutland while they were fighting, then got a gun and shot him and dumped the body into the river. Divers discovered Rutland's body after a jogger saw a large amount of blood on Old Railroad Bridge on Thanksgiving 2013 and called police. Tuscumbia police initiated a missing person investigation Nov. 27, 2013, after Rutland's girlfriend reported him missing. Florence police arrested Williams on Nov. 30, 2013. He was indicted in December 2014. During a January arraignment hearing, the district attorney said he was planning on seeking the death penalty if Williams is found guilty. Court officials expect the trial to continue for at least a week. (source: Times Daily) ********** Taking Action Investigation: Life or Death to air tonight on WHNT News 19 at 10:00 Is Alabama holding an innocent man on death row? A growing number of people say yes, and his name is Billy Kuenzel. WHNT News 19 has spent weeks delving into the case, and the result of our special Taking Action investigation is very disturbing. Billy Kuenzel was convicted of capital murder for the November, 1987 robbery and murder of a clerk at a convenience store on the outskirts of Sylacauga. He has been on death row since 1988. Watch Life or Death, a special Taking Action investigation, on WHNT News 19 Monday night at 10:00. The prosecution's star witness was Kuenzel's roommate, Harvey Venn, who accepted a plea deal in exchange for his testimony against Kuenzel. Venn told the court it was Kuenzel who went in to rob the store and killed Linda Jean Offord, a mother of 3. Venn testified he simply drove the get-away car. Our Taking Action investigation revealed there was no direct evidence linking Kuenzel with the crime. No fingerprints, no blood splatters on his clothes, no reliable witness who saw him there, other than Harvey Venn. But the real injustice of this case, there was a wealth of evidence available that could have made a world of difference at the trial, had the defense only known about it; witnesses who changed their testimony, a huge question about the alleged murder weapon, hand written details from the men who investigated the crime. That information remained a secret for more than 2 decades after Kuenzel's conviction. And now, the state refuses to hear it. "This is not about the death penalty," says David Kochman, Kuenzel's attorney. He adds, "This is about making sure, as a society, we value life enough to not lock people up and take their lives without knowing in fact they did the crime. This goes to the very fundamental essence of what it means to have a justice system that we each believe in." (source: WHNT news) KANSAS: Kansas court's approval of death sentence not seen as shift Even though the state Supreme Court recently upheld a death sentence for the 1st time under the state's 1994 capital punishment law, Kansas isn't likely to see executions anytime soon or a shift in how the justices handle capital murder cases. "Symbolically, there is something different," said Robert Dunham, head of the anti-capital punishment, nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. "But I wouldn't read too much into it." Several prosecutors are encouraged by this month's decision in the case of John E. Robinson Sr. - who was sentenced to die for killing 2 women in 1999 and 2000 and tied by evidence or his own admission to 6 other deaths, including a teenage girl, in Kansas and Missouri - saying it showed its possible to preserve a death sentence on appeal in Kansas. 2 Kansas law professors said the 415-page decision in John E. Robinson's case issued earlier this month suggests the Supreme Court's examination of future capital cases will remain as thorough as it has been. The high court's past decisions overturning death sentences inspired a campaign that almost succeeded in ousting 2 justices in last year's elections and handed Republican Gov. Sam Brownback a potent issue in the final weeks of his race for re-election. And there are more capital cases before the justices. Only 4 days after the Robinson decision, Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., an avowed anti-Semite, was sentenced to death for the fatal shootings of three people at Jewish sites in the Kansas City suburbs. The court also will hear arguments Dec. 14 in the case of Gary Kleypas, sentenced to death a 2nd time for the 1996 sexual assault and stabbing of a college student after the high court overturned the punishment in 2001. 3 other capital cases are before the justices. Before the Robinson ruling, the justices had struck down 9 death sentences. 4 are serving lengthy prison sentences instead; 2, including Kleypas, are back before the justices, and the state is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate 3 other death sentences. Dunham said it was inevitable that the Kansas Supreme Court would uphold a death sentence. He said Robinson still can file additional legal challenges in state and federal courts, forestalling an execution date. But Attorney General Derek Schmidt, whose office defends death sentences on appeal, said, "It shows that there is a path that allows the statute to operate as it was intended." Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Jeff King said he was "perplexed" by the state high court's previous decisions, arguing that it struck down death sentences over mistakes by judges in handling cases that were harmless, given "mountains" of evidence against the defendants. "My concern has always been that the Supreme Court requires near perfection by a trial judge in order to uphold a death penalty case," said King, an Independence Republican. Schmidt and Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe, whose office prosecuted Robinson and Miller, said 2 decades of rulings in capital cases have left guidance for prosecutors and judges on legal issues. Prosecutors also now know, thanks to the high court, that if a defendant is deemed eligible for the death penalty for multiple killings during a "common scheme or course of conduct," they file a single capital murder charge, not one for each death. But Kansas still has had relatively few capital cases reviewed compared to others, such as Texas, Oklahoma and Florida, according to Elizabeth Cateforis, a University of Kansas law professor who teaches a capital punishment course. "Eventually, you get a system in place that does what it is supposed to," she said. A clue as to why Robinson's death sentence was upheld is the unusual "effusive praise" for how Johnson County District Judge John Anderson III handled the case, Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said, noting it's a message to other judges to follow his example. The Supreme Court didn't change its legal standards so much as it decided a case free of questionable rulings by a trial judge, said Bill Rich, a constitutional law professor at Washburn University. "If the judge had not been so meticulous, it would have been a different opinion," Rich said. Online: The Supreme Court's ruling in Robinson's case: http://bit.ly/1XUFpu5 (source: Associated Press) CALIFORNIA: Monday Morning Thoughts: Death Penalty Reinstated in California Last week, a 3 judge panel overturned a district court's ruling that delays in California's death penalty make the procedure arbitrary and therefore unconstitutional. While that got the headlines, beneath that is the fine print that the court did not weigh in on the merits of the argument. Instead the court argues, "Because Petitioner asks us to apply a novel constitutional rule, we may not assess the substantive validity of his claim." Last year, Federal Judge Cormac J. Carney wrote in a decision "On April 7, 1995, Petitioner Ernest Dewayne Jones was condemned to death by the State of California. Nearly 2 decades later, Mr. Jones remains on California's death row, awaiting his execution, but with complete uncertainty as to when, or even whether, it will ever come." "Mr. Jones is not alone," writes Judge Carney, "Since 1978, when the current death penalty system was adopted by California voters, over 900 people have been sentenced to death for their crimes. Of them, only 13 have been executed. For the rest, the dysfunctional administration of California's death penalty system has resulted, and will continue to result, in an inordinate and unpredictable period of delay preceding their actual execution." He adds, "Indeed, for most, systemic delay has made their execution so unlikely that the death sentence carefully and deliberately imposed by the jury has been quietly transformed into one no rational jury or legislature could ever impose: life in prison, with the remote possibility of death. As for the random few for whom execution does become a reality, they will have languished for so long on death row that their execution will serve no retributive or deterrent purpose and will be arbitrary." Judge Susan P. Graber writing for the court, notes, "Many agree with Petitioner that California's capital punishment system is dysfunctional and that the delay between sentencing and execution in California is extraordinary." However, she writes "the purpose of federal habeas corpus is to ensure that state convictions comply with the federal law in existence at the time the conviction became final, and not to provide a mechanism for the continuing reexamination of final judgments based upon later emerging legal doctrine." Scott Martelle writing for the LA Times notes, "In one sense, the decision is a loss for those hoping for an end to the death penalty (me among them). But it's also a non-decision because the appellate judges didn't take up the heart of Carney's ruling, and his logic is quite compelling." He continues, "In a nutshell, the very structure of California's death penalty means that who among the condemned actually gets put to death is determined by an arbitrary process that drags out so long that the execution serves neither as a deterrent nor as an act of retribution, important thresholds under previous Supreme Court decisions." "That argument," he writes, "is still out there, even if the appellate court decided it couldn't review it under court rules established under the Clinton-era Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996." "The rule is that the federal courts can reverse the state criminal cases for constitutional violations only if the law is 'well established,'" says Natasha Minsker, director of the ACLU of California's Center for Advocacy & Policy. "The idea is that the state courts can only be expected to implement federal rules that they know about. The state courts can't be expected to guess how federal judges will interpret the constitution in the future. The problem: That prevents the federal courts from addressing constitutional violations in many criminal cases. "It's sort of like instant replay in sports before you could review a call. The ref makes a call, everyone watching at home sees it was a mistake, but it couldn't be fixed." In short, the 9th Circuit ruled that they lack the authority to "assess and rule on the merits of Carney's decision." Mr. Martelle notes that the state Supreme Court could do so, "but it will be a challenge." Mr. Martelle continues arguing that "this is another place where the credibility of the legal system crumbles. If the appellate courts can't be led to address the basic question of whether the design and implementation of the state's capital punishment is unconstitutional because it engenders decades-long delays between the crime and the punishment, and the ultimate decision of who gets put to death when is arbitrary, then where does that argument get aired?" It seems then that unlike gay marriage, the issues of the death penalty may have to be addressed by the voters. In 2016, there may be competing on the ballot. One would ban the death penalty. The other would speed up the process and narrow the sorts of appeals that can be argued. Neither have even reached the circulation process yet. (source: Davis Vanguard) **************** Use gas for death penalty Although I have always been strongly in favor of the death penalty and believe it should actually be carried out rather than letting the condemned languish on death row, I've always wondered why the methods of execution have to be so macabre. Even lethal injection, with its often multiple needle sticks, seems to be almost medieval. Concern for the suffering of the criminal is universally given for these supposedly humane methods of execution but I sure don't see it that way. I have a simple and humane solution. Why not execute criminals in a gas chamber using carbon monoxide gas or even just carbon dioxide? They'd peacefully and painlessly fall asleep and ultimately expire. It's foolproof and 100 % effective. The gases could be safely vented to the outside atmosphere. I sure can't see anything wrong with this approach. Jess King, Lindsay (source: Letter to the Editor, Fresno Bee) ************* Placer County's death row inmates wait as debate swirls By the numbers 747 people in California on death row 13 executions since 1978 52 % of voters backed death penalty in 2012 California vote 2006 was the year of the last execution in California ***************** A recent photo from San Quentin State Prison shows David Rundle no longer the young man tried, convicted and sentenced to death in Placer County for the murders of 2 women almost 3 decades ago. Rundle was 21 when he was arrested and 24 when he arrived at San Quentin's death row. He's now 50 - one of 747 convicted murderers awaiting execution in California. He's spent more than half of his life behind bars for the killings, with no end in sight. Arturo Juarez Suarez was 33 when he arrived at San Quentin. He was convicted of killing 4 people in 1998 on a ranch in rural Auburn. Along with his brother-in-law and another male adult relative, he was convicted by a Placer County jury of burying alive his 5-year-old nephew and 3-year-old niece. Suarez is now 48 and, like Rundle, has no date with death in the foreseeable future. But moves within California corridors of justice and political power are sending signals to some that the pace of executions could quicken. Earlier this month, California proposed to allow corrections officials to choose 1 of 4 types of powerful barbiturates to execute prisoners on death row, depending on which one is available. The single drug would replace the series of e drugs that was last used when Clarence Ray Allen was executed in 2006 at San Quentin. And the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling on Thursday that had found California's death penalty process was unconstitutional because of excessive delays. More than 900 people have been sentenced to death in California since 1978, but only 13 have been executed. The wait for Rundle has been a long one but it's a wait that families of the victims as well as the prosecutor in the case have had to also face. Jess Bedore, Placer County's prosecutor on the case, now in private practice in Roseville, said that nothing has changed to stand in the way of Rundle's eventual execution. "Of course, absolutely," Bedore said. "He raped and strangled 2 women in Placer County and admitted a 3rd murder in Sacramento County." David Humpheys, lead public defender on the Rundle case and now a public defender in Nevada County, said that while moves are being made to speed up the process, he's unsure whether they will actually have an impact. And there are other efforts to move toward abolishing the death penalty. Opponents of the death penalty are gathering signatures for a ballot measure that would ban capital punishment in California. A similar measure for a death penalty ban was defeated by 4 % points in 2012. At the same time, death penalty supporters are soliciting signatures for a measure that would ask for more appellate lawyers and speedier appeals. "Some day we'll join the rest of the civilized world but it won't be abolished in my lifetime," Humphreys said. The Sacramento-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation considers the latest movement within the state as a hopeful one for its cause. "Resumption of executions in California is at least a foreseeable possibility now," said Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the foundation. But Applegate's Joe Offer, a Placer People of Faith Together board member and retired federal investigator, said that while he's unsure of the impact of the latest developments, he senses a lack of substantial resolve within the state to move on renewing executions. "The fact we delay so long on executions is an indication we don't feel right about it," Offer said. (source: Auburn Journal) WASHINGTON: Franklin County prosecutor favors asking Washington voters about death penalty Franklin County Prosecutor Shawn Sant wants to see Washington voters get asked in 2016 if they support keeping capital punishment as an option for the most heinous crimes. The death penalty has been on hold in Washington since February 2014, when Gov. Jay Inslee issued a moratorium for as long as he was in office. Many of the state's elected prosecutors haven't backed off considering the death penalty in aggravated murder cases that merit it. But the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys - a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization that supports county prosecutors and lobbies on their behalf - says it is time to have the electorate weigh in on the issue. A 2-page statement issued last week by King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg, the association's president, asked Gov. Jay Inslee and the Legislature "to place a referendum on the ballot next year seeking guidance from the voters about this significant public policy issue. Sant, a Republican, said an overwhelming majority of prosecutors at their October meeting wanted to put this back to the people. "The intent behind this was making taxpayers aware we, as prosecutors, kind of get a sense that a lot of people are not favoring the death penalty any longer, or their minds have changed from 40 years ago, when Washington got the initiative to have the death penalty," Sant said. He noted that he was speaking for himself, and not the association. "If that (consensus) has changed, we want to make sure we are in fact carrying out the will of the citizens of the state that we serve in prosecuting for state crimes," he added. If voters decide to keep the death penalty, Sant says the state then needs to address the funding issue so capital punishment cases aren't a burden on counties, especially smaller ones. Sant made the decision this summer not to pursue the death penalty against Prudencio Fragos-Ramirez, a Connell man accused of setting fire to his girlfriend's car after shooting the woman and her 3-year-old son inside. Sant acknowledged that it is concerning when a child is involved in this type of crime, but said his office had reservations after evaluating the circumstances and the available evidence. "Obviously, we have a strong case," he said, "but for the type of case and the scrutiny that would come with a death penalty case ... we discussed that it wouldn't be appropriate in this case." Fragos-Ramirez is charged in Franklin County Superior Court with 2 counts of 1st-degree murder, and is facing a minimum sentence of 50 years if convicted. Sant says his office can amend to aggravated charges if the case goes to trial. Benton County Prosecutor Andy Miller is in the middle of a triple-homicide trial and wasn't available to comment on the association's announcement. Jeremy Sagastegui is the only man from Benton and Franklin counties to be put to death since Washington reinstated the death penalty 34 years ago. He died by lethal injection for the 1995 killing of a child and 2 women. Former Richland resident Westley Allan Dodd was the 1st to be executed after the reinstatement. The serial killer and child molester was convicted in Vancouver, Wash., and hanged in 1993 at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. The state has executed a total 78 men since 1904. Washington reportedly has no active capital punishment cases. In May, a King County jury spared the life of a man convicted of killing 6 members of his ex-girlfriend's family during a 2007 holiday gathering in Carnation. Satterberg then announced in July that he would no longer seek the death penalty against the co-defendant. Also in July, another King County jury declined to send a convicted cop killer to death row, and instead sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of release. Sant said a benefit of having capital punishment is that prosecutors can use the potential sentence as a negotiating tool, like in the case of Gary Ridgway. The Green River Killer, as part of his plea bargain to a life sentence, agreed to disclose the whereabouts of still-missing women. Sant, who would like to see it remain a law, believes his colleagues have been cautious when exercising the option to seek the death penalty. Since 1981, Washington prosecutors have sought the death penalty in 90 of 268 cases where it was a possible sentence, Satterberg said. And of those 90, jurors came back with unanimous verdicts for death in 32 cases, he wrote. 5 men have been executed in that time, including 3 who told their lawyers not to pursue appeals of their convictions. 18 men have had their sentences reversed by appeals courts, and "their cases were ultimately resolved without imposition of the death penalty," Satterberg said. 9 convicted killers now live on death row. Miller, a Democrat, has acknowledged in the past of having mixed feelings on the topic. He's said that if given the option, he might vote as a private citizen to repeal capital punishment because he doesn't know that it "adds anything." But on the job, Miller is obligated to enforce the law. He is the only active prosecutor in the state who has argued for the death penalty, prosecuted it, defended it all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, and watched the execution. He has told the Herald that he won't take the death penalty off the table from consideration if the circumstances warrant it, because Washington may elect a new governor in 2016 while a case is still working through the judicial system. (source: tri-cityherald.com) USA: The Odds of Overturning the Death Penalty ---- The man who helped topple it (briefly) in 1972 gauges the likelihood of success. How vulnerable is the death penalty? It's a question that has been asked with increasing frequency and intensity this year. Over the summer, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer invited defense lawyers to bring a case that would allow the court to decide whether the punishment is "cruel and unusual" - meaning whether it should be abolished completely. But since then, these lawyers - many of whom have devoted their entire careers to opposing the death penalty - have been divided on whether to actually push a case before the court. Some want to bring a case before the court as soon as possible, arguing that there has never been a set of justices more amenable (Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who signed onto Breyer's opinion, may soon retire). Others say there is no guarantee the court would rule their way, and a loss - a ruling that the death penalty really is constitutional - could set back their cause indefinitely. Both sides invest much of their energy in psychoanalyzing Justice Anthony Kennedy, whom they view as the key swing vote in a challenge to the death penalty, and who has written at least one opinion limiting its use in the past. Another place to turn is history. The situation these defense lawyers face is not so different from one their predecessors faced half a century ago. In 1972, a group of lawyers with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, led by Anthony Amsterdam, succeeded in convincing the court to strike down the death penalty, in a case called Furman v. Georgia1. So what might those NAACP lawyers who won and lost 40 years ago have to say to their counterparts in the anti-death penalty movement today? Would they recommend bringing a case? We went to Michael Meltsner, a law professor at Northeastern University in Boston and one of the last professionally active members of the cohort of NAACP lawyers who won the Furman case (he wrote a book about that effort called Cruel and Unusual: The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment). At age 24, when he was hired by Thurgood Marshall, he became the second white attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. To set this up: In 1963, Justice Arthur Goldberg suggested in a dissent that a challenge to the death penalty could prevail. This ultimately led to your success in Furman v. Georgia, which struck down the punishment in 1972. This summer Justice Stephen Breyer - who once clerked for Goldberg - published an invitation to defense lawyers to challenge the punishment again. How similar is the situation you confronted to the one facing death-penalty opponents today? We had a strategy from the 1960s on to stop as many death cases as we could, to collect proof of racial discrimination, and to raise procedural arguments of various sorts. By the early 1970s, we had either gotten what we could out of procedural arguments or lost them. All that was left was the general Eighth Amendment argument, that the death penalty was cruel and unusual. Furman was really the last chance. The difference between now and then is we had no other choice2. There was nothing left we could do with the death penalty. I would say that there was no way we could have predicted winning in Furman. It's not that we thought we'd lose necessarily. But there was really no confidence in winning. But we won. And the way we won affected the future of capital punishment. After your victory, many states scrambled to write new laws to bring back the punishment. Now there's a divide between those who want to bring a challenge to the court and others who are more cautious, saying a loss could set the movement back by strengthening capital punishment. It is similar to the original situation in that respect. But there are some wrinkles: we didn't have complete control over the movement to end the death penalty, but we had an enormous influence. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund was known by the justices at the time as the organization that owned the issue. They trusted us. This is all happening in the late 1960's. The Legal Defense Fund, when I was first assistant in the 1960's, had successfully argued more cases before the court than any law firm. So you had a fount of great trust, and I think that was important to the justices. Today, you have a fragmented bar, and nothing can stop somebody from bringing an Eighth Amendment case to the court. The debate out there is in a way beside the point: it's up to whether the justices take such a case. This is all like Kremlinology - "Oh, Malenkov is closer to Brezhnev this time." This is all total speculation. All the people quoted in the you've read have no idea, no evidence for what Kennedy would do. And I don't either. In addition to the New York Times report that first delved into the strategic debate among defense lawyers, BuzzFeed has spoken at length to the most active lawyers looking to bring a case before the court. But some say if you don't bring a case now, it may be the last chance before the court changes its makeup and becomes less open to a death penalty challenge. I'm much more cautious. Maybe I'm living in the past; I don't know. On the one hand, Kennedy has been the critical voice in certain cases lately, which have significantly restricted the death penalty. And in those cases, he is able to differentiate between the single case and the social policy. And that's critical here. Because ultimately what supports the death penalty in this country is the horrible crime: Take the Tsarnaev trial. In a place, Boston, that largely opposes the death penalty, he gets sentenced to death because of the facts of his crime. For us, the death penalty is a system that produces certain outcomes, and that is constantly stimulated by the journalism, the sensationalism, the horror of particular events. Every time you read or think 'Oh the death penalty is awful, it convicts innocent people, it's unreliable, it's racially biased.' Then there's, "this guy took this woman..." Etc. and so forth. And I think Kennedy has shown a capacity to understand the difference between these ways of looking at a subject in his opinions. But then he has had plenty of opportunities to come out against the death penalty per se and has let executions proceed. So you can see it would take a mind reader to know where 5 votes to abolish come from. What do you make of the strategizing among defense attorneys about the best possible case to bring before the court? We were always clear that we weren't going to sacrifice anyone for the sake of strategy. But the tension is always there in the world of impact litigation, between individual cases and social policy interests. I would be much happier if the story was told as, 'I represent X. He has no more claims. There is no reason why he should be executed given all these arguments, and I'm debating bringing this to the Supreme Court.' That's a different structure than what has come out in these stories. There is something that bothers me about the narrative you see emerging - it's too manipulative. I'm not criticizing these lawyers, who certainly seem to know their business. I would feel a lot more confident if they said, 'We don't know how the court will rule, but our client Mr. Jones has no other claims.' That's the situation we were in. The Justices don't like to feel they're being manipulated. It's not unknown to them that people strategize on how to get to the court. It's just that this is so public and maybe that would affect somebody on the court's attitude. Look at how Justice Samuel Alito criticized lawyers trying to keep states from getting lethal injection drugs, saying they were using "guerrilla" tactics to stop executions. On the one hand that's lawyers representing their clients. But on the other that's an opening for critics like Alito to throw mud at them, to say 'You're just trying to trick us. This isn't a real issue. It's one you lawyers have created.' That's the dynamic that worries me. Are you cautious because there was such a backlash after you won in Furman, and state legislatures scrambled to strengthen capital punishment? It's not so much that. I don't think there would be the same kind of backlash. There would be a public backlash, but I don't think it would be as strong as it was in the 1970's. I'm cautious because I don't like to lose, and there may be negative consequences you haven't considered: The court could get stricter in terms of what future death penalty cases they would be willing to consider. A 2nd possibility is it could be politicized in a particular presidential election. If the court were to strike down the death penalty, what would people who wanted it to continue do next? What would the backlash look like? Just like with flag-burning, immediately you'll have a lot of talk about a constitutional amendment. Who knows what Congress would look like. I don't think it would be easy to get that done, for a number of reasons, from the number of states that have abolished it. It's a hard one. But you'd certainly get the talk. There's no cost for a congressperson to say, 'I'm going to amend the Constitution.' The court would come in for criticism. There would be vicious dissents. But if they write an opinion saying 'Never,' that's it. I think they'd get away with it. But there would certainly be resistance. Even though the death penalty is withering away, it's doing so with deliberate speed. (source: themarshallproject.org) ************* Justice Department wastes money by sticking nose in local cases The Justice Department is increasingly jumping into smaller criminal matters so it can look good while "playing daddy" to local authorities - but its efforts are a waste of manpower and tax money, several current and former law-enforcement sources told The Post. Under the Obama administration, the agency's Civil Rights Division has been readily opening more federal investigations shortly after violent encounters in municipalities across the country instead of allowing local cops and prosecutors to do their jobs first, the souces said. The latest example came 3 weeks ago, when the department announced within 24 hours that the FBI would investigate a South Carolina school-resource officer caught on video dragging a female student across the floor of a classroom. "The notion that [the] DOJ would jump in so quickly where the offense was so slight on a federal scale is ridiculous," said retired FBI Deputy Assistant Director Ronald Hosko. "They're just playing daddy when no daddy is needed." A federal source agreed, saying Sunday, "In light of what just happened in Paris, I think more than ever we need to allocate our resources to fighting terrorism instead of worrying about crimes that take place on the local level." The Justice Department responded that it gets involved in community-based offenses to lend "support" in gathering evidence and to "regularly" assist local prosecutors. But Hosko said another glaring example of the department's overreach was the Dylan Roof church-massacre case. With overwhelming evidence against him, Roof readily confessed to fatally shooting 9 people in a historic black church in Charleston, SC, in June, and state prosecutors promptly charged him with nine counts of murder and announced that they would seek the death penalty. The feds then charged Roof with 33 hate crimes - charges that also carry the death penalty. (source: new York Post) **************** Asking Tough Questions About the Death Penalty----Journalists and prisoners stage a First Amendment challenge to state secrecy regarding executions. Last week's observance of Veteran's Day brought another opportunity to examine the politics and ramifications of the death penalty, after a new report produced by the Death Penalty Information Center put the number of military veterans on death row at 10% of the entire comdemned prison population. Scrutiny of capital punishment is increasingly in the national spotlight and last March, Reason TV profiled the ongoing efforts to demand transparency in government pertaining to executions. A portion of the original writeup is below, you can read the full article here: Americans may shudder at the barbarity depicted in videos showing public executions by the governments of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and China, but the fact remains that alone among all Western countries, the United States is a death penalty country. Though the death penalty is legal in the majority of American states, only a handful of them actually carry out executions, numbering in the few dozens annually. Part of the reason the American public maintains a steadfast support of its government killing convicted murderers is due to the cloak of secrecy covering executions and that the most common form of execution, lethal injection, is sold to the public as a medical procedure, akin to putting a sick animal to sleep. But a series of botched executions in 2014 have exposed a problem largely unknown to the American public: The drugs used for lethal injections are experimental, untested, and proving to be ineffective at killing prisoners without excruciating pain. (source: Anthony L. Fisher is a Writer/Producer for Reason.com and Reason TV----reason.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Nov 16 09:28:25 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2015 09:28:25 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 16 INDONESIA: Police arrest 8 for selling illegal guns The Jakarta Police have arrested 8 men suspected of selling illegal firearms in areas across the city.Jakarta Police general crime director Sr. Comr. Krishna Murti said that officers had arrested the 8 in 5 separate spots after receiving reports from residents of trade in illegal guns in their neighborhoods. "Our investigation was also spurred by several recent cases involving illegal guns," he said on Sunday as quoted by tempo.co, adding that the police had confiscated hundreds of airsoft guns and dozens of firearms in the 5 raids. 2 men, identified as KS and WH, had been arrested in Pasar Baru, Central Jakarta, Krishna said, where the police seized 12 firearms and a haul of ammunition. 1 suspect, identified as HRA, meanwhile, was arrested at Graha Cijantung Mall in Pasar Rebo, East Jakarta, according to Krishna. "1 suspect, identified as KMR, was arrested in Kelapa Dua, Depok, West Java," he said, adding that the police had arrested 4 other suspects, identified as MS, AS, KV and HR, in separate raids in Depok. He said the 8 men had been arrested on suspicion of selling unregistered guns and ammunition. Separately, Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Mohammad Iqbal said that the suspects would be charged with Article 1 of Law No. 12/1959 on illegal firearms with a maximum penalty of death or life imprisonment. (source: thejakartapost.com) MALAYSIA: Abolishing the mandatory death penalty a welcome step Amnesty International Malaysia welcomes attorney-general Apandi Ali's intended proposal to the cabinet to scrap the mandatory death penalty as it signals progress in one area of human rights in the country - the right to life. "In light of this development, we call on the Malaysian government to impose an immediate official moratorium on the use of the death penalty until Cabinet reviews this proposal and laws which carry the death sentence can be reviewed and changed," AI Malaysia executive director Shamini Darshni said in a statement. "Half of over 1,000 people on death row in Malaysian prisons are awaiting results of appeals or clemency, thus as the government studies the AG's proposal, these individuals need to know that they will not yet meet the noose. So it goes for any new case which carries the death penalty," she added. However, abolishing the mandatory death penalty, though welcomed, must be considered a first step towards total abolition, she said. "Through our work globally, we have seen the death penalty - mandatory or discretionary - imposed on those below 18, people with mental health issues, the poor and minority groups. There is also a sore lack of proof that the death penalty is able to reduce crime rates or prevent new criminals from emerging." Amnesty International opposes the death penalty at all times, regardless of who is accused, the crime, guilt or innocence or method of execution. Most countries which practice executions have unfair legal systems and commonly justify its use as a crime-control measure. The application of the death penalty is discriminatory and in some countries used as a tool to punish political opponents. Amnesty International has been working to end executions since 1977, when only 16 countries had abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Today, the number has risen to 140 - almost two-thirds of countries around the world. "In many countries, including Malaysia, people on death row are imprisoned for many years in solitary confinement before an execution, causing severe mental torture not just to an inmate, but to their families who are innocent of any crime," she said. "For almost 40 years, Amnesty International has worked to see this cruel and inhumane punishment abolished worldwide. As the years pass, anti-death penalty advocates have become more successful. Now, there are only some 30 countries that retain the death penalty in their law books, including Malaysia." Malaysia uses the mandatory death penalty for drug offences, murder, treason and certain firearms offences. In May, Prisons Department director-general Zulkifli Omar reported some 1,043 prisoners are on death row and that 46 % of those awaiting their execution were convicted for drug offences. Not meeting 'most serious crimes' threshold Hundreds of executions are carried out worldwide annually for drug-related offences despite the fact that such offences do not meet the threshold of the 'most serious crimes' to which the use of the death penalty must be restricted under international law. "The death penalty is a blatant denial of human rights. Sentencing someone to death denies them the right to life as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is irreversible and mistakes have happened. As long as the death penalty remains, the risk of executing an innocent person will never be eliminated," she said. AI Malaysia is currently running campaigns on Kho Jabing, a Malaysian on death row in Singapore; and Shahrul Izani Suparman, local man who has maintained his innocence of a drug trafficking charge for 12 years. (source: malaysiakini.com) MALDIVES: Maldives adopts automatic appeal of death sentences Maldives top court issued new guidelines Sunday allowing death sentences and public lashing rulings issued by lower courts to be appealed automatically at the High Court. In a circular, the Supreme Court said if the defendant fails to appeal death sentences and public lashing verdicts within 10 days, the court that had initially issued the verdict should forward the relevant documents to the High Court. The appellate court would have seven days to notify both the defendant and the prosecution of the appeal and during that period should take the necessary steps to begin appeal proceedings, it added. The new rules follow similar guidelines issued by the apex court last week. Supreme Court issued new guidelines on November 8 giving a month-long window for the last chance to appeal death sentences and public lashings backed by High Court. According to the guidelines, if a defendant fails to appeal a High Court verdict in favour of death sentences and public lashing rulings within a 30-day period, the appeal can then only be filed at the Supreme Court by the prosecution. The guidelines, included in a circular signed by Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed, did not specifically mention sentences of death and public lashing. However, it says that High Court rulings that need to be reconfirmed by the Supreme Court had to be appealed within 30 days, including public holidays. Under local laws, the only sentences that need to be reconfirmed by the Supreme Court are death sentences and public lashing verdicts. Judicature Act earlier granted a 90-day period, excluding public holidays, to appeal rulings by any court. However, the Supreme Court had in January annulled that clause and issued new guidelines under which rulings issued by lower courts had to be appealed at the High Court within 10 days and appeal over High Court verdicts needed to be filed at the Supreme Court within 60 days. Meanwhile, government has included funds in the proposed state budget for next year to establish an execution chamber at the country's main prison to carry out the death penalty. The proposed budget for next year, which is currently being reviewed by the parliament, includes MVR4 million to build an execution chamber. However, the correctional service was not immediately available for comment. Maldives adopted a new regulation last year under which lethal injection would be used to implement the death penalty. However, over mounting pressure from human rights bodies, companies have been refusing to supply the fatal dose to countries still carrying out capital punishment. Home minister Umar Naseer had earlier said the correctional service would be ready to implement the death penalty by the time a death sentence is upheld by the Supreme Court.<>P> There are around 10 people on death row at present, but none of whom has exhausted the appeal process thus far. (source: haveeru.com) AUSTRALIA: Terror death penalty debate needed: Qld MP A Queensland MP has renewed calls for Australian governments to consider the death penalty to deal with terrorists in the wake of the Paris attacks, which have claimed at least 130 lives. Moggill MP Dr Christian Rowan sparked controversy last week when he used a debate about counter-terrorism laws in parliament to call for considering the reintroduction of the death penalty for "certain or specified terrorist acts". Dr Rowan stood by his speech on Monday, insisting Queensland and the rest of Australia needed to take "the strongest possible action ... in relation to extremist criminal ideology". The former Australian Medical Association Queensland president made it clear that although he wasn't necessarily advocating for the death penalty himself, he was saying it needed to be considered for serious terrorism-related offences, including treason and "crimes against humanity". Those responsible for the Paris attacks would likely be put to death under those circumstances, he said. "These mass-casualty events that we've seen potentially could qualify," Dr Rowan told AAP. Dr Rowan insisted the majority of feedback he'd received since his speech in parliament had been supportive. He rejected civil libertarians' assertions that the death penalty would risk creating martyrs and prompting risk further radicalisation. "If civil libertarians want to defend terrorist actions and actions that threaten free people around the world - these mass casualty events - let's see what basis and justification they want to put forward for that," he said. Meanwhile, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said Commissioner Ian Stewart informed her on Monday morning that police were not aware of any threats in Queensland. But she said police would be adding extra resources at the annual Schoolies celebrations on the Gold Coast. "We do take any event of significance very seriously in this state, but just to re-emphasise - there is no known threat in Queensland," she said. Brisbane's French community will hold a vigil in the city's King George Square at 6pm on Monday, which will include a minute's silence for the victims of the Paris attacks. (source: 9news.com.au) INDIA: SC rejects Delhi govt plea seeking death for Nitish Katara's killers The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a Delhi government plea seeking death sentence for the 3 convicts in Nitish Katara murder case, including cousins Vikas and Vishal Yadav, saying that it did not fall under the "rarest of rare" category warranting the extreme penalty. A Bench comprising justices J.S. Khehar and R. Banumathi said that it had already dismissed a similar petition of complainant Neelam Katara, mother of Nitish, on the issue. The court, however, said that it will need the assistance of Delhi government's lawyer in deciding the petitions filed by the 3 convicts, including Sukhdev Pehalwan, on the "limited questions" as to whether the high court was justified in awarding jail term of 30 years to Yadav cousins and 25 years to Pehalwan. The Bench has now posted the matter for final hearing in February next year. Last month, the Supreme Court had rejected the plea of Neelam who had also sought death penalty for the convicts. Vikas (39), Vishal (37) and Sukhdev (40) are serving life term awarded by the lower court in May 2008 for abducting and killing Katara, a business executive and son of a railway officer, on the night of February 16-17, 2002, as they opposed the victim's affair with Bharti, daughter of Uttar Pradesh politician D.P. Yadav. The apex court had on August 17, upheld the conviction of Vikas Yadav, his cousin Vishal and Sukhdev Pehalwan in the case. The court, which upheld the findings of the trial court and the Delhi High Court without issuing notices on the appeals of Vikas and Sukhdev, had agreed to consider the limited aspect relating to enhancement of quantum of sentence of the 3 convicts by the high court. The high court had termed the award of life term "simplicitor" to the convicts as inconsequential and enhanced the life term of 3 convicts - Vikas and Vishal Yadav to 30 years imprisonment and 25 years incarceration to Sukhdev Yadav alias Pehalwan - without the benefit of remission. The high court had on April 2, 2014, upheld the verdict of the lower court in the case by describing the offence as "honour killing" stemming from a "deeply-entrenched belief" in caste system. (source: tribuneindia.com) ***************** Prosecution dept's 'success rate' : 8,773 convictions in 4 months - death to 8, life term for 977 Uttar Pradesh Police's Prosecution Department claimed its best ever achievement with district courts in the state pronouncing capital punishment to 8 and life imprisonment to 977 accused during the last four months. As per data produced by the prosecution department, 8,773 persons have been convicted by different district courts of UP between July and October. The maximum number of persons convicted for 10 years and more come from Shahjahanpur and Ghaziabad districts. In Kanpur and Bareilly, maximum number of persons have been convicted below 10 years of imprisonment. Director General, Prosecution, Surya Kumar Shukla said, "The prosecution department achieved the target through regular hard work by government counsels, policemen who relentlessly pursued the cases and the public prosecutors. Recently, the department started a drive to ensure that prosecution witnesses and the victims did not face any harassment at the hands of the accused." He said there were complaints regarding the accused "harassing and pressuring the witnesses to give statements in their favour" before the court. Directions were issued to all public prosecutors and government counsels to help such witnesses. Counsels have been directed to immediately bring to notice such cases before the local police or the prosecution directorate in Lucknow, he added. The prosecution department has felicitated some 300 witnesses in various districts for appearing before the court and recording their statement fearlessly, said Shukla. "A direction has also been issued to all police stations in UP to appoint a nodal officer (of sub-inspector rank) who would help witnesses and tell the counsels about important and heinous cases that were required to be supervised on priority basis," he added. The courts of Ghaziabad, Lalitpur, Shamli and Firozabad districts awarded death sentence to 8 persons facing murder charges. While 4 accused were sentenced by a local court of Ghaziabad on October 28, 1 was awarded death sentence on August 13 by a Lalitpur court; on July 31 Shamli court sentenced 2 while another 1 was given death penalty by Firozabad court on July 13. In the last 4 months, as many as 179 persons were sentenced to 10, 14 and 20 years of imprisonment in 121 cases. As per records, the court convicted 6,341 persons in 331 murder cases and accused are sentenced to either over 10 years or life imprisonment. In 34 cases of Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, the court sentenced 39 persons to 10, 14 and 15 years of imprisonment. In cases of dowry death, the court sentenced 163 persons who were accused in 68 criminal cases. Accused are sentenced to 10, 14 and life term. However, in last 4 months, one person each was sentenced under Goonda Act and UP Gangsters Act in Hardoi and Lalitpur, respectively. A programme 'Bina Dare, Bina Bikey' has been organised by the prosecution department to felicitate witnesses of heinous crimes who fearlessly recorded their statement in the court. The DG said that history-sheeters of different districts have been identified and efforts were on to ensure their conviction. (source: Indian Express) ************** Godse is a murderer, doesn't deserve respect: RSS ideologue The RSS on Sunday opposed the move by some Hindutva organisations to commemorate the 66th death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi killer Nathuram Godse as "Shaurya Divas" on the grounds that he was a "murderer" who deserved no respect. On November 15, 1949, Godse was hanged in Ambala Jail 7 days after he was given death penalty by a court for killing Gandhi on January 30, 1948, in the national capital. The Hindu Mahasabha, Hindu Sena and the Maharana Pratap Battalion held different programmes to observe "Shaurya Divas" in Maharastra on Godse's hanging. "I don't know which organisation it is. But I am against honouring and giving respect to Nathuram Godse. He is a murderer. The fight of thoughts should be fought with thoughts only. It is not right to kill anyone as was done by Godse," RSS ideologue M G Vaidya told a news agency. The RSS continues to face political charges of killing the Father of the Nation. During the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had slammed the RSS for the killing of the Mahatma. The RSS had denied the charges. "Some people think that by doing so (killing Gandhi), they have encouraged Hindutva, but that is wrong. In fact, they have insulted Hindutva. I think it was an evil act to kill Gandhi who was such a respected figure in India," Vaidya added. The Hindu Mahasabha and the Sanatan Sanstha, which had come under the scanner for the murder of rationalist Govind Pansare, were among the Hindutva outfits that reportedly participated in the "Shaurya Diwas" ceremony held at Panvel near Mumbai to eulogise Godse. (source: daijiworld.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Nov 16 16:02:57 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2015 16:02:57 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., ALA., IND., ORE., WASH., USA Message-ID: Nov. 16 NORTH CAROLINA: Death penalty sought for NC man accused of killing wife and stepdaughter Prosecutors announced Monday they would seek the death penalty for a Sanford man accused of killing his wife and stepdaughter. Billy Jo Mclean is accused of killing Calandra Mclean and Tashonna Cameron, 13, in July. On July 13, Sanford firefighters responded to an apartment complex in response to a strong gas odor. When firefighters arrived, they found smoke coming from an apartment nearby and found Mclean and Cameron inside the apartment at 916 Clark Circle. Authorities said Billy Jo Mclean took his 17-year-old stepson to Texas following the killings. Billy Jo Mclean was found at the Royal Inn located at in Wildorado, Texas, shortly after midnight July 17. At a court appearance in Lee County on Monday, prosecutors announced they are seeking the death penalty for Billy Jo Mclean. Billy Jo Mclean is charged with 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in connection with the case. Billy Jo Mclean's next scheduled court appearance in in March. (source: WNCN news) ALABAMA: Tuscaloosa man found guilty of capital murder in uncle's death Alexius Foster, the Tuscaloosa man accused of stabbing his uncle to death in 2013 and killing a former friend about a month later has been found guilty of capital murder in both of their deaths. Foster was charged with capital murder in the death of his uncle George Foster, 57, who was fatally stabbed at his home in June 2013. Investigators said robbery was a motive in the crime. A month later, Foster's former friend Antonio Williams' body was discovered in a shallow grave. Foster is also charged with capital murder in Williams' death. Investigators believe Williams was killed because Alexius Foster thought he was talking to police about George Foster's murder. The district attorney will seek the death penalty against Foster. The sentencing phase of the trial begins Wednesday, Nov. 18 at 9:30 a.m. When asked about his response to the jury's decision, Alexius Foster replied, "Hallelujah, God is good, hallelujah" on Monday morning. Circuit Judge John England declared a mistrial earlier this year after homicide investigators arrested another man in connection with both murders during Foster's trial. Foster is being tried separately from Shaddrell Mathews, the other suspect charged in connection with the murders. (source: WSFA news) INDIANA: Suspected serial killer Darren Vann wants to represent himself A man the state is seeking the death penalty against wants to represent himself, according to online court records. Lake Criminal Judge Diane Boswell scheduled a hearing for Wednesday after Darren Vann wrote to the court indicating he wanted to represent himself, according to online court records. Vann, 44, of Gary, faces murder charges in the strangling deaths of Afrika Hardy, 19, and Anith Jones, 35, of Merrillville. He allegedly confessed to killing 5 other women whose bodies were found last fall in abandoned buildings in Gary. Vann has not been charged in those homicides as of this week. The Lake County prosecutor's office is seeking the death penalty in the case. Vann is scheduled to stand trial Jan. 25. The request from Vann comes a month after one of his public defenders, Teresa Hollandsworth, withdrew from the case. He is now represented by public defenders Gojko Kasich, Matthew Fech and Mark Bates. The correspondence to the court from Vann was not available Monday, because the file was not in the clerk's office. Vann is accused of killing Hardy after meeting her through an online escort service, according to court records. Hardy was found strangled to death Oct. 17, 2014 in a bathtub at a Motel 6 in Hammond. After Vann was questioned by police in Hardy's homicide, he allegedly confessed to killing Jones along with 5 other women, police said. Jones was found Oct. 18, 2014, in an abandoned building in the 400 block of East 43rd Street in Gary. Vann told detectives a mutual friend offered him money and drugs to make Jones disappear before an upcoming court hearing, according to the affidavit. The other women are Teaira Batey, Tanya Gatlin, Sonya Billingsley, Tracy L. Martin and Kristine Williams. (source: nwitimes.com) OREGON: Oregon serial killer sentenced to death after prosecutors sought death penalty for 4th time A jury on Monday sentenced one of Oregon's most prolific serial killers to death for the 4th time, an ultimately symbolic decision in a state that has not executed anyone in nearly 20 years. Dayton Leroy Rogers, who killed 8 women in the 1980s, had previously been sentenced to death 3 times for his crimes, and each time the penalty was overturned on legal grounds. The jury's new verdict comes despite a moratorium on executions imposed by the past 2 governors. Rogers apologized in court Friday. He told jurors the word "sorry" was inadequate, but he was sorry for taking "8 precious lives." Rogers, a 62-year-old former lawn-mower repairman, was dubbed the Molalla Forest Killer because the bodies were discovered in a forest in the small town of Molalla. Prosecutors said Rogers drove to Portland to solicit prostitutes, plied them with alcohol, and took them to remote locations where he tied them up and tortured them. Defence attorney Richard Wolf has said Rogers would waive his right to an appeal if he got a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. During Rogers' most recent sentencing trial in Clackamas County Circuit Court, Wolf said sending Rogers to prison for life would give a resolution to victims' families and avoid the costs of further legal proceedings. If Rogers is sentenced to death, various appeals could take up another 30 years, cost about $3 million and continue to drag families into court, Wolf said. The attorney also argued that Rogers' traumatic childhood - including sexual and physical abuse - and the brain damage he suffered should be considered as mitigating evidence. But prosecutor Bryan Brock said Rogers should get the death penalty because his acts were heinous and deliberate. He said Rogers carefully planned his attacks and was driven by sexual gratification from inflicting pain. Rogers was convicted of 6 killings in 1989, and each of 3 juries has sentenced him to death. Rogers also was tied to the slaying of a woman identified in 2013 and sentenced to life in prison for the stabbing death of a woman outside a Portland restaurant in 1987. The state Supreme Court struck down Rogers' death sentences in 1992, 2000 and 2012. The 1st time was to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that invalidated Oregon's death penalty law. (source: Associated Press) WASHINGTON: Grays Harbor County Prosecutor comments on state death penalty referendum Following an announcement on Friday that state prosecutors plan to send a death penalty referendum to voters next year, Grays Harbor County Prosecutor Katie Svoboda issued a press release to KXRO about the decision. "The prosecuting attorneys of Washington State overwhelmingly believe that the people of the state should vote on the question of whether the state should retain the death penalty as an option in cases of aggravated murder. As the elected officials entrusted with the fair administration of capital punishment in our state, we call upon the Governor and the Legislature to place a referendum on the ballot next year seeking guidance from the voters about this significant public policy issue." According to the release, it was 40 years ago, in 1975, that the people of the state approved Initiative 316, which created the death penalty in our state. The previous death penalty setup had been found unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in the Fuhrman v. Georgia case in 1972. The language of the initiative was amended by the Legislature in 1981. For the past 34 years Washington prosecutors have pursued capital punishment in the most heinous murders committed in our state. During that time, prosecutors sought the death penalty in 90 of 268 cases where it was a possible sentence according to Svoboda. Jurors returned unanimous verdicts of the death penalty in 32 of those 90 cases. The 32 death sentences that have been imposed under the current statute have resulted in the execution of 5 men, 3 of whom were "volunteers" who instructed their attorneys to not pursue appeals of their convictions. 9 men currently reside on death row, awaiting more appellate process. 18 men who were sentenced to the death penalty had their sentences reversed by appellate courts and their cases were ultimately resolved without the death penalty. Svoboda's release said that most of the people in the state of Washington today did not participate in the election 40 years ago that established our state as 1 of 31 U.S. states with the death penalty, and it is time to take it back to the voters. (source: KXRO) USA: US set to execute fewest number of people in 24 years ---- The death penalty has faced increased opposition from both the left and right Executions in the US are set to hit a 24 year low - the combination of increased opposition to the death penalty and a struggle to obtain the lethal chemicals used to carry them out. The last 2 scheduled executions of the year are set to be carried out later this week, with Texas due to put convicted murderer Raphael Holiday to death on Wednesday and Georgia fixed to execute convicted murderer Marcus Johnson on Thursday. Reuters said that if those 1 executions go ahead, there will have been 27 executions in the United States in 2015. That would be the lowest number since 1991. The death penalty, which remains legal in 31 states, has been hit by the left and right in 2015, the news agency said. Court battles and a scramble to secure execution drugs after a sales ban a few years ago imposed by makers, mostly in Europe, have left about 8 states, most notably Texas, Florida and Missouri, as those that conduct executions. In 1999, 20 states put people to death. Last year nationwide, there were 73 new death sentences, and that number is set to drop by at least 1/3 this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre. Oklahoma, one of the most active death penalty states, has put a halt on executions after mistakes in protocols that led to a flawed execution in 2014 and the delivery of the wrong drug to the death chamber this year. In September, officiacls in South Carolina revealed they intended to seek the death penalty for Dylann Roof, the man charged with six nine counts of murder over the shooting of nine church members. In some states, such as Nebraska, conservatives have spoken out over the high cost of executions, with some studies suggesting that when appeals and investigations are taken into account, the cost of putting someone to death can be at least double those of housing an inmate for life and are usually far higher. Data cited by the Marshall Project, a nonprofit newsgroup that focuses on criminal justice, has suggested the costs can sometimes be twice as high. Texas and Virginia have instituted changes in the way death penalty cases are taken through courts that have led to decreased prosecutions. Death penalty advocate Robert Blecker, a professor at New York Law School, said money should not be a factor. "The death penalty should not be a utilitarian issue in terms of weighing the costs against the benefits, but rather an issue simply of justice, of who deserves it," he said. (source: The Independent) ********************* Forensic Pseudoscience----The Unheralded Crisis of Criminal Justice This past April, the FBI made an admission that was nothing short of catastrophic for the field of forensic science. In an unprecedented display of repentance, the Bureau announced that, for years, the hair analysis testimony it had used to investigate criminal suspects was severely and hopelessly flawed. The Innocence Project's M. Chris Fabricant and legal scholar Tucker Carrington classify the kind of hair analysis the FBI performs as "magic," and it is not hard to see why. By the Bureau's own account, its hair analysis investigations were unscientific, and the evidence presented at trial unreliable. In more than 95 % of cases, analysts overstated their conclusions in a way that favored prosecutors. The false testimony occurred in hundreds of trials, including 32 death penalty cases. Not only that, but the FBI also acknowledged it had "trained hundreds of state hair examiners in annual 2-week training courses," implying that countless state convictions had also been procured using consistently defective techniques. But questions of forensic science's reliability go well beyond hair analysis, and the FBI's blunders aren't the only reason to wonder how often fantasy passes for science in courtrooms. Recent years have seen a wave of scandal, particularly in drug testing laboratories. In 2013 a Massachusetts drug lab technician pled guilty to falsifying tests affecting up to 40,000 convictions. Before that, at least 9 other states had produced lab scandals. The crime lab in Detroit was so riddled with malpractice that in 2008 the city shut it down. During a 2014 trial in Delaware, a state trooper on the witness stand opened an evidence envelope from the drug lab supposedly containing 64 blue OxyContin pills, only to find 13 pink blood-pressure pills. That embarrassing mishap led to a full investigation of the lab, which found evidence completely unsecured and subject to frequent tampering. There have also been scores of individual cases in which forensic science failures have led to wrongful convictions, the deficiencies usually unearthed by the Innocence Project and similar organizations. In North Carolina, Greg Taylor was incarcerated for nearly 17 years thanks to an analyst who testified that the blood of a murder victim was in the bed of his truck. But later investigation failed to confirm that the substance was blood, or even of human origin. Forensics experts have used "jean pattern" analysis to testify that only a certain brand of blue jeans could leave their distinctive mark on a truck, as occurred in the trial of New Yorker Steven Barnes, who spent twenty years in prison for a rape and murder he didn???t commit. Some wrongful convictions can never be righted - for example, that of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was convicted by a Texas court of intentionally setting the fire that killed his 2 young daughters. After the state executed Willingham, an investigative team at the Texas Commission on Forensic Science concluded that the arson science used to convict him was worthless, and independent fire experts condemned the investigation as a travesty. But those findings came too late to do Willingham any good. The mounting horror stories, and the extent of corruption and dysfunction, have created a moment of crisis in forensic science. But the real question is not just how serious the problems are, but whether it is even possible to fix them. There are reasons to suspect that the trouble with forensics is built into its foundation - that, indeed, forensics can never attain reliable scientific status. ---- Some of the basic problems of forensic science are hinted at in the term itself. The word forensics refers to the Roman forum; forensics is the "science of the forum," oriented toward gathering evidence for legal proceedings. This makes forensics unusual among the sciences, since it serves a particular institutional objective: the prosecution of criminals. Forensic science works when prosecutions are successful and fails when they are not. That purpose naturally gives rise to a tension between science's aspiration to neutral, open-ended inquiry on the one side and the exigencies of prosecution on the other. Likewise, while true understanding is predicated on doubt and revision, the forum must reach a definitive result. The scientist's tentativeness is at odds with a judicial process built on up-or-down verdicts, a point the Supreme Court has emphasized in order to justify allowing judges wide deference as the gatekeepers of evidence. It shouldn't be controversial to point out that forensic science is not really a science to begin with, not in the sense of disciplines such as biology and physics. Forensic science covers whatever techniques produce physical evidence for use in law. These may be derived from various actual scientific disciplines, including medicine, chemistry, psychology, and others, but they are linked less by their inherent similarity than by their usefulness during investigation and prosecution. Law enforcement agencies themselves have invented a number of the techniques, including blood-spatter and bite-mark analysis. Law is a poor vehicle for the interpretation of scientific results. Much forensic knowledge has thus developed by means unlike that of ordinary scientific research. Comparatively few major universities offer programs in forensic science; joint training in forensic sciences and policing is common. Forensic laboratories themselves are a disparate patchwork of public and private entities, with varying degrees of affiliation with police and prosecutors. The accountability of some subfields such as "forensic podiatry" (the study of footprints, gait, and other foot-related evidence) can be dubious, with judges taking the place of accreditation boards. In such a decentralized system, it can be difficult to keep track not only of whether forensic investigation is working well but also of how it even works in the first place. The close association between forensics and law enforcement is particularly controversial. According to Frederic Whitehurst, a chemist and former FBI investigator, forensic scientists can "run into a sledgehammer" when they contradict prosecutors' theories. "What we seem to know in the world of science is that there are some real problems in the world of forensic science," Whitehurst told a reporter from the journal Nature. "We'd rather work on something cleaner." It is easy to see why a chemist might consider forensics "unclean"; criminal investigations regularly flout scientific safeguards against bias. Analysts often know the identity of the suspect, potentially biasing results in favor of police's suspicions. Even more concerning, some crime labs are paid not by the case but by the conviction, creating a strong incentive to produce incriminating evidence. Whitehurst's comments echoed a major report in 2009 by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), which painted a damning portrait of forensic practices. "Many forensic tests - such as those used to infer the source of tool marks or bite marks - have never been exposed to stringent scientific scrutiny," the report concluded. One serious problem with those tests is that they allow for high levels of subjectivity. The NAS authors wrote that fingerprint analysis, for example, is "deliberately" left to human interpretation, so that "the outcome of a friction ridge analysis is not necessarily repeatable from examiner to examiner." I saw this up close while working at the public defender's office in New Orleans. Explaining his procedure for determining a match, a fingerprint examiner said in court that he would look at one, look at the other, and see if they match. When asked how he knew the 2 prints definitely matched, the examiner merely repeated himself. That very logic leads the FBI to claim fingerprint matches are "100 % accurate." Of course they are, if the question of a match is settled entirely by the examiner's opinion. Without any external standard against which to check the results, the examiner can never be wrong. The NAS faulted a number of methods for this kind of shortcoming. Tool-mark and firearm analysis, for example, suffer the same weaknesses as fingerprint evidence, in that they depend strongly on unverified individual judgment. The report ultimately reached the forceful determination: With the exception of nuclear DNA analysis . . . no forensic method has been rigorously shown to have the capacity to consistently, and with a high degree of certainty, demonstrate a connection between evidence and a specific individual or source. That sentence should give any honest forensic examiner some sleepless nights. But what about DNA? The report affirms that DNA maintains its place of integrity, the pinnacle of sound forensic science. It is not hard to see why DNA has long been the gold standard, deployed to convict and to exonerate the unfortunate defendants victimized by faultier methods of identification. DNA also has the advantage of producing falsifiable results; one can actually prove an interpretation incorrect, in contrast to the somewhat postmodern, eye-of-the-beholder sciences such as tool-mark and fingerprint analysis. Yet forensic science involves both knowledge and practice, and while the science behind DNA is far from the prosecutorial voodoo of jeans and bite marks, its analysis must be conducted within a similar institutional framework. Analysts themselves can be fallible and inept; the risk of corruption and incompetence is no less pronounced simply because the biology has been peer-reviewed. Such risk isn't merely theoretical. While Florida exoneree Chad Heins had DNA to thank for the overturning of his conviction, DNA was also responsible for the conviction itself, with an analyst giving faulty testimony about DNA found at the site where Heins's sister-in-law was murdered. Josiah Sutton was wrongfully convicted after a Houston analyst identified DNA found on a rape victim as an "exact match" for Sutton, even though 1 in 16 black men shared the DNA profile in question. Earlier this year in San Francisco, thousands of convictions were thrown into doubt after a DNA technician and her supervisor were found to have failed a proficiency exam. In preparing evidence for a trial, the 2 had also covered up missing data and lied about the completeness of a genetic profile, despite having been disciplined internally for previous faulty DNA analyses. DNA failures can border on the absurd, such as an incident in which German police tracked down a suspect whose DNA was mysteriously showing up every time they swabbed a crime scene, from murders to petty thefts. But instead of nabbing a criminal mastermind, investigators had stumbled on a woman who worked at a cotton swab factory that supplied the police. That case may seem comical, but a 2012 error in New York surely doesn't. In July of that year, police announced that DNA taken off a chain used by Occupy Wall Street protesters to open a subway gate matched that found at the scene of an unsolved 2004 murder. The announcement was instantly followed by blaring news headlines about killer Occupiers. But officials later recanted, explaining that the match was a result of contamination by a lab technician who had touched both the chain and a piece of evidence from the 2004 crime. Yet the newspapers had already linked the words "Occupy" and "murder." The episode demonstrates how the consensus surrounding DNA's infallibility could plausibly enable government curtailment of dissent. Given the NYPD's none-too-friendly disposition toward the Occupiers, one might wonder what motivated it to run DNA tests on evidence from protest sites in the first place. The high degree of confidence placed in DNA is especially worrying because successful DNA analysis requires human institutional processes to function smoothly and without mistakes. The four authors of Truth Machine: The Contentious History of DNA Fingerprinting (2008) describe how DNA actually comes to be used in criminal proceedings: as "an extended, indefinitely complicated series of fallible practices through which evidence is collected, transported, analyzed, and quantified." There are endless ways in which analysts can bungle their task. Furthermore, in the courtroom itself, DNA evidence must be contextualized and given significance. Even with well-conducted testing, poor explanation to a jury can enable a situation in which, as the geneticist Charalambos Kyriacou says, "Human error and misinterpretation could render the results meaningless." A cautious approach is therefore valuable, even where DNA is concerned. ---- It would be unreasonable to expect any human endeavor to be completely without error, and one might wonder just how systemic the problems of forensic science truly are. The claim of crisis is far from universally shared. Forensic scientist John Collins calls this "a fabricated narrative constructed by frustrated defense attorneys, grant-seeking academics, and justice reform activists who've gone largely unchallenged." Those who defend current practices say that the scandals are exceptions, that the vast majority of forensic scientists are diligent practitioners whose findings stand up under scrutiny. For every person exonerated, hundreds of convictions remain untouched. But this defense actually points to one of the key problems with evaluating forensic science. The measures of its success are institutional: we see the failures of forensics when judges overturn verdicts or when labs contradict themselves. There is a circularity in the innocence cases, where the courts' ability to evaluate forensic science is necessary to correct problems caused by the courts??? inability to evaluate forensic science. At no point, even with rigorous judicial review, does the scientific method come into play. The problem is therefore not that forensic science is wrong, but that it is hard to know when it is right. Breaking the cycle of uncertainty has therefore been a key part of reform proposals. The NAS report recommended numerous steps to introduce objectivity and accountability, including the adoption of consistent standards in every subfield and the creation of a unified federal oversight entity. One can hear in the lengthy recommendations of the NAS committee members pleas for the introduction of basic quality control. But so far changes have been sluggish. In fact, in some labs quality may be declining as state budget cuts have reduced resources available for forensics. In Congress, the Forensic Science and Standards Act, which would massively overhaul the field and introduce unprecedented scrutiny and coordination, has repeatedly stalled. Last year, in keeping with the NAS's recommendations, the Department of Justice and the National Institute of Standards and Technology finally put together a forensic science commission to oversee the field and set protocols. But the commission is still in its infancy, and its effects remain to be seen. The Supreme Court attempted to elucidate some standards in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals (1993) and 2 subsequent cases, which govern the admissibility of scientific evidence. The court ruled that evidence must be generally accepted in the field and open to empirical testing. But even as the Court ostensibly limited testimony to that which is sound and reliable, it undercut the ruling's effectiveness by offering lower courts a high level of flexibility in their decision-making. Ironically, that hands-off approach may have helped to create the very nightmare that the Daubert court feared, in which "befuddled juries are confounded by absurd and irrational pseudoscientific assertions." Nobody can state with certainty the degree of pseudoscience that clogs the American courts. But even if forensic science largely faces a "bad apples" problem, it may still be in bad shape. As legal scholar and forensic science specialist Daniel Medwed notes, "An absence of careful oversight can allow rogue scientists to flourish." Even if there is no reason to doubt forensic podiatry itself, there might still be good reason to doubt forensic podiatrists. The localized, disparate, and unmonitored nature of so much forensic practice makes for massive nationwide inconsistency. In fact, so long as forensic science remains forensic - i.e., conducted to meet the demands of the forum rather than those of the scientific method - it is hard to see how it can warrant confidence. For countless reasons, law is a poor vehicle for the interpreting of scientific results. That people's lives must depend on the interpretive decisions of judges and juries is in some respects unsettling to begin with. The chaotic state of forensic science - in theory and practice - and the possibility that unsupported flimflam is passing itself off as fact make the everyday criminal justice process even more alarming. Thus even as we try various fixes, rooting out bad apples and introducing oversight, a systemic and elementary problem remains: a science of the forum can never be science at all. (source: The Boston Review) ****************** Feds indict 8 Salinas gang members A 73-count superseding indictment was unsealed today charging nine defendants with racketeering, murder, attempted murder, armed bank robbery, robbery affecting interstate commerce, and the use of firearms, Acting US Attorney Brian J. Stretch announced in a press release. The arrests followed an investigation referred to as "Operation Daybreak," so named for the early morning attacks that characterized the alleged criminal activity in this case. 8 of the defendants- Daniel Chavez, 33, AKA Youngster; Victor Skates, 26, AKA Demon; Eduardo Lebron, 36, AKA Warlord; Eder Torres, 29, AKA Flaco; Julian Ruiz, 26, AKA JJ; Antonio Cruz, 28; Terrell Golden, 24, AKA G; and Anthony Lek, 28, are alleged to be Salinas-based Norteno gang members. A 9th defendant, Robert Loera, 35, is alleged to be an associate of the gang. According to the indictment, all 9 defendants conspired to commit murder and other violent crimes as part of a criminal RICO enterprise tied to their Norteno gang activity. The superseding indictment alleges that, over a 2-year time period, the defendants committed 12 murders, 7 attempted murders, and 7 bank robberies. With respect to the murders and attempted murders, the indictment alleges that the defendants hunted for rival gang members and other enemies, and shot and killed them and others suspected of being rival gang members. One of the homicides charged in the indictment occurred on the campus of Alisal High School in Salinas. "We greatly appreciate the tireless efforts of the Salinas Police Department in reducing violent crime in the Salinas Valley," said Stretch. "Operation Daybreak has been a critical part of exposing crime in the area. While there remains more work to be done, today's indictment is the result of collective leadership of the Salinas Police Department and the FBI." "This years-long investigation involved thousands of investigative hours by Salinas police detectives with the assistance of the FBI," said police Chief Kelly J. McMillin. "This case demonstrates what we have known for many years; that very few individuals drive the majority of violence in Salinas. It should also serve to remind us all that the role of prevention and intervention efforts cannot be overlooked and in fact must be strengthened further to ensure other young men never think it's okay to shoot another. The Salinas Police Department would like to thank the people of the Office of the United States Attorney, Northern District of California, for their incredible dedication to bringing these individuals to justice." As alleged in the indictment, the armed bank robberies occurred in Salinas, Watsonville, and San Jose. In addition, there was an armed robbery of a Zales jewelry store in Gilroy. All 9 defendants have been charged with the crimes set forth in the 1st 4 counts of the indictment: -- Racketeering conspiracy, in violation of 18 U.S.C. # 1962(d); -- conspiracy to commit murder and assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. # 1959; -- use of firearms in furtherance of crimes of violence, in violation of 18 U.S.C. # 924(c); and -- robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery affecting interstate commerce, in violation of 18 U.S.C. # 1951(a). In addition, the following defendants have been charged with the following counts and additional crimes under the indictment: An indictment merely alleges that crimes have been committed, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The maximum penalty each defendant faces upon conviction is life imprisonment. Chavez, Skates, Golden, Cruz, Torres, and Lebron are charged with death-eligible offenses. The decision whether to seek the death penalty against any or all of these defendants is pending. Additionally, periods of supervised release, fines, forfeitures, and special assessments also could be imposed. However, any sentence following conviction would be imposed by the court after consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statute governing the imposition of a sentence, 18 U.S.C. # 3553. The defendants are in law enforcement custody in various jurisdictions, including in the custody of the US Marshals Service. Defendants are scheduled to appear before the Honorable Lucy Koh, US District Judge, at 9:30 a.m.Wednesday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Meyer is prosecuting the case with the assistance of Nina Burney and Susan Kreider. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the Salinas Police Department. (source: Salinas Californian) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Nov 16 16:03:56 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2015 16:03:56 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 16 EGYPT: Egypt sentenced nearly 600 to death last year The Egyptian government has sentenced nearly 600 people to death in the last year, with the vast majority of death sentences handed down in relation to political protest, human rights organization Reprieve has found. Data collected by Reprieve has found that since January 2014, at least 588 people have been sentenced to death in Egypt. In the cases that Reprieve was able to identify, some 72% of sentences were handed down for attending pro-democracy protests. Reprieve's report, released today, also found that the Egyptian authorities are overseeing a marked rise in actual executions. Between 2011 and 2013, only 1 execution was carried out in Egypt; but since January 2014, some months after President Sisi seized power, at least 27 people have been executed. The report also finds that least 15 mass trials have taken place since March 2014. Since taking power, President Sisi has overseen a regime of mass trials and sweeping death sentences for protestors - sometimes involving hundreds of prisoners at a time. Among those on trial and facing a potential death sentence is Irish teenager Ibrahim Halawa, who is being assisted by Reprieve. Yesterday, it was revealed that Ibrahim has witnessed torture methods including 'crucifixion' and electrocution being carried out in Wadi Natrun prison, where he is being held. Mr Halawa's family were last week joined by several British MPs in asking the UK to intervene on the case, during President Sisi's visit to London for talks with the Prime Minister. The Foreign Office has told Reprieve that the UK is 'monitoring' Ibrahim's case, and has said that it has been raised with the Egyptian authorities. However, there are concerns over the UK government's apparent support for the Egyptian security forces. Reprieve has found that the British government invited security and policing firm G4S to be part of the UK delegation at a recent major Egyptian trade conference hosted by President Sisi. Commenting, Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at Reprieve, which is assisting Ibrahim Halawa, said: "President Sisi has overseen an unprecedented surge in death sentences as part of a wave of repression that should attract condemnation from Egypt's allies. Since 2013, many thousands of people - including journalists, activists and juveniles like Ibrahim Halawa - have been locked up for attending protests. Police torture is reported all too often, and Kafkaesque 'mass trials' have seen hundreds of death sentences handed down at a time. More than ever, the UK must use its increasingly close relationship with Egypt to urge an end to these terrible abuses - including the release of juveniles like Ibrahim." (source: reprieve.org) BANGLADESH: Appellate Division to hear war criminals Salauddin Quader, Mujahid's review pleas Tuesday The Appellate Division will hear on Tuesday petitions of war criminals Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid to review their death sentences. The Supreme Court website shows the appeals are on Tuesday's list of business agenda of the full bench headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha. The bench on Nov 2 set Nov 17 to hear the review petitions of former BNP MP Chowdhury and its key ally Jamaat-e-Islami's Secretary General Mujahid. Mujahid's petition is on 3nd on the top appeals court's cause list while Chowdhury's petition is 3rd. Besides these petitions, the appeal (partly heard) of Jamaat chief Matiur Rahman Nizami against his death sentence by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) is 4th on the Appellate Division's cause list. On Monday, the High Court dropped a writ petition of Salauddin Quader's wife Farhat Quader Chowdhury challenging the constitution of the war crimes tribunal from its cause list. Wartime terror of Chittagong Salauddin Quader was sentenced to death on Oct 1, 2013 by the war crimes tribunal for genocide and torture of Hindus and Awami League supporters. Mujahid, who was the social welfare minister in Khaleda Zia's coalition Cabinet, had planned and executed mass murders including those of intellectuals, scientists, academics and journalists during the Liberation War. The International Crimes Tribunal on Jul 17, 2013, sentenced him to death for the massacre of intellectuals and his involvement in the murder and torture of Hindus in 1971. Besides the chief justice, the other members of the bench that will hear the petitions are Justice Nazmun Ara Sultana, Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain, and Justice Hasan Foez Siddique. The bench on Nov 2 had dismissed a plea of Chowdhury seeking deposition by 8 defence witnesses, including 5 Pakistani nationals. It also rejected another plea by Mujahid seeking order to let his junior counsels help the senior lawyer at the hearing. The bench upheld Mujahid's death sentence on June 16 and Chowdhury's on July 29. The full appeals verdicts were published on Sep 30. The special court then sent the death warrants to the jail authorities who read those to the convicts on Oct 1. Chowdhury is in Kashimpur Jail and Mujahid in Dhaka Central Jail. The last legal hope for the duo to evade execution rests on the review petitions. If the court does not reverse the verdicts on appeal, they will be left with the option to seek presidential clemency. The court took only a day to hear and reject review petitions of war criminals Jamaat assistant secretaries general Abdul Quader Molla and Mohammad Kamaruzzaman. They did not seek president's pardon and were eventually hanged. Supreme Court Bar Association President Khandaker Mahbub Hossain is the chief counsel for both Chowdhury and Mujahid. Chittagong braces for extra security Security in Chittagong has been heightened ahead of the hearing of the review petitions of Salauddin Quader and Mujahid. Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP) Additional Commissioner Debdas Bhattacharya said check posts had been set up at key points of the city. CMP had already raised the number of check posts after Jamaat's student affiliate Islami Chhatra Shibir's plan to attack oil refineries was revealed last month. Salauddin Quader was a lawmaker from Chittagong's Fatikchharhi in the 9th Parliament. After the verdicts of war criminal Jamaat leaders Delwar Hossain Sayedee, Quader Molla and Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, several policemen were killed in clashes with activists of Jamaat and Shibir in the port city. (source: bdnews24.com) UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: 40 Islamists on trial in UAE linked to Syria's Nusra 40 Islamists charged with attempting to overthrow the Emirati regime are linked to Syrian Islamist militants and have smuggled in weapons for attacks, a court heard Monday. The defendants include 38 Emiratis, the English-language Gulf News daily reported in its online version, without giving other nationalities. The trial of the group known as Al-Manara opened in August at the state security court in Abu Dhabi, but the international press is barred from attending. The group smuggled in weapons, ammunition and detonators "obtained in collaboration with Syria's Al Nusra Front", an Al-Qaeda affiliate, as well as militants in Iran, witnesses told the court, quoted in the daily. They said the suspects planned to overthrow the government, assassinate leaders, attack malls and hotels and to declare an Islamic state in the Gulf country. The trial was adjourned to December 8. Authorities reported their arrest on August 2 and prosecutors immediately levelled the accusations against them and said they would face trial. The UAE is part of a US-led coalition that has been carrying out air strikes against the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria since September 2014. In July, it adopted tougher anti-terror legislation and introduced the death penalty for crimes linked to religious hatred and "takfiri" radical Islamic groups. These measures were taken a week after an Emirati woman convicted of the jihadist-inspired murder of a US schoolteacher was put to death by firing squad, in a rare execution in the UAE. (source: Agence France-Presse) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Nov 17 09:38:39 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2015 09:38:39 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.J., PENN., N.C., GA., FLA., ALA., LA., ARK. Message-ID: Nov. 17 TEXAS----impending executuion Condemned man's lawyers stop helping, cite 'false hope' >From his cell on death row, Raphael Holiday drafted letter after desperate letter to lawyers who represent the condemned. He begged for their help to plead for mercy from Gov. Greg Abbott, to try any last-ditch legal maneuvers that might stave off his impending execution. Holiday's appointed lawyers had told him that fighting to stop his punishment was futile, and they wouldn't do it. The 36-year-old thought he'd be left to walk to the death chamber with no lawyer at his side. Less than a month before his execution - scheduled for Wednesday - Holiday secured help. Austin attorney Gretchen Sween agreed to ask the court to find new lawyers willing to try to keep him from dying. But Holiday's federally appointed lawyers - the ones who said they would do no more to help him - are opposing their client's attempts to replace them. Now, just hours before he is set to face lethal injection for burning to death 3 children, including his own daughter, Holiday is awaiting word from the U.S. Supreme Court on his latest request for help. 'False hope' argument Lawyers James "Wes" Volberding and Seth Kretzer said they worked diligently to find new evidence on which to base additional appeals for Holiday, but that none exists. Seeking clemency from Abbott, a staunch death penalty supporter, would be pointless, they say. The 2 contend they are exercising professional judgment and doing what's best for their client. "We decided that it was inappropriate to file [a petition for clemency] and give false hope to a poor man on death row expecting clemency that we knew was never going to come," Volberding said in a telephone interview. But others say the law under which death row lawyers are appointed doesn't allow that kind of discretion. It requires attorneys to make every possible effort to save a client's life, if that's what the inmate wants. "This seems unconscionable," said Stephen Bright, president and senior counsel of the Southern Center for Human Rights and a teacher at Yale Law School. "Lawyers are often in a position of representing people for whom the legal issues are not particularly strong, but nevertheless they have a duty to make every legal argument they can." So far, appeals courts have sided with Volberding and Kretzer. Last Thursday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a motion to have them replaced. On Monday, Sween appealed to the Supreme Court. Holiday was convicted of intentionally setting fire to his wife's home near College Station in September 2000, killing her 3 little girls. He forced the children's grandmother to douse the home in gasoline. After igniting the fumes, Holiday watched from outside as flames engulfed the couch where authorities later found the corpses of 7-year-old Tierra Lynch, 5-year-old Jasmine DuPaul and 1-year-old Justice Holiday huddled together. Volberding and Kretzer were appointed in February 2011 to represent Holiday in his federal appeals. They filed a 286-page petition in federal court, alleging dozens of mistakes in Holiday's case, ranging from assertions that he was intellectually disabled to charges that clemency is so rarely granted in Texas that the process has become meaningless. On June 30, the Supreme Court denied Holiday's petition for a review of his case. Such rulings are common; the high court declines thousands of cases each year. Still, it's a major blow to an inmate whose life depends on the court's mercy. Many lawyers for death row inmates deliver the news in person, knowing how devastating it can be when a last, scant shred of legal hope disintegrates. Volberding sent Holiday a letter. 'The end of work' "I am sorry, but the Supreme Court just denied your appeal," the Tyler-based lawyer wrote. "This marks the end of work for your appeals I regret." The 1 1/2-page message informed Holiday that his lawyers would not file additional appeals or seek clemency from the governor. Neither option, Volberding wrote, presented a real chance of sparing Holiday's life. In the letter, Volberding told Holiday he could seek the help of pro bono lawyers if he wanted to pursue those options. So Holiday blanketed the small community of Texas death penalty lawyers with letters seeking help. When none responded, he wrote to the court. "Your honor, I beg you to consider new appointment of effective counsels to my case," Holiday wrote. "They have refused to help me and it is a disheartening conundrum I am not fit to comprehend." Kretzer countered with a letter to the court insisting that he and Volberding were still working on the case despite its hopelessness. They refused to seek clemency or file additional pleadings not out of laziness or antipathy toward Holiday, Kretzer said, but because they recognized the "political realities" in Texas. In late October, Sween, an appellate lawyer from Austin who teaches writing and advocacy courses at the University of Texas School of Law, agreed to help Holiday obtain new lawyers, at no charge. Sween filed a motion alleging that Volberding and Kretzer had abandoned Holiday in his hour of greatest need. The law under which the 2 were appointed says lawyers for death row clients "shall" represent them in "all available post-conviction proceedings." She pleaded with the court to assign new lawyers who would do so. Clemency petition Volberding and Kretzer opposed the motion and sent Sween a letter threatening to seek sanctions if she did not stay away from their client. They said they would agree to her involvement only if she would take on Holiday as her client pro bono. She declined, insisting that she was unqualified because she had never worked directly on a capital case. "If you can propose a course of action that stands a reasonable chance ... we will pursue it," Volberding said in a letter to Sween. "Otherwise, we respectfully ask that you take no further action in this case. We will respond firmly if you do." Nevertheless, in an effort to mollify Sween, Volberding and Kretzer filed a clemency petition - hastily. In 2 places on the 1st page, the document cites the wrong execution date for Holiday. The petition painstakingly details the horrific nature of Holiday's crime, while containing little evidence that might persuade the governor to show Holiday mercy. After the federal district court rejected her attempts to remove Volberding and Kretzer, Sween appealed to the 5th Circuit, calling the lawyers' clemency petition a "sham" and asking the judges to stay Holiday's execution. Additionally, she argued, the lawyers are now in conflict with their own client, opposing his wishes for new attorneys that he trusts to fight until the bitter end. A 3-judge appellate panel denied the motion and warned Sween that future attempts to dislodge Holiday's lawyers would be viewed skeptically. Jim Marcus, a UT law professor who specializes in capital punishment, said that while Holiday certainly has an uphill battle to avoid execution, federal law requires his lawyers to push ahead. "There's a difference between saying that's not a viable strategy or viable claim and abandoning an entire proceeding altogether"??? said Marcus, who has represented condemned inmates for more than 20 years. "The latter is not really permissible under the statute." The statute, though, is rarely enforced and judges provide little oversight of attorneys who represent indigent condemned clients, said Bright, of the human rights center. In decades of practicing, Bright said he had never seen a case like Holiday's in which appointed lawyers so vociferously fought to keep a death row inmate from retaining a different attorney. In some cases, he said, new lawyers have discovered evidence others overlooked pointing to an inmate's innocence or showing people's intellectual disabilities made them incompetent for execution. "Most people don't get executed for crimes they committed," Bright said. "They get executed for mistakes their lawyers made." (source: Dallas Morning News) ********** The Pilgrimage for Raphael Holiday is The Pilgrimage for Abolition This Wednesday, Raphael Holiday will be executed minutes after 6pm at the Walls Unit in Huntsville, Texas. Unlike many of those I've encountered on death row, I believe that Holiday deserves to die. In early 2000, Raphael was partnered with Tami Wilkerson. Together, they lived in a secluded log cabin in Madison County with their infant daughter Justice and Tami's young daughters, 5-year-old Jasmine and 7-year-old Tierra. In March, Tami discovered that Raphael had sexually assaulted Tierra and filed charges against him. Raphael was forced to move out. Despite the protective order, Tami let Raphael occasionally see his daughter. In August, Raphael started to assault and terrorize Tami incessantly. When she cut off all communication, things got worse. Late in the night of September 5, 2000, Tami saw a figure coming through the woods. By the time family arrived to help, Raphael was in the house. Tami's aunt Beverly Mitchell rushed the oldest girls to the car. Though her uncle Terry Keller had a gun, Raphael choked Tami and made him hand it over. Raphael was unsuccessful in his attempts to burn the car with the girls in it. In the midst of it all, Tami rushed to a neighbor's home for help. By the time she returned to the log cabin, the structure was engulfed in flames and all 3 children were locked inside. Though Raphael Holiday tried to argue that he didn't mean to kill the 3 little girls, I don't believe him. The jury didn't either. Now, the hour has come for the punishment to be carried out. I still believe that he deserves to die. There is only 1 question left to ask. Who deserves to kill him? I've sat with this question for many hours. I believe I know the answer. There once was an execution scheduled. The authorities threw a woman that committed a capital offense at the feet of Jesus. As they raised their stones to kill her, Jesus got down in the dirt to join her in her fate. Looking up, Jesus declared, "Whoever is without sin can cast the first stone!" Over the next 2 days, I will pilgrimage over 40 miles carrying the cross between death row/Polunsky Unit in Livingston and the Execution Chamber/Walls Unit in Huntsville not because I believe that Raphael Holiday is innocent...but rather because I know he's not. Jesus taught us to "love our neighbors as ourselves" and Holiday has already shown us that there is no love in killing. May we show Holiday the mercy that he didn't show his victims. Throughout my journey, I will pray that we will stop emulating the killers we claim we are punishing and stop this foolishness of executions once and for all. Amen. (source: Jeff Hood, Fellowship of Reconciliation) NEW JERSEY: SPEAR "Who Do We Kill" campaign began this week Students for Prison Education and Reform launched the newest protest campaign, "Who Do We Kill," on Monday. The campaign is to protest the death penalty in the United States. The campaign began with a talk by Anthony Ray Hinton, an exoneree who was on death row for 30 years. "I have been through pure hell," Hinton said, regarding his experience as a death row inmate. He noted that no one, regardless of race or gender, should ever be on death row for a crime they never committed, and urged for the end of death sentence. "We need to put an end to the death row," he added. Steffen Seitz '17, co-organizer of the campaign, said that Hinton's experience is something that few people hear about and it's important for people to understand the torture of living under death row. SPEAR co-president Clarissa Kimmey '16 said that the 1st piece of the protest would be this Wednesday, when Texas inmate Raphael Holiday is scheduled to be executed. Kimmey explained that all the students participating in the protests will wear black ribbons around their wrists. SPEAR advocacy co-chair Margaret Wright '17 said that students can get ribbons in the Pace Center for Civic Engagement. Maxwell Grear '18, co-organizer of the campaign, said that the goal of the campaign is to start conversation about the death penalty on campus and remind people about its continuing prevalence. Grear is also a columnist for The Daily Princetonian. He explained that every time a person is scheduled to be executed in the country, SPEAR will circulate information about each person and hold a protest. He said that the protests are meant to last indefinitely until the death penalty is outlawed in the United States. Grear explained that although it seems that people are overall sympathetic to the idea of reforming the criminal justice system, they are more accepting of the status quo in terms of the death penalty. The issue is not on the radar of most people or there is a certain sense of complacency, he added. Wright said that what is visible in the media is only the stories of the victims in terms of the crimes that were allegedly committed. "It's really easy not to think about the fact that each one of these people is a human being with an entire life story," she added. Kimmey said that another one of SPEAR's goals is to let the people being executed speak for themselves. The campaign will distribute letters written by people on death row to students on campus. "When you talk about drone warfare or police killings or gun violence, there are staggering numbers of people affected that brace people," SPEAR co-president Daniel Teehan '17 said. "With the death penalty, however, if you say the number of people that are executed, that doesn't really register with people, and yet it's really something that exceptional in society that we're still allowing the killing of people." He added that although the number of executed people are not very large, the system is still something to be protested against. "Even though it's not 30,000 people every year, even if it's just 50 people, it's 50 people too many. I think that's the message we're trying to convey with the campaign," he added. Kyle Berlin '18, a participant in the campaign, said, that he thinks the campaign is important because the death penalty is "an act of extreme injustice." "The fact that we can call ourselves civilized and then kill people, many of whom are African Americans or later proven to be innocent, is a travesty," he said. He said he hopes SPEAR's protests will spur some conversations on campus so students can start talking about the death penalty and how it represents a larger system of injustice and discrimination. (source: The Daiy Princetonian) PENNSYLVANIA: Prosecutor urges judge to dismiss defense motion in Con-ui case The attack on the death penalty mounted by gang assassin Jessie Con-ui's defense last month amounts to little more than a "boiler plate" assault on a well-established federal law, prosecutors wrote in a response filed Monday urging dismissal of the defense motion. Con-ui, 37, faces the death penalty if convicted next July of murdering Nanticoke native Correctional Officer Eric Williams at U.S. Penitentiary Canaan on Feb. 25, 2013. Prosecutors allege Con-ui, angered over a previous cell search, kicked Williams down a flight of stairs before beating and slashing him to death with 2 shanks. Prosecutors argue Con-ui should die for the crime, which was recorded by surveillance cameras, because it was committed in an "especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner" by a convicted drug trafficker and murderer who has a history of violence, including against law enforcement. But in a filing last month, Con-ui's defense sought to have U.S. District Judge A. Richard Caputo strike down the Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994 as unconstitutional, saying it has been implemented in an "arbitrary, capricious, irrational, and invidious manner." In the filing Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Francis P. Sempa says such motions have become commonplace in capital cases and their arguments are nothing new. "As daunting as Mr. Con-Ui's Motion to Strike appears at first glance, it is nothing more than a 'boiler plate' assault on the FDPA, which is filed by the defense for consideration 'in nearly every, if not every, federal capital case in recent decades,'" Sempa wrote. Because the arguments aren't new, prosecutors opted not to "reinvent the wheel," instead citing extensive case law from other judges who have rejected the same arguments, he wrote. "All of defendant's arguments are afflicted by the same basic and fatal flaw, that is, they are in opposition with long-standing legal principles and overwhelming authority to the contrary," Sempa wrote. Con-ui's trial is scheduled to begin with jury selection on Monday, July 11, 2016. (source: Wilkes-Barre Citizens Voice) NORTH CAROLINA: Death penalty sought against Sanford man in deaths of wife, stepdaughter Prosecutors said Monday that they plan to seek the death penalty against a Sanford man charged with killing his wife and stepdaughter in July. Firefighters found the bodies of Calandra McLean and her 13-year-old daughter, Tashonna Cameron, inside the family's 916 Clark Circle home on July 13 after extinguishing a blaze in the home. A nationwide search ensued for Billy Jo McLean, 54, who was arrested four days later at a motel in the Texas Panhandle, where he had fled with his stepson. 17-year-old Tobias McLean, who had walked to a nearby diner while Billy Jo McLean slept, learned from Facebook about the deaths of his mother and sister and the manhunt for his stepfather and asked diner employees to call 911. Billy Jo McLean fought extradition to North Carolina but was returned to the state in September. (source: wral.com) ************ Sanford man faces death penalty in killings of wife and daughter The Sanford man accused of burning his wife and teen stepdaughter to death and fleeing to Texas in July could get the death penalty if convicted. The Lee County District Attorney's Office made the announcement at a hearing Monday. Billy Jo McLean, 54, was captured in Oldham County, TX days after investigators say he burned his wife, Calandra McLean and his 13-year-old stepdaughter, TaShonna Cameron, on July 13. McLean is charged with 2 counts of 1st-degree murder. He's due back in court March 7. (source: WTVD news) GEORGIA----impending execution Murder victim's daughter will attend execution Marcus Ray Johnson is now scheduled to be executed at 7:00 Thursday night at the prison in Jackson, for the 1994 brutal murder of Lee County single mother Angela Sizemore. He was sentenced to death in 1998 after his trial. Katie Barker was only 4 when her mother was murdered. In a Skype interview from her home in Chattanooga she said plans to be at the prison Thursday to support her other family members who will witness the execution. But says she is not sure if she, herself, will watch. Katie Barker for almost a decade has attended most of Ray Johnson's death sentence hearings, sitting just feet from the man convicted of stabbing her mother 41 times, brutally murdering her. "I believe in my heart that it's time for justice. He will never own up to his actions. He will never be sorry." Now 21 years after her mother's death, Barker says she will continue to be there for every step. "We will be at the hearings and we will be at the prison when it takes place. Because someone has got to step up for my mom. Someone's got to make sure that she gets the justice she is supposed to get." Barker says she will support her family members who will witness the execution, but still has not decided if she will watch. "This is something that has been leading up for 20 something years. Basically my whole life. So, for it to finally come to pass, is just a lot to take in." Barker says she has no doubts about Ray Johnson's guilt, and that it's time for him to face justice. She said she has been in contact with Ray Johnson's family, including his daughter, who is close to her age. (source: WALB news) FLORIDA: Judge issues sentence today in Bessman Okafor death-penalty case An Orange County judge will decide today whether Bessman Okafor, a convicted murderer thought to have masterminded a witness execution plot in 2012, joins 392 Florida inmates awaiting execution on death row. Okafor, 30, was convicted of 1st-degree murder in August. A jury then recommended capital punishment, but a judge makes the final decision. The hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Okafor is already serving a life sentence for robbing the same Ocoee home months before the killing. Prosecutors argued Okafor broke in again to stop the residents from testifying against him in that case. Okafor was convicted of shooting siblings Brienna and Remington Campos in the head and killing 19-year-old Alex Zaldivar. If Circuit Judge John Marshall Kest sentences him to death, Okafor will be the 1st person in Orange County to receive that fate since 2008. (source: Orlando Sentinel) ********************* DEAD WRONG----After giving ineffective counsel in more than 1 death penalty case, the Public Defender's 2nd-in-command may no longer be allowed to do his job A woman from Meals On Wheels found Andrew Dwelle dead on the bedroom floor of his Jacksonville apartment on Jan. 9, 1997. Dwelle was 82 years old and needed help bathing, dressing and preparing meals. He'd been stabbed twice in the neck. One of the wounds was 5 inches deep. Jacksonville police arrested Raymond Morrison the next day. He confessed he'd killed Dwelle during a fight after he'd grabbed some of the old man's money. Morrison even led police to the knife. It sounds like an open-and-shut case. A jury found Morrison guilty of 1st-degree murder in 1998 and sentenced him to death. But in September 2015, a circuit court judge threw out the verdict and the death sentence and ordered a new trial. Judge Henry Davis said Morrison's attorney failed to present key evidence. One omission: Morrison had an alibi. Three witnesses said he wasn't even in Jacksonville when Dwelle was murdered. Though Morrison, intellectually, is barely functional, and he'd previously confessed to and spent time in prison for a crime he did not commit, no expert testified as such. The actual perpetrator would have testified, but Morrison's attorney never put him on the stand. Morrison's attorney was Refik Eler. And this is the 2nd time a court has ruled the Jacksonville attorney gave ineffective assistance of counsel in a death penalty case. It's a big deal. Under a law enacted in 2013, a defense attorney with 2 ineffective counsel findings is disqualified from representing death penalty clients for 5 years. Also, Eler is Public Defender Matt Shirk's chief assistant public defender, leading the public defender's homicide division. State Attorney Angela Corey may be Florida???s death penalty queen. Since she took office in 2009, she's secured more death sentences than any other prosecutor in Florida, and more than most other places in the United States. On the other side of the bar, Corey and her prosecutors face a chief assistant public defender with a history of providing such inadequate lawyering that it violated his clients' constitutional rights to a fair trial and to legal representation. In a 3rd case, the court criticized Eler's performance but did not overturn the death sentence. Currently, 2 other cases of Eler's are under court review. Gung-ho prosecutor. Failed defense. "It's a deadly combination," says Stephen Harper, of Florida International University's Death Penalty Clinic. Though no one seems to know quite how it will work, the Timely Justice Act of 2013 disqualifies a defense attorney with 2 ineffective assistance of counsel rulings in a death penalty case from those kinds of cases for 5 years. The Timely Justice Act does not, however, address whether it's applied retroactively. Though the ineffective judgments were issued in 2013 and 2015, Eler's cases went to trial in 1995 and 1998, more than a decade before he joined the public defenders office in 2009. While it's common for someone convicted of a crime to blame his lawyer, filing an ineffective counsel motion is one of the few ways to fight bad lawyering. And it's not easy to win a judgment. The U.S. Supreme Court requires a finding of both deficient representation and that an attorney's omissions might have changed the jury's decision. The Innocence Project found that 81 % of the first 255 defendants exonerated by DNA lost ineffective assistance claims. In an evidentiary hearing, Eler testified he decided not to present expert testimony on another death penalty defendant's mental illness and hospitalizations, suicide attempt and brain abnormalities as a strategic decision, as a jury weighed whether to recommend life or death for Michael Shellito. Eler thought such information might make the jury less sympathetic. The Florida Supreme Court disagreed. It threw out Shellito's death sentence in 2013 after reviewing what the court described as a "a plethora of evidence" from multiple experts on Shellito's substantial mental health problems, possible organic brain dysfunction, childhood sexual and physical abuse and neglect, and history of alcohol and drug abuse. The court ruled Eler's failure to fully investigate mitigation in the case deprived the judge and jury of information it needed when considering life in prison or death. An adequate defense is critical in rendering justice, Harper says. "It shortchanges the jury in making a fully intelligent and fully informed decision, when making the most important decision any person can make," Harper says, "a life and death decision." And there's more. A 3rd ineffective assistance of counsel claim was made against Eler by death row inmate Luther Douglas, though it did not result in Douglas' death sentence being overturned. But in its 2012 decision, the Florida Supreme Court criticized Eler's lack of mitigation work for the penalty phase of the trial. Douglas was found guilty of 1st-degree murder and sentenced to death in 1999 for the sexual battery and murder of 18-year-old Mary Ann Hobgood. Attorney Rick Sichta has appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. And in June 2015, the Florida Supreme Court "made it abundantly clear," according to The Florida Times-Union, the lawyers representing a fourth death penalty defendant, Thomas Bevel, failed him. Eler was the lead attorney. A jury found Bevel guilty of 1st-degree murder and sentenced him to death in 2005 for the murder of his roommate Garrick Strickland and Strickland's 13-year-old son. In oral arguments, 1 justice said it was hard to argue the defense had done a competent job during the penalty phase because it never hired anyone to investigate mitigating circumstances in Bevel's life. Attorney Rick Sichta described Eler's mitigation as an "11th Hour" investigation that failed to uncover a host of mitigating factors. Glossing over mitigation seems to be a pattern with Eler. Wilton Manors attorney Linda McDermott, who prevailed in arguing both Shellito's and Morrison's claims of ineffective representation, questions Eler's knowledge of death penalty defense. "In dealing with Mr. Eler between these 2 cases," McDermott says, "it's clear to me that he doesn't understand the defense available to someone facing the death penalty. "He is the 2nd person in charge in the public defender's office, and he doesn't seem to understand what the U.S. Supreme Court has said is a [legitimate] defense in a capital case." Neither Shirk nor Eler returned multiple calls from Folio Weekly requesting comment on whether Eler would continue to lead the homicide defense unit. Both Sichta and Harper say Shirk should remove Eler from his role as top defense counsel now. Sichta says leaving him in charge will only lead to more claims and ultimately cost taxpayers. "He may be a good administrator and he may be an improved attorney [than when he defended Shellito, Morrison, Bevel and Douglas]," says Harper, "but if I were the public defender, I would not want someone found deficient [3] times heading up my death penalty defense." Harper and others say it's not just Eler. An American Bar Association article in 2009 reported on an ABA study that concluded public defenders nationally had too many cases and too little funding to mount an adequate defense. It described the defense of indigent clients as a crisis, where ineffective counsel was the most frequently raised and too often legitimate claim. While Duval County might be among the deadliest counties in the state and in the nation, Harper predicts the county might also lead in death sentences overturned because of bad lawyering. "They may be 1st in death sentences, but they will also be [1st in] getting reversals," McDermott predicts. "Constitutional rights are being overlooked in that county because of overreaching of the prosecution and inadequacy of the defense bar." (source: Folio News) ****************** State seeks death penalty in McLean murder case The Lee County District Attorney's Office on Monday revealed it would seek the death penalty against the Sanford man charged with murdering his wife and teenage stepdaughter. Billy Jo McLean, 54, appeared in court for the 2nd time since his capture on July 17 in Oldham County, Texas, where authorities said he fled with his 18-year-old stepson, Tobias McLean, after killing his wife, Calandra McLean, and 13-year-old stepdaughter, Tashonna Cameron, on July 13. "The state wishes to proceed capitally," said Matt Craven, a prosecutor with the district attorney's office, during a hearing Monday at the Lee County Courthouse. According to Robert Reives II, a Lee County attorney unaffiliated with the case, a prosecution seeking the death penalty has a profound effect on how a case is tried. "There are 13 or 14 'statutory aggravators' that the state can use to help them decide whether they want to proceed as a capital case," Reives said. "They can be all kinds of things like [the crime] being particularly heinous and cruel, or based on a person's previous [criminal] record. It changes a lot about the complexion of a case." Among the major changes are that McLean now will receive a 2nd court-appointed attorney in addition to Stephen Freedman, who represented him during Monday's hearing, and the length of time that the trial will take. "With a [non-capital] case, you're probably looking at a couple of weeks for jury selection, and the case itself might take a couple of weeks," Reives said. "But with a death penalty case, our last two death penalty cases have gone right around three or four months each. ... You literally will have selected a jury and finished the trial [in a non-capital murder case] before you're halfway through your jury selection in a death penalty case." During the hearing, Craven said the district attorney's office believed it could prove one or more "statutory aggravators" in McLean's case. Calandra McLean's mother, Joann Jackson, attended the hearing along with other family members. "We're ready for this to be ended," she said after the brief hearing. " ... I'll be glad when it's over." As for her thoughts on the prosecution seeking the death penalty, Jackson said, "I'm not the judge or the jury. I'll have to go with what they decide." McLean's next court appearance is scheduled for March 7. Reives said that death penalty trials really are 2 trials in 1. "First you have the guilt/innocence phase, which is in any trial," Reives said. "Then if the person is convicted, you have what amounts to a separate trial to determine if they'll face the death penalty. ... It's pretty intensive." (source: The Sanford Herald) ALABAMA----female faces death sentence Sentencing hearing postponed for woman who was found guilty of killing her daughter The Russell County woman convicted of hiring someone to kill her daughter was expected in court on Monday for a sentencing hearing. But the sentencing for Lisa Graham was postponed and is now scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. Graham was found guilty earlier this year in the shooting death of her 20-year old daughter Stephanie Shae Graham back in July of 2007. Kenny Walton confessed to the murder and admitted to shooting Shae 6 times and leaving her body on a dirt road near Cottonton. Walton is now serving a life sentence. The jury is recommending the death penalty for Lisa Graham. (source: WLTZ news) LOUISIANA: Judge asked to decide if man accused in 2010 fatal shooting in Beauregard Town is mentally disabled A prosecutor and attorneys for Aramis Jackson are asking a Baton Rouge state judge to resolve a split between 2 psychologists and decide whether the man accused of fatally shooting a woman and wounding her young daughter during a 2010 home invasion in Beauregard Town is intellectually disabled. It's a move that would take the crucial determination of intellectual capacity out of the hands of a jury. Accused killers found to be intellectually disabled, formerly called mentally retarded, cannot be executed if convicted of 1st-degree murder. At this point in the 5-year-old case, the East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney's Office intends to seek the death penalty if the 25-year-old Jackson is convicted of 1st-degree murder in the slaying of Alexandra Engler, 42. He also is charged with attempted 1st-degree murder of Ariana Engler, who was 9 years old when she was shot. A California psychologist hired by Jackson's attorneys concluded earlier this year that he is intellectually disabled, but a New Orleans psychologist hired by the state found last month that Jackson is not mentally disabled. That led prosecutor Darwin Miller and Jackson's attorneys, David Price and Mario Guadamud, to ask state District Judge Tony Marabella to settle the matter. "The State of Louisiana and defense counsel are jointly requesting that the court hold an evidentiary hearing to resolve the issue relating to 'intellectual disability' prior to a jury trial in this case," they wrote in a motion filed Thursday. The prosecutor and defense lawyers are asking for a hearing March 4. Jackson is accused of shooting Alexandra Engler to death inside her Beauregard Street home on Sept. 24, 2010, and shooting her daughter multiple times. The young girl survived. Witnesses identified Jackson, of Baton Rouge, as the man they observed in the area shortly after the crime carrying a gun and television believed stolen from the Engler home, police have said. A forensic consultant, hired by the prosecution, who specializes in footwear impressions testified at a hearing in 2013 that a bloody shoeprint found in the kitchen of the Engler home was left by one of Jackson's shoes. District Attorney Hillar Moore III has said previously that the shoeprint matched shoes found in Jackson's possession, but he would not say if Jackson was wearing the shoes when he was arrested. (source: The Advocate) ************** Review: Song of a Man Coming Through ---- A tale of death row redemption, by Andrew Doss and Joe Morris Doss Earnest Knighton Jr. killed a man during a robbery in the early 1980s and was sentenced to death. While on death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, a team of lawyers appealed his sentence, arguing that if he wasn't black, he wouldn't have received the death penalty. Song of a Man Coming Through, currently receiving its premiere from Southern Rep at the First Grace United Methodist Church, recounts Knighton's time on death row. Song of a Man Coming Through is co-written by Andrew Doss and his father Joe Morris Doss, who is a character in the drama. Lawyer-turned-minister Joe (Mike Harkins), lawyer Julian Murray (John Neisler) and paralegal Catherine Brame (Cecile Monteyne) pursue the long and arduous appeals process to overturn Knighton's (Robert Diago DoQui) sentence. They argue the system is racist, and if Knighton was white, he would have been sentenced to life in prison. DoQui is a powerful actor, and he plays Knighton with confidence, even when the situation looks hopeless. The audience surrounds the stage, which is minimally appointed with stacks of long, wooden crates, and the openness creates the sense of a communal experience. Aimee Hayes' direction is excellent, and powerful hymns, led by Brittney James and Barbara Shorts, punctuate scenes. The show's focus in the second act is unbalanced. Toward the end, Knighton tells Doss to help "tell his story," which ostensibly is the show's purpose. Knighton's story comes through a series of interviews with his lawyers. During these sessions, the lawyers seem to cross-examine him, probing for important information. But instead of adding insight into Knighton's life, these scenes ultimately show more about the lawyers and their growing compassion for Knighton. We see Knighton as a charming and thoughtful man when he's talking to an inmate played by Lance E. Nichols (TV's Treme). This character gives Knighton perspective and cautions him to be wary of the lawyers' intentions. The 2 men bond and constantly debate the best stance for a baseball player to use in the batter's box, a metaphor for their imprisonment. Nichols gives an extremely funny and dynamic performance full of gripping emotion and insight. Although there were issues with the play's focus, the show's end is powerful and moving in both its emotional and religious context. The narrative raises many important points, such as the failings of mass incarceration, the ethics of capital punishment and the history of biased sentencing of black criminals. The acting and direction in Song of a Man Coming Through are outstanding, and this production should initiate some tough conversations. (source: bestofneworleans.com) ARKANSAS----female to face death penalty Trial rescheduled for man accused of killing son, 6 A January jury trial will not take place for the Bella Vista man accused of killing his 6-year-old son. Mauricio Alejandro Torres' jury trial was scheduled to begin Jan. 12. The trial was rescheduled due to the appointment of 2 new attorneys to represent Mauricio Torres. Jeff Rosenzweig and Bill James replaced attorneys for the Arkansas Public Defenders Commission who had represented Mauricio Torres. Mauricio Torres, 45, and Cathy Torres , 43, the boy's mother, are charged with capital murder and 1st-degree battery. They have pleaded not guilty to the charges. Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for both. Their son was pronounced dead at the hospital March 29. A medical examiner later determined Maurice Isaiah Torres suffered from chronic child abuse, and his death was from internal injuries caused by being raped. Torres appeared in court Monday afternoon for a hearing in his murder case. Circuit Judge Brad Karren scheduled jury selection to begin at 8:30 a.m. May 6. Nathan Smith, Benton County's prosecuting attorney, told the judge he expects the trial to take at least 3 weeks. Rosenzweig told the judge that the previous attorneys had done plenty of work on the case, but they still need to look into Torres' childhood in Central America. He lived there until he was 11 or 12 years old and then lived in California. Rosenzweig said they also had to look into the time that his client lived in California. Prosecutors have already decided to try Mauricio Torres first. Cathy Torres' jury trial was set to begin Jan. 26. She is scheduled to appear at 2:30 p.m. Monday for a hearing. Karren discussed the possibility of setting her trial for Aug. 23 while discussing trial dates during Mauricio Torres' hearing. The Torreses also were arrested in connection with rape, but prosecutors didn't include that offense in the charging documents. The rape occurred in Missouri, not in Benton County, Smith said. Smith previously said his office didn't have jurisdiction to charge the couple with rape. The office has jurisdiction in the murder case because the boy died in Benton County, Smith said. The Torreses are being held without bond in the Benton County Jail. (source: Arkansas Online) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Nov 17 09:40:17 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2015 09:40:17 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO., IOWA, NEB., UTAH, USA Message-ID: Nov. 17 MISSOURI: Sheley change-of-venue hearing reset for January A change-of-venue hearing for a Sterling man facing the death sentence if convicted of killing his 7th and 8th victims has been moved to Jan. 8. Nicholas Sheley, 36, of Sterling, already serving 6 life sentences for slayings in Sterling, Rock Falls and Galesburg, is being tried in Jefferson County Court in Missouri for the bludgeoning deaths of Jill and Tom Estes of Sherwood, Arkansas. The couple were killed in the parking lot of a Festus, Missouri, hotel on June 30, 2008. (source: saukvalley.com) IOWA: GOP candidates face fallout over death penalty for gays conference in Iowa The fallout from GOP candidates' attendance at a "religious liberty" conference in Iowa continued last week. Right Wing Watch notes that conference organizer Kevin Swanson has repeatedly defended the death penalty for homosexuality: When 3 Republican presidential candidates decided to address a conference in Iowa this weekend organized by Colorado pastor Kevin Swanson - a radical activist who thinks that Girl Scout cookies and the movie "Frozen" are turning girls into lesbians and has defended the death penalty for homosexuality - it showed once again that the Republican primary seems to be a competition of who can move farther to the right. Swanson cleverly focused his Iowa conference on the theme of "religious liberties," warning that "persecution against Christians is on the rise in Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan, China, Oregon, and Kentucky." It was apparently an invitation that Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee and Bobby Jindal - who are constantly harping on the theme that American Christians are on the road to facing persecution on par with Christians living under oppressive regimes - couldn't pass up. Swanson made clear what he meant by anti-Christian persecution in interview at the conference with Seattle-based radio host Michelle Mendoza, when he complained that media reports on his anti-gay comments, including his recent remarks that AIDS is "God's retribution" for homosexuality, is part of a larger attempt to "shut down Christian media." MSNBC's Rachel Maddow devoted a segment to the conference and Swanson, the Advocate reports: Rachel Maddow focused Monday night on a tale of 2 forums this past weekend: 1 she hosted in South Carolina featuring the 3 major contenders for the Democratic party nomination, and an Iowa conference featuring 3 antigay Republican candidates for president hosted by a right wing pastor who declared "it's not a gay time!" "It really was a 'kill the gays' call to arms," said Maddow on her MSNBC program. The New York Times published an opinion piece taking aim at Swanson: Earlier this month, in Des Moines, the prominent home-schooling advocate and pastor Kevin Swanson again called for the punishment of homosexuality by death. To be clear, he added that the time for eliminating America's gay population was "not yet" at hand. We must wait for the nation to embrace the one true religion, he suggested, and gay people must be allowed to repent and convert. Mr. Huckabee later pleaded ignorance. Yet a quick web search will turn up Mr. Swanson's references to the demonic power of "the homosexual Borg," the unmitigated evil of Harry Potter and the Disney character Princess Elsa's lesbian agenda.... Mr. Cruz apparently felt little need to make excuses. He was accompanying another of the featured speakers at the conference: his father, Rafael Cruz - a politically connected pastor who told a 2013 Family Leadership Summit that same-sex marriage was a government plot to destroy the family. (source: The Column) NEBRASKA: Judge hears arguments in cases challenging death-penalty ballot Lawyers clashed in a Lincoln courtroom Monday in back-to-back hearings on a lawsuit challenging whether the death-penalty question should go before voters next year and another challenging the wording on the ballot if it does. Lancaster County District Judge Lori Maret made no decisions in the cases. One, filed by longtime death penalty opponents Christy and Richard Hargesheimer, contends the petition process should be deemed invalid because it failed to disclose Gov. Pete Ricketts as a sponsor. The other, filed by Beatrice attorney Lyle Koenig, takes issue with the language the Secretary of State has chosen to appear as the title on the ballot. At hearings Monday, the main questions for Maret were: * whether the judge should dismiss the Hargesheimers' lawsuit. * And whether a pro-death-penalty group should be allowed to be a party in the Koenig case. At the 1st hearing, in the Hargesheimers' case, nearly a dozen attorneys -- 4 on the plaintiffs' side and 7 for the defendants -- sat in the well. The argument over the next 40 minutes came down, largely, to who qualifies as a "sponsor" of a petition. Attorney Alan Peterson, who represents the Hargesheimers, contends that Nebraska law requires a sworn list of every person sponsoring a referendum. "The plaintiff's claim is simple. They didn't do it," he said. Peterson said the list left off Ricketts. It's Peterson's position that the courts haven't yet defined "sponsors," but there's strong indication Ricketts would meet any definition. Ricketts and his father contributed 1/3 of the $913,000 raised by Nebraskans for the Death Penalty. Ricketts raised money for the campaign, and his close allies took roles to promote it. In the end, Peterson said the court probably will have to come up with a legal definition, which can come from the legislature's intent to prevent fraud and to allow the public to be fully informed before deciding to support a petition. Omaha attorney Steven Grasz, who represents Nebraskans for the Death Penalty and the Ballot Question Committee, said the fact that the plaintiffs can't or won't define "sponsor" only points out that their definition is so vague it would hinder rather than facilitate the referendum process. "You can't have a gotcha game with the people's referendum rights," he argued. Grasz said to construe the statute to encompass supporters, contributors and political leaders would put petition drives in a state of perpetual uncertainty. He pointed to a definition in a prior Lancaster County case. "Sponsor," he argued, refers to one who assumes statutory responsibility for the referendum once the petition commences. Secretary of State John Gale interprets it that way, too. "Your honor, there is no fraud in this case, there is no confusion," Grasz said. Voters can look at Accountability and Disclosure reports to see all the contributors, he added. Assistant Attorney General Ryan Post, who represents Gale, said since all parties agree it's a legal question, "there's no reason this court can't decide on a motion to dismiss." In the Koenig case, which Maret took up next, attorney Chris Eickholt argued against the judge allowing Nebraskans for the Death Penalty to be joined to the suit, which seeks to change a single word to the title should the question end up before voters. It challenges the Attorney General's proposed ballot language, which describes life in prison as the "maximum" sentence, when in fact it is the only sentence. Eickholt said the pro-death penalty group didn't file within the time allowed to challenge the decision on the wording or provide an alternative. On the other side, attorney Stephen Mossman argued the sponsor of the initial petition should have say in how it ultimately ends up on the ballot. "If you have a problem with (the wording), you're supposed to do what Mr. Koenig did, right?" Maret asked Mossman. He said the sponsor doesn't necessarily have a problem with that language, but the group has an interest in the outcome of the case. Maret took motions in both cases under advisement. (source: Lincoln Journal Star) ************ Ricketts' involvement in death penalty petition argued in lawsuit An attorney for a pro-death penalty group urged a judge Monday to toss out a lawsuit by capital punishment opponents that attacks a voter petition drive because it did not list Nebraska's governor as a sponsor. The lawsuit seeks to invalidate a petition that would ask voters if they want to reverse the death penalty repeal enacted by state lawmakers this spring. Nebraskans for the Death Penalty properly listed three sponsors when the group submitted official paperwork for the petition, said Omaha attorney Steve Grasz. Gov. Pete Ricketts' political and financial support of the petition drive - to the tune of $200,000 - did not constitute sponsorship, Grasz argued. The Nebraska Constitution says state laws should make voter petitions easier, not harder, to achieve. Allowing death penalty opponents to vaguely define a petition sponsor as someone who contributes money would discourage citizen participation in the referendum process, Grasz said. "You can't have a 'gotcha' game with the people's initiative and petition rights," he said. Lawyers for death penalty opponents, meanwhile, argued that citizens should know the extent of the governor's involvement in an initiative petition he helped fund. The law also requires the listing of all sponsors so voters can be fully informed before deciding whether to sign, said Lincoln attorney Alan Peterson, who represents Nebraskans for Public Safety. The proper listing of sponsors prevents fraud by holding those behind a petition drive legally responsible. "The provision allows the public and the media to scrutinize the validity and the completeness of any list of sponsors," Peterson said. Lancaster County District Judge Lori Maret took the matter under advisement Monday and will issue her ruling at a later date. But she learned all legal issues surrounding the death penalty petition - including any appeals - must be decided by Sept. 16, 2016, to meet a deadline for the Nebraska Secretary of State to print ballots. Death penalty defenders collected about 143,000 valid signatures to put the question on the November 2016 general election ballot. The number also was enough to put the repeal on hold until the vote. State senators abolished capital punishment over the governor's veto. In the months that followed, Ricketts solicited contributions for the referendum drive and gave $200,000 to the $1.36 million effort. His father, Joe Ricketts, contributed $100,000. Among those coordinating the drive were Jessica Flanagain, the governor's privately paid political consultant, and Chris Peterson, whom Ricketts hired to organize the inaugural ball. The governor was "the primary initiating force" behind the referendum, according to the lawsuit. Alan Peterson said Monday the lawsuit should go forward so witnesses can be questioned about the extent of the governor's involvement in an effort to reverse a law with which he disagrees. In 2003 the Nebraska Supreme Court invalidated a pro-gambling petition because organizers failed to include a sworn statement including the names and addresses of sponsors. But the majority opinion in the ruling did not define a sponsor. However, in a concurring opinion, then-Chief Justice John Hendry defined a petition sponsor as someone who identifies himself as "willing to assume statutory responsibilities once the petition process has commenced." Grasz said the 3 sponsors in the death penalty petition meet the Hendry definition. Secretary of State John Gale reviews petition sponsor listings using the same definition, said Ryan Post, an assistant attorney general. Alan Peterson contends it was more significant that the court majority did not adopt the Hendry definition in its opinion. (source: World-Herald) ************** Attorneys spar over lawsuit to keep death penalty off Neb. ballot A group that wants to retain Nebraska's death penalty is asking a judge to dismiss a lawsuit that could prevent the issue from appearing on the November 2016 ballot. However, death penalty opponents who filed the lawsuit argued in court Monday that the lawsuit should proceed. The lawsuit argues that the ballot measure to reinstate the punishment after lawmakers abolished the death penalty is invalid because Gov. Pete Ricketts wasn't listed as a sponsor. Ricketts donated $200,000 to the effort, but has said his support for the petition drive didn't make him a sponsor. Nebraskans for the Death Penalty raised more than $913,000 and spent nearly all of it on the petition drive. The group has said the lawsuit is politically motivated. (source: KETV news) UTAH: Joe Hill, who was executed by firing squad in Utah 100 years ago, inspired generations of musicians from Woody Guthrie to Bruce Springsteen Nov. 19, 2015, will mark the 100th anniversary of the execution of Joe Hill, a man who gave us the phrase "pie in the sky" and left a legacy that has inspired generations of musicians - from Woody Guthrie to Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. He also left an enduring mystery over whether he died a martyr or a murderer. The crime for which Hill faced a firing squad was the shooting of a Salt Lake City shopkeeper and his son. The prosecution's case was based entirely on weak circumstantial evidence, but he was convicted anyway. Friends wrote at a funeral that drew 30,000 mourners in Chicago that Hill was "murdered by the authorities of the State of Utah" because of his role in the workers rebellion. The anniversary is being marked by concerts, museum exhibits and plays all over the U.S. and abroad, including The Subversive Theater Collective's performance of "Joe Hill's Last Will." Not bad for a man who was born into poverty in Sweden, spent most of his life as a hobo laborer in America, and was dead at 36. By conventional standards, he had nothing and he knew it. His last will went like this: "My Will is easy to decide, "For there is nothing To divide "My kin don't need to fuss and moan - "Moss does not cling to a rolling stone." He's a folk legend today because of the rhymes and tunes he penned for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the radical union known as the Wobblies. The man who'd one day be revered as the bard of American labor was born Joel Emmanuel Hagglund, in Sweden in 1879. His talents emerged early. By 8, he was playing violin, writing poems and songs, and joining in his family's tradition of sing-a-longs. That all ended when an on-the-job accident killed his father. By the time Joel was 12, he was laboring in a rope mill and, by 17, he had tuberculosis. After years of treatment, the boy recovered just in time for another blow - the death of his mother. With nothing left at home, he hopped a ship to America, landing in New York City in October 1902, and headed West. He drifted, an anonymous worker. There's evidence that he was in San Francisco for the 1906 earthquake and, in 1911, he was in Mexico for the revolution. During those years, he hooked up with the Wobblies, just when the movement was setting its discontent to music. In 1909, the IWW published its inaugural edition of "The Little Red Songbook." Hill's songs first appeared in the book in 1911. He started with a bang, a scathing satire on churches called "The Preacher and the Slave." This song contains a phrase familiar to everyone, even young people today who have never heard Hill's name. You will eat, bye and bye, In that glorious land above the sky: Work and pray, live on hay, You'll get pie in the sky when you die. Hill kept moving around, taking jobs here and there and writing. In time, he became "IWW's preeminent musical voice," wrote William M. Adler in his 2011 biography, "The Man Who Never Died." On Jan. 10, 1914, Hill was in Salt Lake City, Utah, when a retired police officer-turned-shopkeeper, John Morrison, and his eldest son, Arling, were shot dead. Morrison's younger son, who was in the back room at the time, said he saw 2 men with red bandanas covering their faces burst into the store and start shooting. Morrison's gun was found near Arling's body. Neighbors recalled 2 men running from the store and that one of them cried out, "Hold on, Bob, I'm shot." A couple hours later, Hill turned up on a doctor's doorstep, bleeding from a gunshot wound to his chest. The bullet had passed through his body and was never found. Hill told the doctor that he had been shot in a quarrel over a woman. The doctor turned him in to the police. The case against Hill was flimsy. He had no motive. Even the key to the case - the bullet wound - was questionable, since no one could say for sure if Morrison had gotten off a shot. There were also other men - career criminals - who were more likely to have targeted the shopkeeper. With the prosecution's weaknesses, it might have seemed easy to raise reasonable doubt, but Hill did not help his cause. He was surly in court and fired his lawyers. He refused to give the name of the man who shot him and the woman who allegedly provoked the jealous rage. Hill was convicted and sentenced to death after a 10-day trial. Pleas to spare his life poured in, including from such notables as Helen Keller and President Woodrow Wilson, but nothing would change Utah's decision. When it was apparent there was no hope, Hill wrote to IWW chief "Big Bill" Haywood, "I will die like a true-blue rebel. Don't waste any time in mourning - organize." Hill was shot at sunrise on Nov. 19 and his body was cremated. A year after the execution, Haywood distributed hundreds of packets of his ashes to union delegates from all over the world and told them to scatter them - anywhere but Utah. Hill's songs and legend endured, and even his ashes managed to stick around for years after his death. One packet that had been confiscated by the post office was tucked away and forgotten in the National Archives in Washington, D.C. It wasn't until the mid-1980s that they were rediscovered and then scattered by the IWW. (source: New York Daily News) USA: Ending the Death Penalty Because of, not in Spite of, Conservative Principles A few years ago, any state ending the death penalty struck most political observers as an extraordinary event. Following Gregg v. Georgia (1976), which ended a 4-year hiatus on capital punishment nationally, state after state reinstated the death penalty. This trend continued into the 1990s, as even deep blue states like New York brought it back. In this environment dominated by tough-on-crime rhetoric, a state ending the death penalty seemed impossible. That changed in 2007, when New Jersey became the 1st state since Gregg to repeal the death penalty legislatively. After New Jersey, other states - New Mexico, Illinois, Connecticut, Maryland - followed suit. With each state that repealed the death penalty, it became less of a surprise. But one development this year caught people off guard: a legislature in a red state, Nebraska, voted to scrap its death penalty. This move piqued the interest of commentators as diverse as George Will and Rachel Maddow. The news prompted The Daily Show to send a reporter to Nebraska to "investigate." When interviewed by The Daily Show, the lead Republican sponsor of repealing Nebraska's death penalty, Senator Colby Coash, explained to a skeptical reporter that it was because of, not in spite of, his conservative principles that he led the effort. In particular, this aspect of the Nebraska campaign - legislators ending capital punishment for conservative reasons - has fascinated and perplexed observers. Specifically, the conservative case against the death penalty consists of 3 principal arguments: the death penalty's incompatibility with (1) limited government, (2) fiscal responsibility, and (3) promoting a culture of life. First, at its most basic level, the death penalty represents an expansion of government power. Capital punishment involves not just removing violent individuals from society, but taking the additional step of killing them after they have been incarcerated. With modern prisons, the government has available non-lethal means to keep society secure without resorting to executions. Furthermore, giving government the power to execute leads to abuse of this power in the form of executing likely innocent individuals and botched executions. After such mistakes, states have turned to keeping secret the details of executions, which only leads to more errors and abuse. 2nd, the death penalty costs states millions of dollars more than incarcerating someone for life. Studies in over a dozen states have reached this conclusion. Because of wrongful death sentences and other errors, the courts require extra due process in capital cases. Therefore whenever prosecutors seek a death sentence, they set in motion a longer, more complex, and costlier legal process. Justifying this expense proves difficult when there is no credible evidence that the death penalty has any impact on murder rates. Moreover, most death sentences are overturned, which means that states often spend extra resources on what ends up being a life without parole sentence. 3rd, the Catholic Church and others have questioned the death penalty's place in a society that values life. The over 155 wrongful death sentences and subsequent exonerations nationwide make clear that the death penalty threatens innocent life. Even for those guilty of grave crimes, their lives have value and there remains the possibility of redemption, which an execution unnecessarily cuts short. These reasons, of course, do not persuade all conservatives. One objection raised is that, by definition, conservatives support the death penalty. Even if someone is Republican, pro-life, and fiscally conservative, they lose their conservative credentials by opposing the death penalty. But making capital punishment a litmus-test issue proves difficult to defend because it disqualifies as conservative no small number of figures - Robert George, Abby Johnson, Ron Paul, Ramesh Ponnuru, Jay Sekulow, and others - well respected by various conservative constituencies. This view also puts a movement committed to religious liberty in the uncomfortable position of expelling from its ranks those deeply opposed to the death penalty on religious grounds. Another objection appeals to tradition: capital punishment has existed in America since its founding, and thus the conservative position is to support it. This argument, however, takes a selective view of history. Yes, executions have occurred in America since the 1600s, but at the same time the Founding Fathers expressed reservations about capital punishment and were influenced by the criminologist Cesare Beccaria, who condemned the practice in his treatise On Crimes and Punishments. In this environment, some states dramatically restricted the crimes eligible for the death penalty in sharp contrast to England's Bloody Code, which designated a long list of property crimes as capital offenses. Later in 1846, it was an America state (Michigan) that became the first English-speaking territory to abolish the death penalty. Experimentation by the states has demonstrated that - contrary to some doomsday rhetoric - repealing the death penalty does not lead to disaster. Currently, 19 states have abandoned the death penalty, with another 4 implementing a moratorium on executions. Massive crime waves have not resulted. In fact, states without the death penalty have lower murder rates on average than states with it. People in states without the death penalty appear content with the status quo, as they support life without parole over the death penalty by a wide margin. There is a cogent conservative case, then, for ending the death penalty. It will be interesting to see if its impact in Nebraska was an anomaly or part of something larger. Developments elsewhere suggest the latter. Last month the National Association of Evangelicals changed its pro-death penalty position of over 40 years, and now recognizes that Christians have legitimate reasons to oppose capital punishment. In Kansas, the state Republican Party dropped its pro-death penalty plank from its platform, while the College Republicans called for the death penalty's repeal. Legislatures in other red states like Montana have come close to ending the death penalty. As evidence of the death penalty's brokenness has become harder to ignore, support for its repeal has grown across the political spectrum. If that trend continues and ending the death penalty increasingly becomes a bipartisan cause, its days almost certainly are numbered. (source: Ben Jones is a campaign strategist for Equal Justice USA (EJUSA) and works in support of Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty (CCATDP), a project of EJUSA. Mr. Jones was the Executive Director of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty, successfully repealing capital punishment there in 2012----The Harvard Law Record) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Nov 17 09:41:12 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2015 09:41:12 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 17 BAHRAIN: Death sentences for killing police officer upheld in Bahrain----Abdul Wahid Sayid Mohammad Faqeer's murder was 'calculated and carefully planned' The Cassation Court in Bahrain on Monday upheld the death sentence for two defendants found guilty of killing an on-duty police officer and of attempted murder. Police officer Abdul Wahid Sayid Mohammad Faqeer was killed on February 14 last year in the Dair area, in the northern part of Muharraq island. "The Court of Cassation has upheld the decisions by the Higher Criminal Court and the Court of Appeal to sentence 2 of the individuals to death, in light of the calculated and carefully planned manner in which Abdul Wahid was murdered," Advocate General Nayif Yousuf said. "The Court also upheld the length of the prison sentences handed down to the other appellants." The Public Prosecution's investigations, which included crime scene forensic evidence, mobile phone evidence, and witness testimonies, found that the defendants had lured security personnel to Al Dair area, where a remote Improvised Explosive Device (IED) had been planted. The explosive device was detonated upon the arrival of the security forces and killed Abdul Wahid and injured several other officers, the Advocate General said. "2 of the defendants were found guilty of planting and detonating the explosive device, while 10 others were convicted of obtaining and manufacturing explosive devices with the intent to use them in terrorist attacks," the Advocate General said. "The defendants had been provided with access to their legal representatives and all relevant evidence at every stage of their trial and appeal processes." (source: Gulf News) AUSTRALIA: Aust seen as hypocritical on executions Australia is perceived in Indonesia as having double standards over the death penalty. That's because there was a huge outcry over the deaths of 2 Australian drug smugglers but none over the 2008 executions of the Bali bombers who killed 88 Australians in 2002. Speaking via video link to a Senate inquiry into the abolition of the death penalty, Indonesian human rights lawyer Ricky Gunawan said Australia's opposition to the death penalty was seen as hypocritical in Indonesia. "To be honest, in terms of the death penalty, ordinary Indonesian people also see a double standard from Australia, because you were silent when we executed the Bali bombers," Mr Gunawan told the sub-committee, chaired by veteran Liberal MP Philip Ruddock on Tuesday. He said Australia needed to reach out to ordinary Indonesians if it wanted to make any inroads in changing the nation's strict stance on the death penalty. It must also stop publicly criticising the Indonesian government and instead engage in "quiet diplomacy" if it was to win Indonesia's trust. He advised that developing a good relationship with local media was "crucial, because media influences public opinion". "You can shape public opinion to show there are dark sides to the death penalty," Mr Gunawan said. Reaching out to religious groups and giving voice to Indonesian academics opposed to the death penalty would also help. After the hearing, Mr Ruddock conceded Mr Gunawan was "probably right that we were more focused on Australians on death row than Indonesian Bali bombers, because they committed serious terrorism offences". "But I don't think it was top of the mind for most people to be protesting about letting the Bali bombers off," he told AAP. (source: Geelong Advertiser) ******************* Qld MP's death penalty calls 'insensitive' Queensland's premier has ridiculed an opposition MP's repeated calls for the death penalty to be considered for terrorists. Liberal National Party MP Dr Christian Rowan, who last week used a parliamentary speech to call for a conversation about the death penalty, renewed his push this week in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris. "I find it quite insensitive and quite unbelievable that a member of parliament in this day and age in Australia would be calling for that," Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Ms Palaszczuk has reaffirmed the state's commitment to resettle 3500 of the 12,000 Syrian refugees the Federal Government has offered to take in. It comes amid calls, including from federal MP Bob Katter, for Australia to shut its doors to Syrian refugees for fear of terrorists, posing as asylum seekers, trying to enter the country. At least 129 people were killed in simultaneous attacks in Paris at the weekend. (source: Yahoo News) CHINA: China Bends Vow, Using Prisoners' Organs for Transplants When a senior Chinese health official said last year that China would stop using prisoners' organs for transplants as of Jan. 1, 2015, human rights advocates and medical professionals around the world greeted the announcement with relief. It seemed to end a decades-long form of human exploitation in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, of organs of executed prisoners were harvested each year. But organs from prisoners, including those on death row, can still be used for transplants in China, with the full backing of policy makers, according to Chinese news reports, as well as doctors and medical researchers in China and abroad. "They just reclassified prisoners as citizens," said Huige Li, a Chinese-born doctor at the University of Mainz in Germany. The December announcement by Huang Jiefu, a former deputy health minister and chairman of the National Health and Family Planning Commission's Human Organ and Transplant Committee, was "an administrative trick," said Dr. Otmar Kloiber, the World Medical Association secretary general. The association opposes the use of organs from prisoners in any country that has the death penalty, saying there is no way of knowing if such donations are truly voluntary. The relabeling of prisoners has enabled Chinese officials to include them in a new, nationwide "citizen donation" system that China is building to reduce its longstanding reliance on organs from prisoners. The move has been described in multiple state reports quoting Dr. Huang and other officials. In January, People's Daily reported that voluntary donations from citizens had become the sole source of organs for transplant. It quoted Dr. Huang as explaining: "Death-row prisoners are also citizens, and the law does not deprive them of their right to donate their organs. If death-row prisoners are willing to donate their organs to atone for their crimes, then they should be encouraged." In March, Dr. Huang told The Beijing Times, "Once the organs from death-row prisoners who have voluntarily donated are included in our national distribution system, they are counted as voluntary citizen donations." Dr. Kloiber said the World Medical Association was aware of reports that China was continuing to use prisoners' organs, in contravention of the association's ethical standards. The China Medical Association is a member of the world body. The only exception under the association guidelines, Dr. Kloiber said, was donations for immediate family members. "The practice there is unethical and should be changed to an ethical practice," he said of China. "Administrative tricks don't make it ethical." The December announcement came at a meeting of the new China Organ Procurement Organization Alliance. It is one of several organizations set up in recent years to help transform China's system from one depending heavily on organs from executed prisoners to one of voluntary donation, as in many developed nations. The alliance, Dr. Huang and National Health and Family Planning Commission officials could not be reached for comment. At the meeting, Dr. Huang said: "From Jan. 1, 2015, we will completely stop using death-row prisoners' organs as a transplant source. The only source will be organs from dead citizens who have voluntarily donated." The discrepancy between that public statement and current practice is coming to light as doctors begin to speak publicly about what they call major changes in their country's troubled organ donation system. Broadly, China is trying to construct a more transparent system with a central organ pool for all, amid public anger at corruption and lack of equal access. Previously, multiple medical centers operated, often secretly, to procure organs from prisoners or poor migrant workers and supply them to politically well-connected or wealthy patients, according to officials and researchers. Now, the government says it is working to create a single pool that will be fairly managed with organs distributed according to medical need. China began to solicit organs from the public in 2010. In a 2011 article in the medical journal Lancet, Dr. Huang said about 65 % of transplants in China had been done with organs from dead donors, of which more than 90 % were executed prisoners. The rest had been provided by living donors. When Chinese officials said last year that they would no longer use prisoners' organs, that meant they would no longer systematically harvest organs from death-row inmates, Dr. Li said. Dr. Huang "is separating dead prisoners' organs into 2 groups," Dr. Li added. "1 is the traditional style, 'I don't care if prisoners agree or not, we'll use them,'" which has been illegal since 2007, he said. That year, a new law on organ transplants banned trafficking in organs and removing them without written consent, although it did not mention prisoners. "When he said, 'We will completely stop using prisoners' organs,' he meant stop using that illegal component," Dr. Li said. Still, China deserves credit for trying to change the system by encouraging more voluntary donations outside prisons, Dr. Kloiber said. "We have to acknowledge they are willing to discuss this," he said. Anecdotal evidence from Chinese doctors points to progress, but also suggests continuing problems. Many Chinese are reluctant to donate organs because of Confucian traditions that consider the body a gift from parents to be buried or cremated intact. Also, many people have been reluctant to donate because of a widespread assumption that in a corrupt system their organs would not be fairly used. "A majority of the lungs I transplanted last year came from convicts," said Dr. Chen Jingyu, a national transplant specialist and a surgeon at Wuxi People's Hospital. He said he and his team did 104 lung transplants in 2014. He and many other surgeons expected that, with the announced policy change, they would face a severe shortfall. But after Jan. 1, he said, the feared decrease did not happen. He expects about 150 lung transplants in China this year, about the same as last year. (source: The New York Times) MALAYSIA: Bill to abolish death penalty for drug offences on the cards, says law minister Putrajaya plans to table a bill in March next year to abolish the mandatory death penalty in drug-related offences, de facto law minister Nancy Shukri said today. She said this would allow judges to use their discretion to choose between sentencing a person to jail and the gallows in non-criminal cases, such as drug-related offences. "What we are looking at is the abolishment of the mandatory death sentence. It is not easy to amend and we are working on it," she told a press conference after a roundtable discussion on the abolishment of the mandatory death penalty in Parliament today. "We can get rid of the word 'mandatory' to allow judges to use their discretion in drug-related offences." She said Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali was supportive of the move, adding the latter's interview with The Malaysian Insider, in which he had thrown support for the abolishment of the mandatory death sentence. Apandi said, in the report published last Friday, that he would propose to the Cabinet that the mandatory death penalty be scrapped, adding that it was a "paradox", as it robbed judges of their discretion to impose sentences on convicted criminals. "If I had my way, I would introduce the option for the judge in cases where it involves capital punishment. Give the option to the judge either to hang him or send him to prison. "Then we're working towards a good administration of criminal justice," Apandi told The Malaysian Insider. He said that this would be in line with the "universal thinking" of capital punishment, although he denied calling for the death penalty to be abolished altogether. "Not to say that I am for absolute abolition of capital punishment, but at least we go in stages. We take step by step." A mandatory death sentence is imposed in Malaysia in cases involving murder, certain firearm offences, drug-trafficking and treason. Statistics from the Prisons Department showed 1.022 prisoners on death row as of October 6 and from 1998 until now, 33 convicts had been executed and 127 have had their death sentences reversed to lighter punishments. (source: themalaysianinsider.com) **************** Mandatory death penalty law for drug cases to be amended next March The government will seek to amend the mandatory death penalty sentence for drug offences in March next year. Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nancy Shukri said the decision was reached after discussions with Attorney-General (A-G) Tan Sri Apandi Ali. "I have discussed with the A-G and he agrees. "I hope that it can be presented in the Dewan Rakyat next year in March." Nancy spoke on the matter after the Parliamentary for Global Action (PGA) meeting on "Parliamentary Round Table on the Abolition of the Death Penalty in Malaysia" in Parliament today. Tourism and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, who was also present at the meeting, said the amendment will allow judges the ability to exercise their discretion when sentencing drug-related cases. Mohamed Nazri, who was also PGA chairman, stated that the change would signify a positive trend towards the annulment of the mandatory death sentence in the country. "As a start, we see the abolition of death by gallows for cases that do not involve criminal offences involving drugs. "We have summarised that as a start we can eliminate the mandatory death sentence and the judges can use their discretion." (source: The Rakyat Post) BANGLADESH: Mujahid's lawyers argue only against death sentence in review petition hearing Death-row war criminal Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid's defence has not raised any point regarding the charge for which the Jamaat-e-Islami secretary general has been sentenced to life in prison in the hearing of his review petition. At the hearing of the review petition before the Appellate Division of the High Court on Tuesday, Mujahid's lawyers only presented arguments against the charge for which the Al-Badr commander has been sentenced to death. "At least his neck will be saved," was the response of his main counsel Khandaker Mahbub Hossain to a bdnews24.com query on the matter. The International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) sentenced Mujahid to death on 3 charges of crimes committed against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War. The Supreme Court upheld his death sentence on the charge of plotting the murders of intellectuals. His death sentence on another charge was commuted to life term imprisonment. He was acquitted of 1 other charge. A 4-member Appellate Division bench headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha heard Mujahid's plea for a review of the appeals on the verdict on Tuesday. It is set to issue the verdict on Wednesday. Asked what his expectations were of the verdict, Mujahid's counsel Hossain said, "We expect an acquittal of the accused whenever we file any case." "But here, we did not go against all the charges. He was sentenced to life on another change and to five years in jail on another. We don't have anything to say on these," Hossain said. "We have something to say against only 1 charge - for which he got the death penalty. We've argued that it was unlawful to sentence him to death in line with the witnesses' depositions and evidence," he added. The review is the last stage of the legal battle. The only other option to evade the death sentence is through seeking presidential clemency, if the death penalty is not changed in review. It is clear from Mujahid's chief lawyer's comments that the defence team has no worries about his life term imprisonment or any other penalty. When bdnews24.com spoke to him about the matter, Hossain again said, "We have sought review of only one charge." "The scope is very limited in a review. For that reason, we've said that the penalty for charge No. 6 is 'not in accordance with law'; this penalty cannot be given under the corresponding section in line with the witnesses' depositions and the evidences presented during the trial," he said. About the other charges, he said, "We are not challenging the others." "And the Appellate Division decisions on the others are 'in accordance with law'. We can't say that the penalties were not in line with the law," he added. After the hearing, Hossain told reporters that Mujahid had not been named in the 42 cases filed earlier over the murders of intellectuals. He also claimed the investigators did not find Mujahid's name in any list of Al-Badr force. "We've shown that the Al-Badr command was army command. We have shown it from an interview of Mr Niazi (Gen Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi of the Pakistan Army) published in a book of Muntassir Mamoon. Mr Niazi said Al-Badr and Al-Shams were under direct army command," he said. Hossain claimed the charge for which Mujahid was sentenced to death was not specific. "In other cases, there were specific charges against the accused persons - like the accused carried out the murder at some specific place and tortured specific people. But the charge against Mr Mujahid is not specific," he said. "The charge was...the killings of intellectuals...as he was the secretary of Islami Chhatra Sangha, he will have to take the responsibility for these (killings) - what is known as superior command. "We have argued that the Al-Badr force was directly under the army, under Niazi," Hossain said. (source: bdnews24.com) *********** Hearing on Nizami appeal resumes Hearing on the appeal of Jamaat amir Matiur Rahman Nizami has resumed at the Appellate Division of Supreme Court on Wednesday. On September 9, a 4-member bench started hearing on the appeal filed by Matiur Rahman Nizami. International Crimes Tribunal-1 on 29 October last year gave the Jamaat-e-Islami leader death penalty on 4 charges, including murdering intellectuals. On 23 November last year, Jamaat chief Nizami challenged the death penalty in the Appellate Division. (source: prothom-alo.com) ************* 4 get death penalty for raping, killing girl A Dhaka court has awarded death sentence to 4 persons for raping and killing 13-year-old girl Zakia Akter Champa of Faridpur in 2012. Dhaka Speedy Trial Tribunal 4 Judge Abdur Rahman Sarder passed the order on Tuesday. The convicts who got the death penalty were Md Shamim Mandal, Md Babul Hossain alias Rajib, Zahidul Hasan alias Jazid and Akash Mandol. Of the convicts, Rajib and Akash are on the run. The court acquitted Mousumi of the charges. According to the verdict, on December 13, 2012, the victim was taken away from a wedding ceremony of her sister by the convicts in Faridpur town. Later, they killed her and hanged the body with a tree. On December 15, the victim's brother Md Hasibul Islam filed a murder case with Kotwali police station accusing 5 people. Police submitted the charge sheet on May 20, 2013. (source: Dhaka Tribune) IRAN----executions Pakistani Citizen Executed Southest Iran, 5 Other Prisoners Executed in the Northwest >From Thursday November 12 until today, Iranian authorities have executed at least 6 prisoners in 2 different prisons. Most of the hangings were carried out for alleged drug offenses. On Saturday November 14, a Pakistani citizen, identified as Younes Jamaloldini, was reportedly hanged at Zahedan Central Prison on alleged drug charges. According to close sources, Jamaloldini was around 35 years old and had been transferred from his prison ward to solitary confinement in preparation for his execution. "Currently there are at least 9 Pakistani citizens in Zahedan Central Prison, 5 of them are sentenced to death for drug trafficking, the rest of them are sentenced to life in prison. Aside from one of them, the youngest is being held in the juvenile ward, the rest are being held in ward 7. There are also more than 15 Afghan citizens in the same ward, most are sentenced to death," says an informed source who has requested to be annonymous. On Thursday November 12 and Monday November 16, a total of 5 prisoners, incuding 1 woman, were reportedly hanged at Tabriz Central Prison. According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, the prisoners on Thursday were executed on drug related charges and have been identified as: Mohammad Ali Zamani, Jafar Azizi, Mohammad Panahvand, and Hagar Safari. The prisoner on Monday was reportedly executed on murder charges and has been identified as Saeed Rahimi. Iranian official sources have been silent on the recent executions in Tabriz and Zahedan prisons. (source: Iran Human Rights) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Nov 17 17:37:05 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2015 17:37:05 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., FLA., MISS., LA., OKLA., CALIF., USA Message-ID: Nov. 17 GEORGIA----impending execution Lawyer: Doubts Remain About Georgia Death Row Inmate's Guilt A lawyer for a Georgia death row inmate says his client shouldn't be executed this week because doubts remain about his guilt. Marcus Ray Johnson is set for execution Thursday. He was convicted in April 1998 in the March 1994 rape and murder of Angela Sizemore. The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles plans to hold a clemency hearing for Johnson on Wednesday. Brian Kammer, an attorney for Johnson, has asked the board to commute Johnson's sentence or to at least delay his execution for 90 days to allow for additional DNA testing that he says could prove his client didn't kill Sizemore. Dougherty County District Attorney Greg Edwards, who was a prosecutor in the case, said the defense theories have been discredited and there is no doubt about Johnson's guilt. (source: Associated Press) ************* Condemned Georgia man asks for six-pack with last meal; prison says no Marcus Ray Johnson, scheduled to die by lethal injection Thursday evening, asked for a 6-pack of beer with his last meal, but prison officials turned him down. Georgia Department of Corrections officials disclosed Johnson's request on Tuesday. With beer out of the question, Johnson said he just wants the same dinner that everyone else on Death Row will be served that night: baked fish and cheese grits, officials said. Also on Tuesday, Johnson's lawyer pressed his claims that Georgia was about to execute an innocent man, while the state's attorney argued it's time for justice for the woman Johnson killed 21 years ago. Deputy Attorney General Beth Burton wrote Tuesday in response to a filing by Johnson's lawyer that the condemned man "has been repeatedly given avenues and opportunities to attempt to present evidence to support his (innocence) claim. He has repeatedly failed. "The miscarriage of justice in this case would be if the victim's 26-year-old daughter, who was 5 at the time of her mother's murder, is not allowed closure in this case," Burton wrote. Johnson, 50, is scheduled to be executed at 7 p.m. Thursday for the 1994 murder of Angela Sizemore, a woman he met in an Albany bar. The State Board of Pardons and Paroles will consider his plea for mercy on Wednesday. Johnson stands to be the 4th person Georgia has put to death this year. He admitted to police that he and the 35-year-old woman had sex in a field near the Albany bar where they met just after midnight March 24, 1994. But Johnson said he left her alive and crying, having punched her in the nose because she insisted on cuddling. Sizemore's body was found several hours later inside her SUV, which had been moved across town from where she had parked it before going into the bar, Fundamentals. She was stabbed 41 times. Johnson's lawyer repeated in court filings on Tuesday what he has argued for several years that Johnson is innocent and was convicted on sketchy evidence. Attorney Brian Kammer said all prosecutors had was Johnson's admission that he had engaged in consensual sex with Sizemore; the physical evidence of those relations; and witnesses who said they saw him near her abandoned SUV. Kammer said investigators did not find Sizemore's blood on the knife police said was used to stab her or on the tree branch used to brutalize her. He also said the witnesses were inconsistent about the man they saw early that morning. There were no fingerprints or DNA found in her SUV, which police suspected he drove to the the apartment complex where it was discovered. The descriptions were of a man "with or without facial hair, wearing sneakers, or boots, a black top; or maybe a jacket, boots and a flat wedding band style ring; or a ring with a diamond on it or a ring with a green stone on it," Kammer wrote in a filing on Tuesday. "These appalling facts, along with helpful expert testimony, are now available and show that Mr. Johnson's conviction and death sentence rest on a foundation made of sand," Kammer wrote. Burton said an appellate court had already heard all that and found his "evidence of actual innocence was not credible." She wrote that Johnson continues to say he's innocent even though "the facts of his guilt were and remain overwhelming." (source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution) FLORIDA----new death sentence Bessman Okafor is sentenced to death. An Orange County judge today sentenced Bessman Okafor to death for masterminding a 2012 witness execution. Okafor, 30, joins 392 Florida inmates awaiting execution on death row. He is the 1st person in Orange County to receive that fate since 2008, according to the Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office. Okafor was convicted of 1st-degree murder in the death of 19-year-old Alex Zaldivar. A jury then recommended capital punishment. In Florida, judges make the final decision. Okafor was already serving a life sentence for robbing the same Ocoee home months before the killing. Prosecutors argued Okafor broke in again to stop the residents from testifying against him in that case. Okafor was charged with shooting siblings Brienna and Remington Campos in the head and killing Zaldivar. (source: Associated Press) MISSISSIPPI: Public info about execution drugs argued in Mississippi The Mississippi Supreme Court is considering whether the state prison system must disclose the name of the pharmacy where it buys execution drugs. Attorneys made arguments Tuesday about whether the information must be released under the state Public Records Act. A chancery court judge ruled for disclosure in March, but the information remained secret while the state appealed. Special assistant attorney general Paul Barnes told justices that releasing the pharmacy's name could expose the business to protests and pressure. He says that happened in Texas. Jim Craig is an attorney for the New Orleans-based Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center, which opposes the death penalty and requested information about Mississippi's execution drug supplier. Craig says the public should know how and where tax dollars are spent. (source: Associated Press) LOUISIANA: Prisoners sentenced to die by Caddo juries lingering on death row Of the estimated 83 people on Louisiana's death row about 20 % were put there by Caddo juries - more than any other parish in the state. Yet it's been nearly three decades since a Caddo Parish death row inmate was executed. Wayne Robert Felde, 38 at the time of his death in 1988, is the only person convicted for a crime committed in Caddo to be put to death since Louisiana reinstated the death penalty in 1973. Others, such as convicted serial killer Nathaniel Code, who arrived on death row Jan. 25, 1991, and Percy Davis, who arrived April 6, 1992, for the murders of a convenience store owner and night clerk on 2 separate nights, are still there. Despite earning a black eye for for being one of the top parishes/counties in the nation for sending people to death row, Caddo has seen little success in fulfilling the sentences. That's chiefly due to a number of factors such as lengthy appeals and sentences being overturned or reduced after court challenges. And, experts say that's good, given that some of the parish's death row convictions have been reversed for lack of evidence, errors and constitutional issues. Shreveport criminal defense attorney Peter Flowers said Caddo should thank God more executions of those sentenced to die here haven't been carried out. "That's in spite of the our best efforts, not because of them," he said. Perceptions The last execution by lethal injection in Louisiana took place in 2010. Earlier this year, the state put off executions until at July 2016 while its lethal injection procedure is under review. Nationally, death penalty sentences in the United States were at a 40-year low in 2014, according to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington D.C. (where are they based?) Louisiana is following the national trend but Caddo Parish remains an anomaly. "Caddo Parish over the last five years is the per capita leader of death sentences in the United States of America," said Robert Smith, a senior fellow at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute at Harvard Law School & a visiting scholar at the University of Texas at Austin. Smith has studied death penalty sentencing by county in the United States. Of the 3 people sentenced to die last year in Louisiana, 2 were from Caddo - Rodricus Crawford and Marcus Reed. The perception is the current Caddo district attorney's office aggressively and blindly pursues death penalty convictions - even in cases that don't warrant it. "They're sentencing people to death who can't be executed," Smith said. Questions also have risen about whether death row inmate Rodricus Crawford's 1-year-old son, Roderius, was actually murdered. Experts have called the medical evidence used to convict Crawford as misleading and unreliable. Crawford's case has been appealed to the Louisiana Supreme Court. There's also Glenn Ford who was convicted with very little evidence and had an inadequate defense. After decades on death row, new evidence would result in Ford's death penalty sentence being vacated. "If you're the governor, first of all, you might not be executing anybody in the state of Louisiana because the state has really moved away from it. But if you're going to execute someone, you're going down the list, are you going to pick the intellectually disabled person? The person who's almost a juvenile who can barely process...? The person who's severely mentally ill, the person with fetal alcohol syndrome or the possibly innocent person? Which one of those people?" Smith said. Local attorneys say the death penalty should be reserved for the worst cases. "You shouldn't take a case that's not 100 % clear cut," said Alan Golden, Caddo's former district public defender. Perceptions Some attribute the perception of Caddo as a death penalty central to interviews acting DA Dale Cox gave to local and national news organizations. Cox told the Times "we need to kill more people" and reiterated his views on the death penalty to the New York Times, The New Yorker and other news outlets. He didn't respond to interview requests. Smith points to Cox as one of the central personalities in the DA office to explain why Caddo is an anomaly when compared to the rest of the state and country for the imposition of death penalty sentences. Flowers said thoughtful lawyers and people in Caddo don't like being thought of as death penalty pusher. "We do what we can to present the right perception to people about lawyers and the justice system. And we work hard and those of us who this for a living have dedicated our lives and our fortune to this particular industry and we don't like being bandied about by the New York media," Flowers said. For long-time former Caddo District Attorney Paul Carmouche, the perception of the current DA office as eager pursuers of capital punishment is unfair. "It bothers me now that the office I ran for 30 years is all of sudden considered unfair and basically bloodthirsty. I just hate to see the office being portrayed that way," said Carmouche, who was DA when Felde was executed. Carmouche said he always told his ADAs to "play hard but play fair" and didn't have policies that encouraged racial bias in jury selection. Convictions don't always equal justice, he said. Flowers said he believes the national assessment about systemic issues in Caddo's criminal justice system is correct. "We're clearly far and away at the forefront of death penalty litigation," Flowers said. "...You know, that's the fact. We're at the forefront of death penalty litigation in Caddo Parish and Louisiana is at the forefront of death penalty litigation in this country. That doesn't necessarily mean we're the absolute top but we're up there with them." Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said he doesn't believe issues with Caddo's criminal justice system solely limited to Cox. "Dale Cox's comments in isolation would be looked at as one prosecutor who could be out of control but when you look at what is going on in Caddo Parish you see a systemic problem and not just a problem limited to one individual," he said. Smith and Dunham said there appears to be evidence of ineffective defense counsel in some cases, alleged prosecutorial misconduct and racial bias in jury selection. "Some studies have shown that you have the highest rate of death penalty reversals and of being overturned in jurisdictions that most aggressively seek to impose the death penalty because they cut corners because is a lack of commitment to quality representation," Dunham said. "Because of these things the risk of error is much greater and the appearance of of error is much clearer." Those counties/parishes produce the highest rates of death penalty sentences and have the highest rate of sentences overturned, he said. And if anything, issues with the death penalty in Caddo expose systemic issues involving race, he said. For example, Reprieve Australia's study of racial bias by Caddo prosecutors in the jury selection process found prospective qualified black voters were more likely to be struck from jury panels than their counterparts. "It maybe fortuitous the execution body count in Caddo Parish is not as high as Oklahoma County but that doesn't mean that the problem is less pervasive or less serious. It just means that the parish prosecutors have been less successful in having the people they've targeted for the death penalty executed," he said. Who sends the most? Caddo, East Baton Rouge and Jefferson parishes accounted for more than 1/2 of the people there. Caddo condemned the most - 17 - people to die with East Baton Rouge and Jefferson Parish trailing with 15 and 10 inmates on death row at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. The LDOC list included Eric Mickelson whom a new Caddo Parish jury, convene to retry him for the murder of the 86-year-old Charles Martin, would be sentenced to life in prison. Pam Laborde, LDOC spokeswoman, said Mickelson remains assigned to death row as the necessary paperwork to move him had yet to be received. The list doesn't include those whose death penalty sentences were overturned, such as Corey Williams. Williams convicted of the 1998 death of a fast food worker in Shreveport, is developmentally challenged. His sentence was reduced due a finding of mental retardation, the Death Penalty Information Center says. Williams IQ scores ranged from 65 to 68. The state electrocuted 3 people Bossier Parish juries condemned to die in the 1980s. Earnest Knighton Jr, Alvin Moore and Edward R. Bryne Jr. According to LDOC, Bossier Parish had 3 people on death row as of Oct. 8. (source: Shreveport Times) OKLAHOMA: Attorney says Mark Costello's son 'very remorseful' in politician's death A defense attorney for a man accused of fatally stabbing his father, Oklahoma's former labor commissioner, said Tuesday that the 27-year-old is "very remorseful" and being examined by a private psychiatrist. Chief Public Defender Bob Ravitz said following a court hearing in the case that Christian Costello, who is being held in the Oklahoma County Jail without bond and did not appear in court Tuesday, is doing "the best he can do, considering." Prosecutors say Costello attacked his father, Mark Costello, with a knife and repeatedly stabbed him on Aug. 23 at an Oklahoma City restaurant. Christian Costello has pleaded not guilty to a 1st-degree murder charge. "It's a real tragic event," Ravitz said of the man. "He's very remorseful." Costello's family has said in a statement that he suffers from a mental illness and court records show Costello previously spent 90 days in a mental health facility and taken mood stabilizers. Ravitz declined to reveal whether Costello is taking any medications but said a private psychiatrist is examining him. "We're studying all of Christian's records," he said. "It's taken a while to get them." Special Judge Lisa Hammond scheduled a Feb. 5 preliminary hearing in the case. On that day, prosecutors will present evidence that will help Hammond determine whether a crime was committed and whether there is probable cause Christian Costello committed it. First-degree murder is punishable by life in prison with or without the possibility of parole or the death penalty. Prosecutors filed the charge about a week after Mark Costello was attacked at a Braum's restaurant and ice cream shop in Oklahoma City, where authorities say Christian Costello allegedly pulled a knife and repeatedly stabbed his father. Witnesses said the attack continued after Mark Costello ran into the parking lot where his wife, Cathy Costello, tried to intervene. Police say they interviewed at least 17 witnesses, all of whom said they saw Costello stabbing his father with a small knife. At least 1 witness knocked Christian Costello off-balance with a vehicle, and others held him down until officers arrived, police have said. The state Medical Examiner's Office has ruled that Mark Costello died from stab wounds to the neck and classified his death as a homicide. Last week, Gov. Mary Fallin appointed Melissa McLawhorn Houston, chief of staff of the Oklahoma Attorney General's Office, to serve the rest of Mark Costello's unexpired term, which extends until January 2019. Costello's widow had sought the position. Houston is expected to begin her new role by Dec. 1. She has said she has no plans to run for the office in 2018. (source: Associated Press) CALIFORNIA: Man pleads not guilty to murdering his 3 young sons A man accused of fatally stabbing his 3 young sons inside an SUV in South Los Angeles in September pleaded not guilty Tuesday to 3 counts of murder. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Sergio C. Tapia II ordered Luiz Fuentes, 33, to remain jailed without bail while awaiting his next court appearance Jan. 26. Fuentes is charged in the Sept. 9 killings of his sons Alexander, 8, Juan, 9, and Luis, 10. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office has yet to decide whether to seek the death penalty against Fuentes, who faces a special circumstance allegation of multiple murders. A passerby saw Fuentes sitting in the front seat of an SUV parked in the 300 block of East 32nd Street around 7 a.m. on Sept. 9. The man approached the vehicle and saw the children's bodies inside and Fuentes covered in blood from stab wounds. Police believe Fuentes stabbed himself. He was hospitalized, then booked on suspicion of murder 2 days later. At a vigil in memory of the victims, a pastor said Fuentes had been having financial problems and was living in the SUV with his children, whose mother died in 2008. He was reportedly battling depression. The Los Angeles Times reported in September that the county Department of Children and Family Services was investigating whether social workers adequately probed some allegations that the boys were at risk and whether staff responded appropriately to what they learned. A hotline call to DCFS in September 2010 reporting abuse of the children led social workers to determine that the allegation was true, the newspaper reported, citing anonymous officials with the department. Lawyers for the DCFS petitioned the juvenile court to open a case, officials told The Times, and the boys remained in the father's home until the case was closed about a year later. 2 more hotline calls alleging physical abuse were made in April 2014, sources told The Times. Social workers who investigated the allegations finally marked the claims "inconclusive" last year. (source: mynewsla.com) USA: Americans see a lot of discrimination against people who are Muslim, black or gay Americans say there is a significant amount of discrimination and a growing feeling of racial tension in the United States, with sharp divides in how different groups view these issues, according to a new poll. These findings come as the country is still visibly grappling with issues of race and equality, from the protests against how police use force to unrest on college campuses, the presidential campaign trail and recent fights over anti-discrimination statutes and religious freedom laws. The 2 groups perceived to be facing the most discrimination are Muslims and gay and lesbian people, with 7 in 10 Americans saying those groups are discriminated against "a lot", the Public Religion Research Institute found in a poll released Tuesday. Majorities also say that black people (63 %) and Hispanic people (56 %) face a lot of discrimination, while a majority of Americans (53 %) say there is not a lot of discrimination against women. Similarly, most Americans do not believe that evangelical Christians, Jews or atheists face a lot of discrimination, with about 3 in 10 Americans saying that they do. Interestingly, while a quarter of Americans say that white Americans face a lot of discrimination, the poll found that more than 4 in 10 Americans say that discrimination against white people is as big an issue as discrimination against black people or other minorities. (1/2 of white Americans feel it is as big of an issue, while 29 % of Hispanic Americans and 25 % of black Americans agree.) All told, more than 1/3 of Americans say racial tensions are a major problem in their community, a number that has doubled in recent years, the poll found. The recent protests against how police use force - spurred by the high-profile deaths of black men and boys in New York City, Baltimore, Cleveland and Ferguson, Mo. - have pushed the issue into the national consciousness repeatedly since last year, but the public remains divided on the topic. More than 1/2 of Americans (53 %) say these deaths are isolated, rather than part of a broader pattern, pointing again to the yawning gap between different groups and how they perceive deaths at the hands of police officers. While 65 % of white Americans say the deaths are isolated episodes, 15 % of black Americans agree. 4 out of 5 black Americans say these point to a broader trend in police treatment, more than double the number of white Americans who feel that way. Overall, a majority of Americans (62 %) say they have a great deal or some confidence in the criminal justice system. But, again, there are sizable gaps in the perceived fairness of the system. A majority of Americans - 57 % - do not think that police officers treat white people the same way they treat black people or other minorities. White people are almost evenly split in how they view this, while big majorities of black (84 %) and Hispanic (73 %) Americans say the treatment is not the same. [The deep divides in Maryland as the Freddie Gray trial looms] When it comes to the death penalty, a majority of Americans (53 %) say that a black person is more likely than a white person to be sentenced to death for the same crime. This majority is largely fueled by black Americans and Hispanic Americans, majorities of whom feel this way, while less than 1/2 of white people agree with this sentiment. (source: Washington Post) *********************** Vermont man facing death penalty seeks to overturn law Attorneys for a Vermont man facing the federal death penalty are asking a U.S. District Court judge to declare the federal death penalty law unconstitutional. In documents filed in federal court Monday, the attorneys for Donald Fell argued the federal death penalty is unreliable, arbitrary and there are "unconscionably long" delays in death penalty cases. The 35-year-old Fell was convicted and sentenced to death in 2005 for the 2000 killing of Terry King, who was abducted in Rutland and later killed. Last year a judge ordered a new trial for Fell because of juror misconduct during the original trial. In 2002, the judge then hearing the case declared the federal death penalty unconstitutional, but 2 years later an appeals court overruled that order allowing the original trial to go forward. (source: Associated Press) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Nov 17 17:37:52 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2015 17:37:52 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 17 PAKISTAN: Over 300 executed in Pakistan since December The government of Pakistan has executed at least 300 people in the past 11 months, it's emerged. In a rare admission, an anonymous Interior Ministry official said yesterday that Pakistan's total for hangings "now stands at 311" since the country resumed executions 11 months ago today. Setting aside the religious holidays, during which no executions took place, according to Pakistan's own figures they have executed at least one person a day for the last 11 months. The figure was revealed amid confusion over the scale of Pakistan's death row, believed to be the largest in the world. 2 weeks ago, the Pakistani government said that some 6,000 people were facing execution in the country; however, this contradicts another government estimate, of 8,000, made by the Interior Ministry at the beginning of the year. Reprieve has collated all of the publicly available data on the executions that have taken place since the moratorium broke, and has identified 300 individuals. Among these, Reprieve has found just 16 individuals (less than 0.06% of all executed) with known links to a prescribed terrorist organisation. Reuters revealed in July that to date, more than 83% of those executed had no links to militancy. Police torture and forced 'confessions' are common in Pakistan, and there are concerns that many of those on the country's death row were sentenced after unfair trials. Since more than 73% of births are unregistered in Pakistan, there are also fears that many of those who have been executed may have been juveniles when arrested. Among those killed so far was Aftab Bahadur, who was 15 at the time of his arrest for a crime which all eye witnesses in the case said he was innocent. Commenting, Maya Foa, head of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said: "The Pakistani government has no idea how many people it has on its death row, let alone how many are innocent or were sentenced to death as children. It is appalling that the authorities are proceeding with executions at this rate. If they continue to execute one person a day, by the end of next year they will have killed nearly a thousand people - among whom there will almost certainly be a large number of juveniles, and innocent people tortured into 'confessing' to crimes they didn't commit. This senseless massacre will not make Pakistan any safer, and must be stopped." (source: reprieve.org.uk) SAINT LUCIA: "We should not be fearful of abolishing the death penalty" Human Rights Activist and Attorney-at-Law Mary Francis said she plans to continue advocating for the abolition of the mandatory death penalty in Saint Lucia and the Eastern Caribbean region. Francis told St. Lucia News Online (SNO) today in an interview that while the law has been bypassed for almost 2 decades here, she still believes that it should be removed entirely from the constitution. The attorney said the European Union (EU) has been pushing the Caribbean to become part and parcel of the world-wide movement against the death penalty for a number of years. The UN General Assembly had also adopted the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR. This was aimed at encouraging the abolition of the death penalty. Francis maintains that the death penalty does not serve as a deterrent to crime, but rather a a form of revenge. "We understand that the crime situation in the Caribbean is very high, but this death penalty is part of our pre and post independence law and by virtue of how our constitution was written," she told SNO. She reminded that Saint Lucia's laws were adopted from England and it's been more than a quarter of a century since that country has abolished the death penalty. "It must be recognised that 1994 was the last time we had an execution. So in fact most of the Caribbean and the OECS they have actually put a hold on hanging which is our form of death penalty." But Francis has advised that the government amend the laws and have it removed and replaced with an alternative such as life imprisonment, stating that killing is wrong whether it is by the state. She continued: "In Saint Lucia I think there are about 50 men right now awaiting trial for murder. If all those young men had to be hanged, what would happen?" she questioned. While she admitted that they have done vicious crimes and deserves to face the full brunt of the law, she believes that the government must look at the root of crime. "We have to attack it from societal level, to ensure that young men don't turn into to those types of individuals who commit serious crimes, especially murder," she asserted. Francis recalls that her advocacy work began in 1999, when she worked on a case alongside a few other prominent lawyers to have the 1st death sentence case committed to life imprisonment. She said the perpetrator was due for execution when the judge decided to stop the prosecution of the individual and accepted the application for the person to be put on life imprisonment. In the same year, Francis got 5 persons who were on death sentence to be committed to life imprisonment. "I have done work in the past and continue to believe that maybe in terms of building a more humane society we should set the example and move to do that. We should not be fearful of abolishing the death penalty because it could increase more vicious crimes. There is no scientific evidence to prove that," she told SNO. Francis, who is very vocal about several other human rights issues here, has been invited to attend a special conference organised by the EU to discuss the death penalty in Georgetown, Guyana this month end. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International have long criticised Caribbean countries mandatory death penalty as too harsh and in breach of international law. Even though the capital punishment is on the books in a number of English-speaking Caribbean states and polls have shown strong support for the death penalty, executions are rare in the region. The last execution took place in St. Kitts and Nevis in 2008, when Charles Laplace was hanged for murdering his wife. That was the region's 1st outside Cuba since an execution in the Bahamas in 2000. Politicians of former British colonies have long complained that the London-based Privy Council, the highest appeal court for many Caribbean countries, has stymied their attempts to execute murderers. The regional Caribbean Court of Justice is the highest court of appeal for Barbados, Belize and Guyana. (source: stlucianewsonline.com) NEW ZEALAND/CHINA: NZ Government willing to deport murder suspect if death penalty ruled out The Chinese Government wants New Zealand to deport a murder suspect back to China to face charges and Prime Minister John Key says it's possible, if the death penalty is ruled out. It was a decision to be made by Justice Minister Amy Adams. Speaking with reporters last night in Manila, Mr Key revealed more details about the case ahead of his meeting today with China's president Xi Jinping at the Apec summit. He revealed in August that the Government wanted the return of a person to face trial. That person was not a Chinese national. Yesterday Mr Key said the suspect was accused of killing another person. "It's a long and complicated case." Mr Key said there had been no deportations of Chinese suspected of fleeing to New Zealand with the proceeds of corruption, although background work had been done on the issue, and it was raised during the official visit of President Xi to New Zealand a year ago. Mr Key said he would raise at the meeting the issues of China's territorial disputes (with Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei) in the South China Sea. China has recently expanded atolls through reclamation in the Spratly group and built airfields. "We will be doing and making the same consistent comments that we make which is we don't arbitrate with these issues," said Mr Key. "We don't pick sides but it is a very important passage of waterway to us and we do want to see a peaceful resolution to the issue. "To a certain extent it is the elephant in the room. It is there and the reclamations have been fairly significant, so it is raising the temperature on that issue." The Vietnamese Prime Minister had raised the issue when Mr Key had talks with him in Hanoi on Monday. Mr Key laughed off a newspaper article on the English language newspaper Viet Nam News in which he was described in a photo as the president of the Senate of the Czech Republic, Milan Stech. "It is all part of my global master-plan to increase my sphere of influence and make you all believe I have so many more people under my control." (source: New Zealand Herald) IRAN: Is the Obama administration aware that it is trusting and dealing with a country that has just broken the world record in executions? Of course the President is aware of that, and it seems that he has decided to turn a blind eye to Iran's increasing aggression and oppression inside and outside of its own country. According to the recent and 5th report by the special United Nations investigator of human rights, human rights violations in Iran are rising even since the nuclear agreement was reached. Accordingly, execution rates have been increasing at "an exponential rate" in Iran. In 2014, 753 were executed and at least 694 people (including women and juveniles) were executed from January 2015 till mid-September. This is reported to be the highest rate of execution the Islamic Republic has had in 25 years. If we take the ratio of the population into consideration, the Islamic Republic breaks the world record in number of executions per capita. As Ahmed Shaheed, the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in Iran, pointed out, "The Islamic Republic of Iran continues to execute more individuals per capita than any other country in the world. Executions have been rising at an exponential rate since 2005 and peaked in 2014, at a shocking 753 executions[.]" According to the UN analyst, Iran is on track to execute more than 1000 people by the end of this year. Of course, these are only the official numbers being reported by the Iranian regime, the unreported number of executions by the government is likely much higher. An execution may be ordered over many things, such as insulting the Supreme Leader, enmity toward Allah, and other non-violent offenses. According to the U.S. State Department's Human Rights report on Iran, "the law criminalizes dissent and applies the death penalty to offenses such as ....'attempts against the security of the state,' 'outrage against high-ranking officials,' ....(moharebeh), and 'insults against the memory of Imam Khomeini and against the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic.'" In addition, when it comes to journalists, social media activists, and women, political rights, discriminatory laws, as well as arbitrary detentions have been on the rise as well. According to the global gender gap index of the World Economic Forum, the Islamic Republic is ranked 137 out of 142, followed by Mali, Syria, Chad, Pakistan and Yemen. In contrast to the report, a more liberal, softer and open image of the Islamic Republic has been repeatedly projected to the international community by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Western-educated foreign minister, and his technocratic team. There was an assumption by liberals that several developments, including the improving ties between the West and Iran, the nuclear agreement, and the presidency of a moderate political figure would translate into improving civil liberties, social justice and removing restrictions on political critics in Iran. However, the real picture inside the country suggests a much different landscape. As Azita, an Iranian human rights activist and teacher from the ethnically Azeri-populated city of Tabriz said, "This is similar to, or even worse than, the period of Khatami where Basij, moral police, and IRGC increased suppression in order to tell the young people particularly that the laws will not changed." The State Department report clearly highlights the notion that the superficial illusion of a softer image projected by Iran belies the social, political, and economic reality inside the country. This explains three phenomena. First, although President Rouhani promised that he will improve several critical issues such as civil liberties, social justice, freedom of expression, assembly, and press, and women's rights, he decided to instead solely focus on the nuclear deal in order to get Iran out of the financial sanctions that restrained its growth. Secondly, one can make the argument that President Rouhani has also decided not to cross the boundaries of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) by cooperating with them and allowing them to have full control over domestic social and political policies, as well as foreign policy (Syria, Hezbollah, etc.). Third, the hardliners are increasing their repressive tools and cracking-down on civil liberties in order to send a message to the Iranian young people and the West that the nuclear agreement does not mean Tehran is going to open up its political system and loosen Sharia law. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, and his social base (the hardliners) are very concerned that Iranian youth might become a source of revolution. As a result they attempt to keep the country closed and they fear Western political and cultural influence on young people. As Mr. Khamanei warned the senior cadre of the IRGC, "The main purpose of the enemies is for Iranians to give up on their revolutionary mentality...Enemy means global arrogance, the ultimate symbol of which is the United States....Economic and security breaches are definitely dangerous, and have dire consequences...But political and cultural intrusion by the enemy is a more serious danger that everyone should be vigilant about." Finally, the nuclear agreement seems to have overshadowed the human rights conditions inside Iran and the repressive Shiite Islamist laws. European countries and the Obama administration appear to have been turning a blind eye and have been becoming less critical of the Islamic Republic's human rights record since the nuclear negotiation began and after the nuclear deal was signed. It is time for the Obama administration to draw attention to the real face of the so-called moderate president of Iran who contradicts the truth by depicting himself and his country in a softer image to the world while simultaneously allowing executions and egregious, appalling and atrocious human rights abuses on his watch. (source: Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, an Iranian-American political scientist and scholar, is president of the International American Council and serves on the board of the Harvard International Review at Harvard University. Rafizadeh is also a former senior fellow at the Nonviolence International Organization based in Washington, DC and is a member of the Gulf Project at Columbia University----frontpagemag.com) VIETNAM: Russian arrested at Vietnam airport for smuggling 6.5 kilos of cocaine from Dubai Customs officers at Tan Son Nhat Airport on Sunday arrested a Russian man for smuggling around 6.5 kilograms of cocaine from Dubai into Vietnam. The officers said they found the suspect luggage of the 25-year-old and demanded to check it. They then found a quilt and three jackets and the large amount of drug inside them. The suspect, whose identity has been withheld, said a strange man paid him US$1,000 to carry the drug from Chile through different countries including Russia, Brazil and the UAE, before Vietnam. Vietnam has some of the world's toughest drug laws. Those convicted of smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or cocaine 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. (source: Thanh Nien News) INDONESIA: Airport Police arrest 2 drug traffickers with drugs worth Rp 39 billion The Soekarno Hatta Airport Police seized drugs worth Rp 39 billion after capturing 2 drug traffickers, identified by their initials N and S, on November 10 and 11. "N was the courier, whereas S was the supplier. The evidence includes 1,012 grams of meth, 2,944 grams of ketamine, 61,251 ecstasy pills, and 4,196 strips of happy 5. The monetary value of these drugs altogether is Rp 39 billion," said Soekarno Hatta Airport Police Chief Roycke Langie, as quoted by Warta Kota today. The police first arrested N after carrying out a drug deal in Terminal 1A of the airport. The police then followed N to another transaction in Grogol, West Jakarta, and arrested him there. The next day, N led the police to his supplier, S, in Tambora, West Jakarta. After arresting S, the police located his kost and found the motherload of his drugs stored there, thought to be worth Rp 39 billion in total. Drug traffickers in Indonesia may face the death penalty if proven guilty. (source: Coconuts News) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Nov 18 13:30:48 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2015 13:30:48 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., PENN., DEL., GA., LA. Message-ID: Nov. 18 TEXAS----impending execution Texas Set To Execute Man Who Says His Lawyers Have "Abandoned" Him----Raphael Holiday is set to be executed Wednesday for burning 3 children to death in 2000. Holiday has asked the Supreme Court to stop his execution, claiming his court-appointed lawyers have refused to help him. A Texas man is slated to be executed Wednesday for burning 3 children to death - including his 18-month-old daughter - despite his claims that his court-appointed attorneys have "abandoned" him. In March 2000, Raphael Holiday moved out of the house he shared with Tami Lynn Wilkerson and their 18-month-old daughter, Justice, along with Wilkerson's 2 other daughters - Jasmine DuPaul, 5, and Tierra Lynch, 7. Wilkerson had filed charges against Holiday and sought a protective order against him after she learned he had sexually assaulted Tierra, according to court documents. On Sept. 5, Holiday returned with a gun and threatened to "burn the house down with everyone it it." He then ordered everyone to sit on the couch and made Wilkerson's mother, Beverly Mitchell, pour gasoline all over the house, court records show. Mitchell said she saw Holiday "bend down," after which the fire started. All 3 children died in the fire, while Holiday stood outside and watched, court documents stated. Holiday has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop his execution on the grounds that his 2 court-appointed attorney abandoned him when he wanted to pursue avenues of legal appeal that had not yet been exhausted. His appeal, filed by a pro-bono lawyer, claims that Holiday's 2 lawyers, appointed under the Criminal Justice Act (CJA), announced that they were through with the case "and then actively blocked Mr. Holiday's efforts to substitute" them, despite having instructed him to look for other death penalty lawyers. Holiday says his execution should be stopped for new counsel to be appointed. He also claims that after the 2 lawyers, James "Wes" Volberding and Seth Kretzer, refused to file petitions seeking clemency - on the "cynical assumption that clemency has no chance" - they eventually "hrew together" a "sham clemency application" in 48 hours without Holiday's knowledge. "We decided that it was inappropriate to file [a petition for clemency] and give false hope to a poor man on death row expecting clemency that we knew was never going to come," Volberding told The Dallas News. Kretzer said in a court letter that they also recognized the "political realities" of Texas. Last week, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a motion to replace the 2 attorneys. Holiday's most recent appeal states that "irreparable harm" will occur if he is executed without him having a "meaningful opportunity to seek clemency and develop unexhausted constitutional claims." The state responded by saying Holiday's appointed counsel have "sworn their commitment" to represent him and that he had failed to propose alternative counsel to take their place. After the Supreme Court denied a petition to review the case in June, Volberding and Kretzer informed Holiday in a letter that they would not file additional appeals or seek clemency from the governor, Dallas News reported. They also opposed a motion filed by an appellate lawyer who helped Holiday by asking the court to assign him new attorneys and threatened her with sanctions. Holiday could become the 13th person to be executed by Texas this year. (source: buzzfeed.com) ************* Area man set to be executed for arson-related deaths A 36-year-old man convicted of killing 3 children by setting fire to their rural Madison County home 15 years ago is set to be executed today. Raphael Holiday's execution warrant becomes valid at 6 p.m. If there are no ongoing appeals at that time, officials will go ahead with the execution by lethal injection. The United States Supreme Court denied a petition in June by Holiday's lawyers to review the case, after which his lawyers decided they would not take any further appeals, saying it would only give the inmate "false hope." Gretchen Sween, a lawyer in Austin, agreed to try to find new attorneys for Holiday, saying he had the right to "conflict-free counsel willing to pursue all relief available to him." That request was denied by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, so Sween appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court didn't immediately make a ruling. Sween couldn't be reached for comment. A spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said Holiday will begin his day in Livingston -- where death row inmates are housed -- with extended visits with family and friends. He will be transported to Huntsville at an undisclosed time, then checked in and given a new uniform. Prison officials will take the Grimes County native to a small holding cell just outside the execution chamber, where he'll be able to make more phone calls to friends and family. He gets his last meal at 4 p.m. -- whatever the rest of the inmates are having -- and the execution will be carried out two hours later, unless there's a pending appeal. He will be the 13th prisoner executed this year in Texas, which carries out the death penalty more than any other state, and 26th convicted killer executed nationally this year. Holiday was convicted in June 2002 of killing 3 young sisters, including his own 18-month old daughter. He was found guilty of 3 counts of capital murder in the deaths of Tierra Lynch, 7, Jasmine DuPaul, 5, and 18-month-old Justice Holiday. Prosecutors said Holiday forced the victims' grandmother at gunpoint to douse the living room in the cabin on Lou Bee Lane in gasoline while the girls were sitting on the couch, then he lit the living room on fire. After it ignited, he sped away in the grandmother's car, hit a police car that had arrived outside the cabin and then led officers on a chase that ended 2 counties away when he wrecked. "I was at the house, the house blew up," he told an Associated Press reporter recently from a visiting cage outside Texas' death row. "I don't know how the fire started." Defense attorneys said the fire was started by the pilot light on the stove. Investigators said they found the remains of the children huddled together on what was believed to be a couch. Holiday had a record of violent behavior toward the children. The children's mother had been granted a protective order 6 months before the fire -- writing that Holiday had sexually assaulted the 7-year-old. Prosecutors at Holiday's 2002 trial said he sought revenge because he was getting ready to stand trial for sexually assaulting the girl. "I loved my kids," he recently told the AP. "I never would do harm to any of them." Prison officials said the girls' mother, Tammy Wilkerson, planned to witness Holiday's execution. She declined to speak with The Associated Press. According to a 2002 Eagle story, Wilkerson addressed Holiday after he was sentenced to death. "You may have destroyed my life, but not my memories," Wilkerson told Holiday through tears. "You can't take those away from me." Holiday said from prison that he was outside when the fire broke out. "I was panicking," he said, explaining why he sped off in a stolen car. "I think it was crazy for someone to say I spoke of harming my kids. That doesn't make sense." (source: The Eagle) ************* Why Texas county known for death sentences has given none in 2015 ---- As the state prepares to execute its 13th person this year on Wednesday, the case of Harris County, where 124 offenders have been executed, reflects shift among juries and prosecutors in opting for life sentences instead of death penalty Yosselyn Alfaro was celebrating her 21st birthday at a friend's apartment when the bullet went through her brain. 2 17-year-olds, Daniel Munoz and Veronica Hernandez, also died after shots to the head. 2 others were injured. One held his mutilated jaw in place so he could tell the authorities who did it: Jonathan Sanchez. The 27-year-old had a string of previous arrests. Prosecutors alleged that at the time of the murders 2 years ago, he was a gang member on a drug binge who sent threatening text messages to a man who lived at the Peppermill Place complex in north-west Houston. Then he turned up, talked his way in and started shooting. In the county that metes out more completed death sentences than any other in the US, in the state that executes more people than anywhere else in the nation, it seemed obvious that prosecutors would seek the death penalty for such a horrific crime and almost inevitable that they would get it. Yet, as the Houston Chronicle reported, the jury that convicted Sanchez of capital murder last week opted to spare him from a lethal injection. He was sentenced to life without parole. It was an outcome at odds with Texas's well-earned reputation. On Wednesday, Raphael Holiday is set to become the 531st Texas inmate executed since 1976, and the 13th this year, for starting a house fire that killed 3 young girls, including his 1-year-old daughter. Some 124 offenders have been executed after convictions in Harris County, which includes Houston. If Harris were a state it would be second in total executions, behind Texas and 12 deaths ahead of Oklahoma. Yet no one has been sentenced to death in Harris County this year. Across Texas there have been only 3 death sentences in 2015, and the 1st came as late as October. The previous low in a calendar year was 8. "We now have more cases this year where jurors rejected the death penalty than where they imposed it," said Kristin Houle, executive director of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "I think it's the culmination of several things," said Tim Cole, a former district attorney in Texas who tried death penalty cases. Cole believes that the rising number of DNA-based exonerations has made jurors more cautious and sceptical, that the introduction of a life without parole option for capital cases in 2005 has had a major effect, and prosecutors are seeking death less often. "I think that it is reflective of the change in attitude," Cole said of Sanchez???s life sentence. "About 2 or 3 years ago, I began to detect a difference." While polls show a majority of Texans are still in favour of the death penalty, Cole suggested that many would be more circumspect if they found themselves on a jury. He pointed to the case of Gabriel Armandariz, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in March for strangling his 2 young sons near Fort Worth, though prosecutors had sought death. "Does killing Gabriel make you feel better? Does it make the small town where it happened say, 'Yeah, we killed that sorry SOB?' What good is more death?" his attorney asked the jury during closing arguments. While Texas prosecutors will not shirk from asking for death sentences for the most egregious murders, Cole said, their risk-v-reward calculations have evolved. "If you seek death and you don't get it, you've just spent months and perhaps millions on a case you could have [quickly] pled to a life sentence," he said. And with capital punishment no longer a core issue for voters, elected officials worry less about seeming soft on crime if they choose to seek life without parole instead. "Texas continues to execute more people than any other state, but in many respects the number of executions in the state is misleading. It reflects death sentences that were imposed many years ago," said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "In fact there has been a substantial reduction in new death sentences in Texas, a reduction that suggests the death penalty is in decline there as well as elsewhere in the country." Texas has also improved the quality of its legal representation for indigent defendants, Dunham said - though court documents indicate that Holiday tried to replace his attorneys after they said that last-ditch attempts to halt his death would be futile. Holiday and the Georgia inmate Marcus Johnson, scheduled to die on Thursday, are likely to be the last 2 executions in 2015. That would leave the nation with 27 executions this year: the fewest since 1991, down from 35 last year and the modern-era high of 98 in 1999, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. It will be the 7th successive year that the number of executions has declined or remained level. 6 states have carried out executions this year, compared with 13 in 2011. The number of stays of execution has grown, reflecting legal challenges and dwindling drug supplies that have seen states including Texas resort to desperate and dubious measures. "While Texas has ultimately been able to obtain the drugs to execute people, it is feeling the pinch from the pharmaceutical boycott," Dunham said. (source: The Guardian) ************* Exonerated After 18 Years in Prison, Black Man Fights for Reform Anthony Graves was convicted in 1994 in Texas of murdering a woman, her daughter and her 4 grandchildren. Later proven to be innocent, Graves spent many years in prison, including 12 years on death row waiting to be executed for a crime he did not commit. "You took 18 years of my life," he said, referring to the Texas criminal justice system. "You tried to murder me and I want to stay in your face every day to remind you that we need to do better." Graves has used some of the $1.5 million he was awarded by the state of Texas for his wrongful imprisonment to further the cause of reforming the criminal justice system. There have been 1,700 people exonerated in the United States since 1989, according to the registry kept by Michigan State University Law School. The Innocence Project, a non-profit group that helps investigate cases in which wrongful conviction is suspected, cites 333 cases since 1989 in which DNA tests resulted in exoneration. The racial breakdown from that figure was 206 African Americans, 101 Caucasians, 24 Latinos and 2 Asian Americans. The former Texas death row inmate says many of the problems in the criminal justice system across the United States affect people of all races, especially if they are poor. Graves, who is black, spent more than 18 years in the Texas prison system. The 49-year-old said inequality is the biggest problem. Poor people, regardless of color, cannot afford the best defense attorneys, he noted, and often are pressured by police and prosecutors to take a plea bargain for a lower sentence rather than face many years in prison. While this practice reduces the need for full jury trials and is seen by prosecutors as more efficient, it also can result in innocent people with inadequate representation and little knowledge of the legal system pleading guilty to crimes they did not commit. Graves wants citizens to use their power in the democratic system to seek criminal justice reform. "We can do it; we have the power to do it," he said. Graves travels the country using his own personal story to illustrate what he calls the "injustice of the justice system." "I use my story to educate people," said Graves, "but more importantly, keep it on people's minds about the injustice that is going on in our criminal justice system." The court in Burleson County, Texas convicted Graves in 1994. 6 years later, the chief witness against him recanted his testimony. Graves was still in prison, though, when law professor David Dow brought the case to Nicole Casarez, an attorney and professor of journalism at the University of St. Thomas. "He [Dow] came into class one day and said, 'Who wants to work on a case that is a death row case, and it has a lot of investigation and a short time fuse," said Casarez. "And my students and I put up our hands and volunteered and it turned out to be Anthony's case." In 2010, the work done by Casarez, her students and others paid off with the release of Graves from prison and a declaration of his innocence. In June, the State Bar of Texas disbarred the district attorney who prosecuted Graves after its investigation of the case uncovered misconduct. The problems Graves sees are the same ones cited by many criminal justice experts and law enforcement leaders - including disparities in sentencing between blacks and whites, the imprisonment of people with mental illness or drug addictions, an increase in the number of infractions that can result in someone being jailed and mandatory minimum sentences for some crimes. Both Graves and Casarez are encouraged by the interest in criminal justice system reform on college campuses and by what appears now to be largely a bipartisan effort. The 2 major political parties agree on little else these days. "I think stories like Anthony's make a big impression on students and it inspires them to go out and vote and try to make a difference," said Casarez. For his part, Graves expresses little bitterness about his lost years, saying he is more concerned with the future than the past. Although he came close to be executed for a crime he did not commit, he has not made the death penalty the main focus of his call for reforms. He and Casarez also spoke of problems with the alternative sentence of life in prison, which excludes any legal representation after it is imposed. They say it also is possible that some innocent people are serving life sentences and have no access to attorneys who could help them appeal their convictions. Now Graves is applying his singular perspective to help law enforcement get it right when it comes to forensic evidence. He was appointed in June to the board of the Houston Forensic Science Center. (source: Voice of America) CONNECTICUT: It's Up to Court, Not Prosecutors, To Say What Death Penalty Law Is I am staging an intervention. On Nov. 10, the state asked the Supreme Court to stay the resentencing of Cheshire home invasion killer Steven Hayes until the court decides "what impact, if any, the final judgment in Santiago [declaring the death penalty unconstitutional] has on pending death penalty appeals." The request comes hard on the heels of the state's unsuccessful attempts to alter or delay Santiago itself, which included the unusual (moving for a stay of the judgment after the denial of a motion for reconsideration) and the audacious (moving to strike Justice Andrew McDonald's entire concurrence). Enough is enough. The state's state of denial about Santiago threatens to unravel a key thread in the tapestry of justice: public acceptance of the legitimacy of final judgments. Although we now take as a given "the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is," an independent judiciary is a radical and recent invention. Less than 2 centuries before Marbury v. Madison, Sir Edward Coke lost his place as England's Lord Chief Justice because he dared tell King James I that, despite a claim of royal prerogative, "he would do that should be fit for a judge to do." We were in Coke's day as humans have been for nearly all of history: A government of men, not laws. Like every judge before Coke and since, moral authority alone supported his defiance. Legislatures hold the purse strings and governors have the muscle; courts depend on the collective belief of those they judge that obedience is the better part of valor. Such a shared belief is, as Lady Bracknell said of ignorance, "a delicate, exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone." Or, as President Andrew Jackson put it in response to Worcester v. Georgia, a case that gave Native Americans sovereignty over their lands: "John Marshall had made his decision, now let him enforce it." The specter of "now let him enforce it" looms over our legal landscape. During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and one of his commanders defied an order from Chief Justice Roger Taney to release a suspected Confederate saboteur. National conflagration aside, we decide in court what other countries decide on the battlefield - but not without strain. The U.S. Supreme Court strove mightily to ensure a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education, lest a dissent encourage Southern disobedience, and Chief Justice Earl Warren added the phrase "all deliberate speed" to the opinion for the same reason. Even when unanimity breaks down and the stakes are incredibly high - as in Bush v. Gore - we still accept the judiciary's right to "say what the law is." However, judicial authority is a quixotic beast; like Bing Bong, Riley's imaginary friend in the movie "Inside Out," its existence flows from our belief that it exists. Courts have the power to pronounce judgments only so long as we accept that they do. The moment that our acceptance ceases, cracks appear in the foundation. This brings us to the state's denialist response to Santiago: Leaving aside its scathing motion to strike the concurring opinion, the state titled its motion for reconsideration, a standard filing in an important, 4-3 case, a "motion for argument," a bit of snark that left no doubt of the state's view of the judgment. Though the state Supreme Court denied the state's motions, it then ordered supplemental briefing in another, already-argued death penalty appeal, State v. Peeler, "addressing the issues raised in the state's motion [for supplemental briefing and argument] including the effect of the final judgment in Santiago II." Stare decisis being what it is, one might think that "the effect" of Santiago would be clear as a bell: The death penalty is unconstitutional for Russell Peeler, too. However, the order gave the state the chance to brief issues that, in the view of the three Santiago dissenters, at least, it had not had in Santiago. The state then sought a stay in Santiago, ostensibly to avoid a legal train wreck should Peeler reach a different conclusion about the death penalty's constitutionality than did Santiago. With the ink barely dry on the denial of the state's motion for reconsideration, one would think that an impossibility, but here's the rub: 1 of the 4 members of the Santiago majority, Justice Flemming Norcott Jr., is no longer on the court; and his replacement, Justice Richard Robinson, has never sat on a death penalty case. The court's 6-1 denial of the motion for a stay in Santiago suggests that the state will not undo a judgment so recently done, but the motion itself is the problem. I have litigated against, and have enormous respect for, the prosecutors in the Santiago, Peeler and Hayes cases: They are smart, ethical and passionate attorneys, truly, as the rules of ethics demand, "ministers of justice." And so, I offer this conclusion, as a respectful colleague: The state's stubborn refusal to go gentle into that good night has the potential to undermine public acceptance of judicial authority. The next losing litigant may try similar tactics, or may simply defy the judgment altogether, or worse, and down that slippery slope lurks the grim specter of "now let him enforce it." (source: Daniel Krisch is a partner at Halloran & Sage in Hartford, where he focuses on appellate and civil litigation----ctlawtribune.com) PENNSYLVANIA: Alleged killer of Corrections Officer Eric Williams attempts to avoid death penalty The defense for a New Mexican Mafia member facing trial in the 2013 stabbing death of a corrections officer from Nanticoke has asked a judge to strike the prosecution's intent to seek the death penalty, citing a maturing society's "evolving standards of decency." In a nearly 400-page motion filed Oct. 6 in U.S. District Court, the defense for Jessie Con-Ui argues against imposing the federal death penalty for several reasons, claiming among them the punishment is "carried out in an arbitrary and capricious manner that is akin to being struck by lighting." In a response filed Monday seeking the motion's denial by U.S. District Judge A. Richard Caputo, prosecutors claim the defendant's arguments are in stark contrast to long-standing legal principles and overwhelming authority to the contrary. Appealing to the court's sense of decency is merely an attempt to have it rule in contradiction to prevailing law, which it cannot do, wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Francis P. Sempa. Con-Ui, 37, faces the death penalty in the Feb. 25, 2013 murder of Corrections Officer Eric J. Williams, 34, at U.S. Penitentiary Canaan in Wayne County. In their response, prosecutors argue Williams' murder was carried out in an "especially cruel, heinous or depraved manner." Despite the defendant's complaint that insufficient evidence has been provided in the prosecution's allegations, prosecutors argue clear video evidence from prison surveillance cameras show Con-Ui ambush and kick Williams down a flight of stairs before pinning him down and stabbing him over 200 times with multiple shanks. After being escorted from his cell after the attack, Con-Ui allegedly said, "Hey, man, I am sorry but I had to do what I had to do. I am sick of all your people's disrespect," according to an FBI report filed earlier this year. Con-Ui was also reportedly upset that Williams had previously ordered a search of Con-Ui's cell, according to court documents. Prosecutors argue Con-Ui's propensity for violence justifies the death penalty. Con-Ui was at Canaan serving an 11-year prison sentence stemming from a 2003 guilty plea for his role in a drug ring run by the New Mexican Mafia. Following that sentence, he was set to begin serving a life sentence after pleading guilty in 2008 to 1st-degree murder. Court documents claim Con-Ui agreed to or participated in several separate, uncharged incidents while incarcerated between 1999 and 2010, including stabbing another inmate with a homemade knife and assaulting a fellow inmate with a food tray. While out of jail in 2013, Con-Ui agreed to participate in the murder of a law enforcement officer but was arrested in Arizona before the murder could be carried out. Con-Ui is currently an inmate at a supermaxium facility in Florence, Colorado known as the "Alcatraz of the Rockies," according to the Bureau of Prisons website. His trial is scheduled to begin in July, 2016. (source: Times Leader) DELAWARE: Panel weighs in on death penalty, criminal justice reform in Delaware With a new legislative session around the corner, some groups are coming together for another push to end capital punishment in Delaware. Experts on race, the Delaware legal system and civil rights weighed in on racial bias within the criminal justice system. Delaware Supreme Court Chief Justice Leo Strine said it's a deeply rooted issue that won't be fixed overnight. "I do believe that our pervasive history of institutional racism has created huge structural problems in our society that we have far from remediated yet and we have a lot of time to go, to get the job done," he said. The experts discussed the cycle of poverty among communities suffering from high rates of black men in prison. Keynote Speaker Tamika Mallory said the Black Lives Matter movement is about finding justice for those communities. "We want to matter in the same way you matter," she said. The panel discussion was hosted by local civil rights groups who are generating support for death penalty repeal legislation in Delaware. The panel urged communities to continue the conversation about race and criminal justice reform. (source: WDEL news) GEORGIA: 5 Things Wrong With Georgia's Death Penalty ---- On the eve of the next execution, a look at the state's history of bad lawyering and faulty evidence. Since December 2014, Georgia has executed a man whose drunk lawyer bungled the case, a man with intellectual disabilities, a veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder, and a woman who planned but did not actually commit murder. On Thursday, the state will put to death a man who was not conclusively identified by DNA from the crime scene. These cases are no outliers; they are emblematic of a particularly harsh time in our state's history when death sentences were handed out frequently despite substantive and procedural flaws. And they encapsulate what's wrong with capital punishment in Georgia. Here, a closer look at those flaws. Offering ineffective assistance of counsel Georgia's statewide public defender office opened in 2005, and in the past 10 years, there has been a sharp decline in death sentences. Before 2005, however, the right to counsel was a crapshoot for capital defendants. Robert Wayne Holsey was convicted and sentenced to death in 1997 for armed robbery of a convenience store and the murder of a Baldwin County Sheriff's Deputy Will Robinson. Andy Prince was appointed to represent him. Prince chose not to present a defense based on Holsey's intellectual disability; he retained a psychologist but never presented evidence of any tests or opinions about Holsey's condition. Tests later confirmed that Holsey had an IQ of 70, a borderline intellectual disability diagnosis. If Prince had shown jurors that Holsey was intellectually disabled, his execution might have been barred under the Supreme Court's mandate in Atkins v. Virginia. Prince drank a quart of vodka each night during Holsey's trial (he eventually was sentenced to prison and disbarred for his conduct in another case). He brought in an inexperienced attorney to assist him on the eve of the penalty phase and told her to handle mitigation issues. Prince was paid $3,500 by the state to hire a mitigation specialist but didn't do so. If he had, the jury might have learned that Holsey was beaten as a child for wetting the bed until he was 13 years old. A state court judge later found that Holsey had received ineffective assistance of counsel and ordered a new sentencing hearing. But the Georgia Supreme Court reversed that judge's ruling and reinstated Holsey's death sentence. Robert Wayne Holsey was executed December 9, 2014. Executing veterans with mental illness Andrew Brannan was a decorated Vietnam veteran who was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1998 murder of Laurens County Deputy Sheriff Kyle Dinkheller during a traffic stop. In Vietnam, Brannan saw many die, including 2 commanding officers, and had survivor's guilt during the following decades. His service records praise Brannan for outstanding conduct in a combat environment. Brannan had no criminal history and had been declared "100 % disabled" by the Veterans Administration due to PTSD in 1990 and bipolar disorder in 1996. Brannan had been living in a shack in the woods without water or electricity. The traffic stop escalated wildly into a gunfight between Brannan and Deputy Dinkheller after Brannan became erratic and pulled a rifle from his car. The episode was recorded on the dashboard camera of the patrol vehicle. Deputy Dinkheller died at the scene. The jury never heard the details of Brannan's military service or heard from his VA psychiatrist about Brennan's PTSD - or that he had not taken his medication for several days before the crime. Andrew Brannan was executed on January 13, 2015. Applying an impossibly high standard of proof for intellectual disability Georgia made history in 1988 when it became the first state to ban the execution of people with intellectual disability (formerly known as mental retardation). But today, Georgia is the only state to require a defendant to prove his intellectual disability "beyond a reasonable doubt," a standard that has, predictably, proven nearly impossible to overcome. In 2002 when the Supreme Court decided in Atkins that it was unconstitutional to execute people with intellectual disability, Georgia maintained its high standard of proof while other states applied the lower, "preponderance of the evidence" standard. Warren Hill was convicted and sentenced to death in 1991 for killing a fellow prisoner. The State's doctors quickly declared that Hill was not "mentally retarded," clearing the way for his execution. A decade later, however, they came forward and admitted they had been wrong; that Hill was intellectually disabled beyond a reasonable doubt. But procedural barriers prevented Hill's new diagnosis from ever being considered in Georgia's courts or federal courts. Warren Hill was executed on January 27, 2015. Arbitrarily applying the death penalty Kelly Gissendaner was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of her husband, Douglas Gissendaner, in 1997. While Gissendaner was legally culpable for murder, she was not the person who killed her husband; she was not even present at the crime scene. Her boyfriend agreed to carry out the planned killing, and now is serving a life sentence. He is eligible for parole in 7 years, because he made a deal with prosecutors. Gissendaner's death sentence was the 1st since the reinstatement of the death penalty in Georgia in 1976 in which a person who did not commit the murder was sentenced to death. While incarcerated, Gissendaner was a model prisoner, helping fellow inmates who were contemplating suicide. Her case for parole garnered support from Pope Francis and Former Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Norman Fletcher, who has recently opposed the death penalty. The Board of Pardons and Paroles heard a renewed request for clemency and pleas from her children to spare her life. Her request was denied. Kelly Gissendaner was executed on September 30, 2015. Scheduling executions despite inconclusive DNA evidence Marcus Ray Johnson was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Angela Sizemore in 1994. Johnson's conviction rests on dubious eyewitness testimony and inconclusive physical evidence. The blood on the ground at the site where she was murdered was never tested, for example, and none of Johnson's DNA was found inside or near the car where her body was found. Johnson was first scheduled to be executed in 2011 but he was granted a stay after police belatedly turned over new biological evidence from the murder scene. That evidence was tested but was not conclusively linked to Johnson. At that hearing, a forensic pathologist also testified that the pocket knife, which prosecutors claimed was the murder weapon, did not test positive for blood and did not match the victim's wounds. Johnson's new trial motion was nevertheless denied. A request for clemency has been made to the Board of Pardons and Paroles, who will hear his case on November 18. His execution is scheduled for November 19, 2015. (source: themarshallproject.org) LOUISIANA: Abbeville man receives 2nd indictment on 1st-degree murder An Abbeville man already jailed on a 1st-degree murder charge faces a 2nd count after a grand jury indicted him in a 2nd killing. A Vermilion Parish grand jury on Monday handed down a 1st-degree murder indictment against Derrick "Deebo" Mitchell, 24, in the Dec. 7, 2012, shooting death of Kyle Trahan, the 15th Judicial District Attorney's Office said. The killing happened days before the Dec. 20, 2012, shooting death of Darrell Broussard Jr., in which Mitchell was indicted earlier this year. Mitchell was apprehended in California in September some 6 months after he was mistakenly released from a Tensas Parish prison. He's since been held at the Vermilion Parish jail without bond and could face the death penalty if convicted in either case. (source: The Advocate) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Nov 18 13:35:43 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2015 13:35:43 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----IND., NEV., CALIF., WASH., USA Message-ID: Nov. 18 INDIANA: Suspected serial killer no longer wants to represent himself A man charged in the strangling deaths of 2 women has decided not to represent himself in his upcoming capital trial, according to court records. Darren Vann, 44, of Gary, was scheduled to appear Wednesday before Lake Criminal Court Judge Diane Boswell after he wrote to the court indicating he wanted to represent himself. One of Vann's defense attorneys, Gojko Kasich, filed a motion to cancel the hearing along with an affidavit that Vann no longer wants to represent himself, according to online court records. Boswell then canceled the hearing. Vann is scheduled to appear in court again Dec. 18, and his trial is slated to start Jan. 25. He faces murder charges in the homicides of Afrika Hardy, 19, and Anith Jones, 35, of Merrillville. The Lake County prosecutor's office is seeking the death penalty against him. Hardy was found dead Oct. 17, 2014, in a bathtub at a Motel 6 in Hammond. According to court records, Hardy met Vann through an online escort service. Vann allegedly admitted to killing Hardy along with 6 other women whose bodies were left in abandoned buildings in Gary, police said. Jones was found Oct. 18, 2014, in an abandoned building in the 400 block of East 43rd Street in Gary. Vann told detectives a mutual friend offered him money and drugs to make Jones disappear, according to the affidavit. Vann has not been charged in the homicides of the other women. The women are Teaira Batey, Tanya Gatlin, Sonya Billingsley, Tracy L. Martin and Kristine Williams. (source: nwitimes.com) NEVADA----new death sentence Man sentenced to death in 2013 Lyon County killing-arson spree A 27-year-old ex-convict was sentenced to death Tuesday for killing 5 people in northern Nevada during a Mother's Day weekend murder spree in 2013. Jeremiah Diaz Bean's fate had been decided in August by a state court in Yerington. It was made official by Lyon County District Court Judge John Paul Schlegelmilch, who also imposed maximum consecutive penalties totaling 78 to 195 years for Bean's other convictions including arson, robbery, burglary, auto theft and theft using a firearm. Bean was found guilty in July of fatally shooting Robert Pape and Dorothy Pape, both 84, in May 2013 in one Fernley home, and Angie Duff, 67, and Lester Leiber, 69, at a house around the corner. The jury found him guilty of fatally shooting newspaper deliveryman Eliazar Graham, 52, of Sparks, at an I-80 exit near the Mustang Ranch brothel east of Reno. Bean had been convicted of an unrelated burglary in January 2011 in Lyon County. His probation was revoked 6 months later. He was jailed for about a year and his parole expired in December 2012. Bean initially agreed to plead guilty in the 2013 slayings in a plea deal that would have spared him the death penalty. He changed his mind in November 2013 and stood trial this year. A prosecutor told the jury that Bean robbed and killed his victims to get cash to party on a Friday night, and he set the Pape home afire to try to destroy the evidence. Bean's defense attorney argued that Bean wasn't the only person to blame for the killings. Bean becomes the 81st inmate on death row at Ely State Prison. The last execution in Nevada was Daryl Linnie Mack in 2006. (source: Associated Press) CALIFORNIA: Suspect in siblings' deaths could face death penalty----Defendant "destroyed a family within minutes," prosecutor said. A man charged in the shooting deaths of 2 siblings in Southcrest earlier this month was treated "as a family member" by the people he is accused of killing, a prosecutor said Tuesday. Felipe DeJesus Vega Meza, 38, was arrested last week after he was wounded during a SWAT standoff in City Heights. He is accused of killing Arline Iribe, 20, and her brother Alexis Velarde, 22. The pair were killed outside a home at Newton Avenue and South 43rd Street on Nov. 8. Police said Velarde had tried to shield his sister from the gunfire. On Tuesday, Vega pleaded not guilty in San Diego Superior Court to 2 counts of murder and gun-use allegations. Because he also faces a special-circumstance allegation of multiple murders, prosecutors have the option of seeking the death penalty. The District Attorney's Office had not yet announced whether it would seek Vega's execution or life in prison without the possibility of parole. Such decisions are usually made after a preliminary hearing has been held, and a judge has determined whether prosecutors have enough evidence for the case to go to trial. At Vega's arraignment, Judge David Szumowski ordered the defendant to remain held in county jail on a no-bail status and appointed the Public Defender's Office to represent him in court. Vega is a Mexican citizen. Deputy District Attorney Amy Maund told the judge that a sequence of events before the shooting made the defendant angry and he "wouldn't let it go." At some point, Iribe had enough and tried to leave the home where the shooting took place, but the defendant would not let her go. She called her brother, who tried to protect her, when Vega opened fire, the prosecutor said. "He destroyed the family within minutes," Maund said. She told the judge that the victims were particularly vulnerable because they knew the defendant and had treated him like family for years. A warrant was issued for Vega's arrest. Police spotted his car, a green 1998 Oldsmobile Cutlass, Thursday night in Southcrest, not far from where the killings occurred. A 20-minute pursuit ensued, during which the driver tossed a handgun out of the car and onto Interstate 805. The gun was recovered. The pursuit ended in City Heights, where police blocked him in at an apartment complex carport on Van Dyke Avenue at Myrtle Street. Police said he got out of the car about 12:20 a.m. and reached for his waistband while turning toward officers and crisis negotiators. An officer fired a round at Vega, hitting him in his chest. (source: San Digo Union-Tribune) WASHINGTON: Washington Legislature should move to end the death penalty ---- The Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys has the right idea to push for direction on the death penalty. The final decision should rest with Olympia lawmakers, who need to exhibit moral leadership, take a vote and say no to capital punishment. Washington's death penalty is an albatross - a massively expensive punishment, applied unevenly, that needs to be abolished. The Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys has the right idea. Sensing a shift in public opinion, the group, whose membership is split, sent a letterto the Legislature asking that a referendum on the death penalty be sent to voters in 2016. A better idea is for lawmakers to take up this issue, explore the waste of public resources and inequity in its application, and pass a law repealing the death penalty. Gov. Jay Inslee, who announced a moratorium on executions during his tenure, has said that he would sign it. Bills with bipartisan support have been introduced in Olympia. But so far, none have even squeaked out of committee. A ballot measure that fails could set this abolition movement back. 40 years ago, Washingtonians voted for Initiative 316 to support capital punishment. As the prosecutors note in their statement, most residents today didn't participate in that election. This is a tough issue for public servants who've seen the worst of the worst and work to comfort the families of murder victims. The prosecutors are not taking a formal position, pro or con. Instead, as they write, we "want to know that when we embark on the long and difficult process of capital punishment for the worst crimes inflicted upon our community that we are doing so with the support and approval of the people we represent." In 2 recent, horrific cases, King County juries have opted against the death penalty. Joseph McEnroe, who murdered 6 members of his girlfriend's family in 2007, including a 3-year-old and a 6-year-old, was spared. So, too, was Christopher Monfort, who murdered Seattle police officer Timothy Brenton on Halloween night 2009. King County, like Pierce and Snohomish counties, still has the resources to seek the death penalty. According to a Seattle University study, capital cases in Washington cost an extra $1 million on average. In practice that means defendants are much more likely to face the death penalty if the crime is committed in a wealthier county. It's an arbitrary version of justice by geography. Inslee's 2014 moratorium did not settle the question. State Attorney General Bob Ferguson still defends the state against cases brought by death-row inmates challenging their sentences. And a prosecutor anywhere in the state could seek a death-penalty case tomorrow. Washington thankfully isn't burdened with some of the systemic death-penalty outrages that characterize other states, from racial disparity to prosecutorial misconduct. And most of those executed in the state over the last three decades have told their attorneys not to bother with appeals. 18 men in Washington have had their death-penalty sentences reversed by appellate courts. State lawmakers should take a stand. (source: Editorial board members are editorial page editor Kate Riley, Frank A. Blethen, Ryan Blethen, Brier Dudley, Mark Higgins, Jonathan Martin, Thanh Tan, Blanca Torres, William K. Blethen (emeritus) and Robert C. Blethen (emeritus)----Seattle Times) USA: Donald Fell fights death penalty law A Vermont man facing the federal death penalty for the 2000 killing of a woman abducted from outside a Rutland supermarket is asking a judge to declare the death penalty law unconstitutional, court documents say. In documents filed in federal court Monday, attorneys for Donald Fell argue the federal death penalty is unreliable, arbitrary and adds "unconscionably long" delays in cases. "Most places within the United States have abandoned its use under evolving standards of decency," the attorneys say. They contend that U.S. Supreme Court justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg earlier this year "issued a clarion call for reconsideration of the constitutionality of the death penalty." It also noted that the Connecticut Supreme Court, relying largely on Breyer and Ginsburg's arguments, found that state's death penalty unconstitutional. "Mr. Fell asks this Court to (rule)... that the federal death penalty, in and of itself, constitutes a legally prohibited cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by both the Fifth and Eighth Amendments," his filing said. Fell, 35, was convicted and sentenced to death in 2005 for the 2000 killing of Terry King, a 53-year-old North Clarendon grandmother who was abducted in Rutland and later killed. A judge last year ordered a new trial for Fell because of juror misconduct during the original trial. The trial is scheduled for next fall. U.S. Attorney Eric Miller said his office would respond to the defense filings at the appropriate time. Vermont has no state death penalty; Fell was sentenced to death under federal law. In 2002, the judge then hearing the case declared the federal death penalty unconstitutional. But 2 years later, an appeals court overturned that ruling, allowing the trial to go forward. Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said a decade's worth of data has accumulated showing the legal problems with the federal death penalty since the ruling allowing Fell's case to go forward. There's more evidence the federal death penalty is overwhelmingly applied in Southern states that have state death penalties, and there are significant racial disparities in the application of the federal death penalty as well, Dunham said. "You can expect going forward that there will be constitutional challenges of this type filed in most, if not all, federal capital prosecutions," Dunham said. (source: Burlington Free Press) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Nov 18 13:36:26 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2015 13:36:26 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 18 JAPAN: Survey offers insights into Japan's death-row inmates' thoughts, feelings and fears For death-row inmates in Japan, contact with the outside world through visits and the exchange of letters makes life worth living, if only for another day, as they reflect on their crimes or pursue the possibility of retrials. As one might expect, a questionnaire survey found the biggest pleasure for inmates awaiting execution is contact with family and friends. It also revealed that nearly 80 % of the respondents were either appealing for retrials or planning to do so. The nationwide survey conducted by an anti-death penalty group called Forum 90 and Mizuho Fukushima, a House of Councilors member of the Social Democratic Party, found that issues such as the treatment of certain medical conditions, and the obvious fear of facing a literal gallows, weighed heavily on their minds. Others expressed remorse for their crimes and apologies to the victims' families. The questionnaires were sent out in May to 129 death-row inmates, of whom 73 responded. Fukushima is a senior member of a group of multiparty lawmakers seeking the abolition of the death penalty. Among the respondents, 50 said they are seeking retrials, while eight more plan to do so. Asked about their greatest pleasures, 20 cited meeting with visitors, 19 said writing and receiving letters, and 17 said watching DVDs and videos, which they are permitted to do on a periodic basis. Although most have visitors or engage in correspondence, 13 admitted to having no visitors, while five were not involved in writing letters, and indicated their loneliness. 60 complained of health problems, with 1 inmate saying it is difficult to receive proper treatment for dentures, while another inmate complained of a lack of physical exercise. Many said they regularly receive medical treatment or medication for high blood pressure, backaches and prostate diseases. Regarding the food they most want to eat, with multiple answers allowed, 10 said noodles, 9 answered sweets, such as cakes, and 8 indicated sushi. The oldest respondent was 83 years old, while the youngest was 30. It was the 3rd survey of death-row inmates by Forum 90 and Fukushima, following those conducted in 2008 and 2011. The survey also provides a section for comments. A 68-year-old man involved in a mass murder case by a radical sect in the early 1970s noted, "Our life continues even if the death penalty on us has been finalized. "We are making efforts to improve our own personal qualities, while considering why we committed crimes and how we could prevent others from making the same mistakes." The man criticized the system of capital punishment for condemning death-row inmates for the crimes they committed in the past without acknowledging the work they have done to improve themselves since that time. "The Justice Ministry announces immediately after executions the details of crimes the hanged inmates committed so it can condemn them for who they were at the time of their crimes," he said. A 57-year-old man said, "I was scared for the past 10 years as I imagined myself on the gallows and hanged. But the fear stirred a feeling that I'm living, with blood running through my veins." Given the circumstances, he added, he gradually began to accept his fate. "I dreamed of the abolition of the death penalty, but at the same time I thought it would not be terminated while I'm alive," he said. "I leave the dream as it is ... I have no regrets about this world." A 45-year-old inmate convicted of involvement in the sarin attack on the Tokyo subway system as a member of the Aum Shinrikyo cult contributed a poem titled "Sinner." Calling himself "an absolutely ungrateful child" in the poem, he lamented his powerlessness to support his aging parents. He said he felt crushed by the weight of the crimes he committed. "I cannot go back into the past ... I am a sinner who stands alone on a cliff," he wrote. Taku Fukada, a member of Forum 90, said the group hopes to continue conducting the survey "as a way to enable death-row inmates to convey what they are thinking to the outside world." The government hanged a death-row inmate in June, bringing the total number of executions under the second administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which began in December 2012, to 12. The U.N. Human Rights Committee urged Japan last year to "give due consideration to the abolition of the death penalty." In defense of the status quo, the government has mainly cited the outcome of a survey that indicated more than 80 % of people in Japan support the death penalty. But a recent study by researchers found that the death penalty is not as deeply entrenched in Japan as previously claimed, and that some people change their minds, particularly after being exposed to more information on the subject. According to human rights group Amnesty International, 140 countries, or about 70 % of all nations in the world, had abolished the death penalty by law or in practice as of the end of 2014. In 2014, only 22 countries, including Japan, continued to execute inmates. (source: The Japan Times) INDONESIA: Airport Police thwart drug deal worth Rp 39 billion Soekarno-Hatta International Airport Police thwarted a drug transaction worth Rp 39 billion (US$2.84 million) that was taking place between a courier and a dealer who usually operates around Greater Jakarta. Soekarno-Hatta Police anti-narcotics unit chief Adj. Comr. Martua Raja Silitonga said the police had already arrested the 2 suspects, the courier identified as NR, 36, and the dealer SD, 34, for further investigation. "We already arrested the 2 suspects," he said on Tuesday. In the course of the arrest, police confiscated 1,012 grams of methamphetamine, 2,944 grams of ketamine, 61,251 ecstasy pills and 4,196 strips of erimin-5, also known as Happy Five, according to Soekarno-Hatta Police chief Sr. Adj. Comr. Roycke Langie. He said that the police confiscated all the drugs from two houses in West Jakarta, but the deal was made in Grogol, West Jakarta. "We received a tip-off that a drug deal would be conducted at the airport, but then we learned from our investigation that the deal was moved to an area in Grogol," he said, adding that the police could only arrest NR in the 1st raid on Tuesday last week because SD was not present at the location. "We arrested NR and confiscated 50 ecstasy pills," he said. Roycke said the police then raided NR's house and found another 42 ecstasy pills and 2 grams of meth. He went on to say that the police arrested SD the next day, Nov. 11, after they asked NR to call SD to meet for another deal. "We arrested SD at a gas station around Jembatan Lima in Tambora, West Jakarta. We confiscated 300 ecstasy pills from him," he said, adding that the police then brought SD to his rented house in Grogol where they found the rest of the drugs. The police are currently hunting another suspect, identified as SM, who allegedly acted as a middleman, according to Roycke, adding that based on the 2 suspects' confessions all the drugs were supplied by syndicates from China and Malaysia. He said that the 2 suspects made the deal this month so they could distribute all the drugs in time for New Year's Eve parties. "The drugs were sent to Indonesia via courier services and the suspects have collected them for 3 months," he said, adding that the suspects deceived the services by hiding the drugs inside food boxes. "For example, we found 300 ecstasy pills hidden inside baby-milk boxes," Maratua said as quoted by kompas.com. According to Roycke, the 2 suspects will be charged with Article 113 of the 2009 Narcotics Law, which carries a penalty of capital punishment, should the suspects be found guilty. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Indonesia is being used as a major hub for drug trafficking by transnational organized crime groups. That is why the Indonesian government says it has intensified its war against drug trafficking that is at what it calls "an emergency level" by continuing its use of the death penalty on drug traffickers, despite mounting pressure from the international community to put an end to the practice. Last week, the West Jakarta District Court sentenced Hong Kong drug kingpin Wong Chi Ping and his Indonesian associate Ahmad Salim Wijaya to death for possessing 862 kilograms of drugs. The government claims that drug abuse kills an average 40 people every day and estimates the number of drug addicts will total 5.8 million people this year. (source: thejakartapost.com) ********** Groom discovers bride isn't a virgin, eats genitals of her rapist 2 Indonesian newlyweds have been arrested on accusations they plotted to kill a man the woman said had raped her a week before her marriage, and police said Tuesday the couple ate the victim's genitals after the man was killed. Lampung police spokeswoman Lt. Col. Sulistyaningsih said Rudi Effendi and his wife Nuriah were being held for further investigation after their arrests Sunday at their house in Tulang Bawang district in Sumatra's Lampung province. Sulistyaningsih, who uses one name, said police found the victim's body in a burnt minivan Oct. 4. She said the monthlong investigation led to the conclusion that the couple had planned to kill the victim, who was a driver for a travel agency. The couple had married in September and the husband found on the wedding night that his wife was no longer a virgin. She then said she had been raped 1 week before the marriage. Police said Effendi, 30, asked his 20-year-old wife to arrange a meeting with the man she accused of raping her. Effendi stabbed the man to death and cut off his genitals before setting ablaze the car. Effendi said he fried the severed genitals and ate them to cure his heartache over the rape. Official charges have not been filed. Police said the couple could be charged with premeditated murder, which carries a maximum death penalty. (source: Associated Press) THAILAND: 'Deceased' death row grandma found alive and well A 72-year-old woman turned herself in to police Tuesday after allegedly faking her own death to escape the death penalty. Juree Jan-ngam, who had been sentenced to die for the contract killing of her son's fiancee 8 years ago, turned herself in at the Crime Suppression Division in Bangkok after police were closing in on her whereabouts, nearly 2 years after she allegedly faked her death and disappeared. In 2007, Juree was accused of hiring someone to murder Riewprae Chotikarn, who was 3-months pregnant with Juree's grandson and was set to marry her son, Wikrom Jan-Ngam. Juree, a wealthy Songkhla businesswoman, reportedly disapproved of her son marrying Riewprae. The hit went down in a clinic, and Riewprae's assistant was also cut down in the gunfire. (source: thaivisa.com) SINGAPORE: 5 suspects arrested, more than S$158,000 of drugs seized in raid----The Central Narcotics Bureau seized about 1.56kg of heroin and 1.12kg of cannabis, among other drugs, during an operation on Tuesday (Nov 17). According to a press release on Wednesday, CNB said its officers were deployed in the vicinity of Kembangan, where a local drug trafficker was believed to be waiting for a fresh consignment of drugs. They then trailed the suspected trafficker, 57, after he boarded the car driven by a 37-year-old Malaysian suspected to be a drug courier. When he alighted, the officers arrested the Singaporean and recovered about 1.36kg of heroin and 1kg of cannabis from a paper bag he was holding. He had a further 200g of heroin, 120g of cannabis, 146 Ecstasy tablets, nine Erimin-5 tablets and a "small amount" of Ice on him, a further search revealed. They also found about S$2,600 in cash on him. CNB officers then raided the 57-year-old's hideout in Siglap Road and arrested a 35-year-old female Singaporean, who is suspected to be a drug abuser and had about 5g of Ice on her. About 110g of ketamine and some methadone were also recovered from the unit, the CNB added. Seperately, another group of officers followed the Malaysian drug courier to Jurong, where he was arrested after alighting from the car. Cash of more than S$5,000 and some Malaysian currency was recovered from him, CNB said. Follow-up investigations also led to the capture of a suspected drug syndicate leader, 28, in Tampines. He is believed to be coordinating drug consignments for local drug traffickers. A 25-year-old Singaporean female, his suspected associate, was arrested too, the agency added. Investigations into the drug activities are ongoing. The Misuse of Drugs Act provides for the death penalty if the amount of diamorphine, or pure heroin, trafficked exceeds 15g. Those convicted of trafficking in more than 500g of cannabis may also face the death penalty, the press release noted. (soruce: channelnewsasia.com) MALAYSIA: Suhakam lauds proposal to remove mandatory death penalty The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) has lauded the proposal to abolish the mandatory death sentence for drug-related offences. Its chairman Tan Sri Hasmy Agam said Suhakam believed the positive development would place Malaysia on par with many other nations that have lately begun to take the step to abolish the mandatory death sentence. "Suhakam hopes that the proposal for the amendment will be submitted quickly to Parliament, and while waiting for the decision, a suspension of all offences bringing the death sentence be implemented," he said in a statement on Wednesday. He also urged the government to review crime laws to ensure that if a death sentence was imposed for an offence, it must only be for the most serious crimes as defined in International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). He said Suhakam also recommended that Malaysia joined ICCPR and the Second Choice Protocol and endeavoured towards abolishing the death sentence in Malaysia, subsequently joining about 140 of 193 nations in the United Nations which had done away with the death sentence or had introduced a moratorium in law or in practice. Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nancy Shukri was reported as saying on Tuesday that the government planned to introduce a bill to abolish the mandatory death sentence for several heavy crimes especially those related to drug offences and possession of firearms. Nancy said the bill, which was expected to be tabled in the Dewan Rakyat in March next year, would return the punishments on offenders to the discretion of the judge. (source: The Star) ************** Malaysian govt wants mandatory death penalty abolished The Malaysian government wants to abolish the mandatory death sentence for drug-related offences and says the punishment should be left to the discretion of the judge, The Star Online reported, citing an official. Nancy Shukri, the Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, said the government was looking to table this motion during the next Parliament seating in March. Nancy said that their aim was to abolish the word "mandatory" from laws for drug-related offences and leave the sentence to the discretion of the judge. She said there were now a total of 1,022 convicts on death row. Asked if she found death sentences effective to curb with crime, Nancy said, "It doesn't help". "We need to find other ways like education, motivation or something else," she added. She pointed out that the removal of the mandatory death sentence did not mean that drug offenders would walk off scot-free, adding that they would face other sentences such as life imprisonment. At present, those convicted of crimes related to drugs, firearm offences, murder and treason face the mandatory death penalty. Last Friday, Attorney-General Tan Sri Apandi Ali said he would propose to the Cabinet that the mandatory death penalty be scrapped. He said mandatory death sentences were a "paradox" as it robbed judges of their discretion to impose sentences on convicted criminals. (source: thaivisa.com) ************** Suhakam urges moratorium on executions pending death penalty review Lauding Putrajaya's plan to abolish the mandatory death penalty in drug-related offences, the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) urged for a moratorium on all executions for the time being. Suhakam chairman Tan Sri Hasmy Agam also urged for the proposed amendments to the law to be taken to Parliament soon. In a statement, Hasmy described the government's plan as a positive development that will bring Malaysia's position on the issue closer to many countries that have abolished the mandatory death sentence in recent years. "The commission recommends that the government consider acceding to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and its Second Optional Protocol, and to aim towards the eventual abolition of the death penalty in Malaysia, joining approximately 140 of the 193 United Nations Member States that have abolished the death penalty or introduced moratoriums, either in law or in practice," Hasmy added. He also suggested that the government review all criminal laws to ensure that the death penalty, if imposed, is applicable only to the most serious crimes as defined by Article 6(2) of the ICCPR. Yesterday, de facto law minister Nancy Shukri said that Putrajaya planned to table a bill in March next year to abolish the mandatory death penalty in drug-related offences. She had said this would allow judges to use their discretion to choose between sentencing a person to jail and the gallows in non-criminal cases, such as drug-related offences. "What we are looking at is the abolition of the mandatory death sentence. It is not easy to amend and we are working on it. "We can get rid of the word 'mandatory' to allow judges to use their discretion in drug-related offences," she reportedly said. Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali had told The Malaysian Insider in an exclusive interview recently that he would propose to the Cabinet that the mandatory death penalty be scrapped, adding that it was a "paradox", as it robbed judges of their discretion to impose sentences on convicted criminals. "If I had my way, I would introduce the option for the judge in cases where it involves capital punishment. Give the option to the judge either to hang him or send him to prison. "Then we're working towards a good administration of criminal justice," Apandi told The Malaysian Insider. He said that this would be in line with the "universal thinking" of capital punishment, although he denied calling for the death penalty to be abolished altogether. (source: themalaysianinsider.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Nov 18 13:37:27 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2015 13:37:27 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 18 NIGERIA: Ekiti Assembly to Pass Law Prescribing Death Penalty for Kidnappers Members of the Ekiti State House of Assembly have moved to pass a bill to make kidnappers die by hanging in the state. Expressing serious views over the twin menace of kidnapping and terrorism in the country, the assembly also moves to stipulate penalty for those who pay ransom to these evil doers. To this end, 2 of the 3 laws that were deliberated upon at the assembly's plenary yesterday dwelt on curbing of crimes that has to do with kidnapping that has become a source of revenues for some criminals. They were Office of the Public Defender Bill (2015) and Ekiti State Kidnap and Terrorism (Prohibition) Bill (2015. Both successfully passed 2nd reading and were passed to the appropriate committees to scrutinise for final passage. The plenary, presided over by the Speaker, Hon. Kola Oluwawole, witnessed a robust debate by members on the matters. Presenting the bills from the order paper, Deputy Leader of Business, Hon. Adeniran Alagbada, lamented the trauma victims of kidnap and their family members are often subjected to. Also speaking on the Public Defender Bill, the Chairman, House Committee on information, Hon. Olugboyega Aribisogan, noted that the bill would afford the poor who lack financial capability to pursue their cases the opportunity to access justice. In the same vein, the Chairman, House Committee on Health, Dr. Babajide Omotoso; Hon. Akinleye Ekundayo, Hon. Titilayo Owolabi-Akerele, Hon. Wale Ayeni and Ayodele Fajemilehin, who also contributed to the motions on the floor, described the bills as those that would have direct positive bearing on the lives of the people of the state. Another law, Ekiti State College of Technical and Commercial Agriculture Repeal Bill (2015), had earlier passed through 1st reading. Ex-Governor Kayode Fayemi had earlier signed the bill into law to enhance the establishment of a School of Agriculture in his Isan Ekiti country home, which the assembly thought would have to be abrogated due to poor financial status of the state. (source: thisdaylive.com) INDIA: HC upholds death penalty for 2010 rape, murder of 6-yr-old The Bombay High Court has confirmed the death sentence given to a 24-year-old youth for raping, sodomising and then brutally murdering a 6-year-old girl in Bhayander in 2010. Observing that society today, especially after the Nirbhaya case, seeks tough punishment to those who sexually assault women, a division bench of acting chief justice Vijaya Kapse-Tahilramani and Justice Ajay Gadkari held that Prakash Nishad, originally a resident of Uttar Pradesh, should hang till death for his crime. "The sentiment of the society is glaringly explicit, that such heinous crime on helpless women are required to be dealt with an iron hand," said the judges, adding, "The pain and agony the accused must have caused to the deceased minor girl is beyond imagination and is the limit of viciousness. The motivation of the accused, the vulnerability of the victim girl, the barbaric and inhuman nature of the crime and the execution thereof persuade us to hold that this is a 'rarest of rare' case where the sentence of death is eminently desirable not only to deter others from committing such atrocious crimes and to prevent the accused from committing such acts for all times to come but also to give emphatic expression to society's abhorrence of such crime." The case dates back to June 11, 2010, when the girl, who lived with her family in Bhayander, went missing when she stepped out to play after dinner. The next day her naked body was found in the gutter. The medical report revealed she had been raped and strangled to death. The police investigation led to Nishad's house, where the team found blood-stained tiles in the room. Nishad was questioned and led the police to his blood-stained clothes as well as the victim's undergarments that he had hid in the house. Tests established that the blood group on the clothes matched that of the girl. A sessions court in November 2014 convicted Nishad for committing rape, unnatural sex and murder and sentenced him to death. Nishad, in his appeal before the HC, claimed he had been falsely implicated. The HC disbelieved his claims and discussed in detail if the death penalty should be confirmed in the case. The judges referred to the changes in the rape laws as well as the new Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and said that "keeping in mind the rising graph of sexual offences and especially of sexual offences against children and public outcry in relation to the same, the sentencing policy now needs to be shaped". (source: The Times of India) PAKISTAN: SC issues arrest warrants for PML-N MNA The Supreme Court issued on Wednesday arrest warrants for Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) MNA Chaudhry Abid Raza for involvement in the murder of 6 people in Gujrat. The PML-N MNA who had won NA-107 Gujrat 4 election during the May 2013 general elections was awarded death penalty by an anti-terrorism court (ATC) in 2003. However, Raza was acquitted after the families of the deceased forgave him on the basis of compromise. Official results: PML-N secures 7 seats in NA A 3-judge bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, while hearing the case related to Raza's disqualification, took notice over his acquittal in terrorism charges. The bench stated that a compromise for a case under Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 (ATA) is not allowed. Arrest warrants were issued for Raza despite arguments put forward by his advocate, Ali Zafar. The hearing of the case has been adjourned for 2 weeks. Chaudhry Abid Raza was convicted in the murder case of 6 people during an assassination bid on former Gujrat Tehsil Nazim and ex-MPA Ghulam Sarwar Bhooch back in 1998. (source: The Express Tribune) BANGLADESH: Bangladeshi Supreme Court Rejects Appeals Of 2 Senior Leaders Convicted Of War Crimes, Upholds Death Sentence Bangladesh's Supreme Court Wednesday rejected appeals of 2 senior opposition leaders convicted of war crimes during the country's 1971 war of independence against Pakistan. The court also upheld the death sentences given to the 2 leaders. Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid of Jamaat-e-Islami were convicted in 2013 by a war crimes tribunal on charges related to rape, torture and genocide. "There are no legal hurdles to execute the war criminals now," Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said, according to Indo-Asian News Service agency. Authorities stepped up security in capital Dhaka and other parts of the country after the apex court's announcement, according to local media. Jamaat-e-Islami called a shutdown Thursday to protest the court's decision, according to the Associated Press. The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Authority said in a statement that it blocked social media sites including Facebook, Viber and WhatsApp indefinitely to cease any propaganda that might lead to violence in the country, the AP reported. Chowdhury and Mujahid can seek presidential mercy. "It is up to them whether they want to seek mercy or not," defense counsel Khandaker Mahbub Hossain said, according to Reuters. In October 2013, the country's International Crimes Tribunal sentenced the 66-year-old BNP leader to death for 9 of 23 charges, including 4 counts of genocide. Chowdhury was found guilty of killing 200 civilians, mostly Hindus, in Chittagong. At the time, his party maintained that the trial was politically motivated. It is estimated that nearly 3 million people were killed in the 9-month Bangladesh Liberation War that ended in December 1971. Over 15 people, mostly Jamaat-e-Islami leaders, were convicted of war crimes by 2 separate tribunals set up by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2010. (source: ibtimes.com) ******************************* Bangladesh suspends net services after verdict on war criminals The death penalty for 2 opposition leaders was upheld by the Supreme Court for war crimes committed during 1971 independence war against Pakistan. Bangladesh on Wednesday shut down Facebook and messaging and voicecall services Viber and WhatsApp fearing violence by supporters of 2 opposition leaders whose death penalty was upheld by the Supreme Court for war crimes committed during 1971 independence war against Pakistan. The 4-member bench led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha rejected the final review petitions of Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury. Immediately after the verdict, authorities shut down Facebook, Viber and WhatsApp aimed at preventing Jamaat supporters mobilising to protest against the ruling. "We have taken steps to suspend the apps based internet services following the request from law enforcement agencies for security reasons," a Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission spokesman said. He said the apps based services will remain suspended for an indefinite period until further orders from the government. Internet services were also suspended for over an hour. Both Mujahid and Chowdhury are in their late 60s and were senior ministers in ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia's BNP-led coalition government with Jamaat being its key partner. Wednesday's verdict had cleared the way for their execution and they were now left with the last option of seeking presidential clemency. Bangladesh had overnight stepped up nationwide security amid fears of clashes after the verdict. (source: Khaleej Times) *********** Bangladesh top court upholds death sentence to 2 1971 war crime convicts Bangladesh's Supreme court on Wednesday upheld its previous verdict on the death sentence of 2 war-crime convicts Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury. The court rejected the pleas of Mujahid, secretary general of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party, and Chowdhury, leader of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), to review death sentences for crimes against humanity during the country's war of independence in 1971, bdnews24.com reported. A bench of Chief Justice S.K. Sinha heard Mujahid's plea on Tuesday and Chowdhury's on Wednesday. "There are no legal hurdles to execute the war criminals now," Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said after the verdict. A special tribunal sentenced Mujahid to death on 17 July, 2013, for the murder of intellectuals and his involvement in the killing and torture of Hindus in 1971. The former social welfare minister had appealed to the apex court, seeking the revocation of his death penalty but the bench upheld the tribunal verdict on June 16. Chowdhury was sentenced to death by a War Crimes Tribunal on October 1, 2013, for the mass killing and torture of Hindus and Awami League supporters. The bench had upheld Chowdhury's death penalty on July 29 after hearing his appeal against the tribunal decision. Mujahid and Chowdhury are now left with the last option of seeking presidential clemency. (source: firstpost.com) ************** Prafulla: We want immediate execution Prafulla Ranjan Sinha, son of Nutan Chandra Sinha, has expressed his satisfaction as the Supreme Court has upheld its previous verdict on BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, rejecting his plea for reviewing death penalty for crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971. In an instant reaction over the verdict, Prafulla Ranjan Sinha told the Dhaka Tribune on Wednesday over phone that they were happy at the verdict. "We are happy as the verdict was a long awaited one. However, we want immediate implementation of the verdict," said Prafulla who testified before the 1st war crimes tribunal against Salauddin Quader Chowdhury on June 20, 2012. "We have been waiting agonisingly for 4 long decades for the trial. At long last the justice has been delivered," added Prafulla. It may be mentioned that Nutan Chandra Sinha, a social worker, entrepreneur and philanthropist was born on December1, 1900. Nutan was a popular figure who he had played a great role in fostering education and social works in his locality by establishing a number of educational institutions, a post office and an herbal medicine factory-Sree Kundeshwari Aushadhalaya Ltd. Acknowledging the philanthropic activities, Bangladesh government had published a stamp on Nutan Chandra Sinha on December 14, 1993. During the Liberation War in 1971, many people including teachers of Chittagong University and their families took refuge at the educational institutes founded by him. The septuagenarian philanthropist was killed by Pakistani Army and their collaborators. On April 13, 1971, a group of army men led by Salauddin Quader Chowdhury stormed into the house of Nutan. The soldiers then sprayed bullets on him. However, it was Salauddin who again shot him 2 to 3 times to ensure his death. Satya Ranjan Sinha, son of Nutan Chandra Sinha filed a case against Salauddin, his father Fazlul Quader Chowdhury and some others with Raozan police station in January 1972. However, the case did not proceed. Sharing his pain before the Tribunal, Prafulla then said: "I am such a hapless son that I could not even light the funeral pyre of my father." (source: dhakatribune.com) ****************** Oishee and our penal culture "The murderer has killed. It is wrong to kill. Let us kill the murderer" - Arthur Koestler, Drinkers of Infinity (1969). Oishee Rahman has been found guilty of 'parricide'. The court is satisfied to hand out a death sentence to Oishee. Media reports suggest that the trial judge found the O'level student's offence as 'premeditated' and 'cool-headed'. The trial also came to the conclusion that Oishee had committed the crime with her 'full senses' and she was not in a 'drunken state of mind'. The defense lawyer's plea of Oishee's being a minor and under the influence of toxic elements also did not attain ground. We assume that the verdict will be appealed against and the findings of and the punishment inflicted by the trial court will be tested in the higher judiciary. However, the case being unusual and unique in nature involves extra-legal factors and as such attracts huge public attention from the beginning. We raise a few issues, considering the case's extra-judicial nature, in this short write-up. The penal statutes by their very nature are rigid. Such rigidity is widely recognised in different jurisdictions. The judges hardly enjoy any freedom in interpreting such statutes. As such, when the commission of an offence is established, they have no other alternative but to strictly apply the provisions of the penal law. In spite of this, judges enjoy a good deal of discretionary power while sentencing given the nature, magnitude and impact of the crime committed. For example, the judge may provide a death sentence or life imprisonment, if somebody is found guilty of homicide. From that perspective, Oishee was considered by the trial court to be a fit case for death penalty as it seriously shocked and shook the conscience of the society. However, the social networks and media narratives suggest that many people see the issue with a flexible and reformist approach. Oishee's case is not merely legal. It's a psycho-socio-legal matter. The case has brought to light our preparedness to establish a relationship between law and psychology. The discipline suggests a serious study about law's response to appreciate the psychological factors of the offender. Moreover, the discipline also invites attention to the factors that influence the characters of the court (ie. judges, lawyers) in reaching a conclusion. The discipline also permeates the study of the psychology of law in defining a crime and prescribing a particular punishment. We may need to revisit our penal law to see the possible influence of this approach in our penal culture. Bangladeshi society is bombarded with the news of such crimes on a regular basis. As a result, the public mind favours rigorous punishments including death sentence for the wrongdoers. This social construction also comes from the frustration with the widely practiced culture of impunity that allows criminals to go scot-free. But even then, we cannot remain indifferent to the modern developments of law taking place globally and its cross-disciplinary implications. The Oishee case also unfolds the necessity of revisiting the aim of our punitive culture. The reformation theory, that the law students are taught, has to have a meaning to our legal understanding. The judiciary should come forward in fashioning new penal jurisprudence against the old state of the colonial penal system. The Oishee case should not be confused with the crimes committed by repetitive wrongdoers. As such, there is scope to apply a reformative approach to the case. For, it is not clear what 'retributive' purpose the death sentence in this case is going to serve. The paradox and pathology of the death sentence is that nobody has better interest in Oishee's parents' lives than herself. The defense's effort to save Oishee's death penalty largely revolved around proving her to be a 'minor' (below the age of 18). It may be that had they been able to prove that she was a minor, they at least would have been able to invoke the protection of a law that bars death sentence to children. It reminds us about the absence of strong legal arguments in attracting the court's attention to the suitability of death penalty in such psycho-socio-legal cases. It also lacks effort to bring the state machinery under accountability to provide reformist prison system. The legal fraternity should contribute in creating such an opportunity. At least it needs to establish a base for social dialogue. It, however, needs to be noted that the process of age determination in Bangladesh is seriously flawed and largely administrative in nature. We hope that all relevant considerations along with this aspect of the case will be debated in the apex court. The Oishee case is a question, not an answer. It's a wake-up call for the society constantly changing. Apart from that the case also got its meaning from our penal system, law and legal culture. It has posed a challenge for the judiciary to fashion a reasoned, balanced and reformist penal jurisprudence. Here, we recall Gabriel Mistral's oft-quoted saying: "We are guilty of many errors and many faults, but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the foundation of life. Many of the things we need can wait, the child cannot, right now is his time- his bones are being formed, his blood is being made and his senses are being developed. To him, we cannot answer 'tomorrow'. His name is 'Today'." (source: S M Masum Billah and Saeed Ahsan Khalid -- The writers are studying PhD at the VUW, New Zealand and teach law at the University of Chittagong, Bangladesh respectively; The Star) ************** 5 to die for killing minor boy in Jamalpur A court here yesterday sentenced 5 people to death for killing a minor boy after abduction in Sadar upazila in 2001. The death penalty awardees are Tofayel Islam Hira, 35 his father Lokman Ali, 57, of Dariahamidpur village; Anwar Hossain, 37, his father Aynul Haq, 60, and Sohel Rana alias Shipon, 36, of Nandina Kharkharia village in the upazila. According to the prosecution, there was a family feud between Lokman and his brother Lutfur Rahman. As a sequel to that, Lokman's son Hira with the help of Sohel and Anwar picked up Muttasim Billah, 7, son of Lutfur Rahman, an expatriate in USA, from in front of his house at Amlapara in the district town on May 31, 2001. Later, they took Muttasim to Aynul's house at Nandina Kharkharia village and strangled him. Following a general diary (GD) filed by Muttasim's family with Sadar Police Station, police arrested Shipon. On the basis of his confessional statement, law enforcers recovered Muttasim's body from a room of Aynul's house 80 days after the murder. Muttasim's maternal uncle filed a case, accusing with Jamalpur Police Station, accusing Hira, Lokman, Anwar, Aynul, Sohel, and Faruk. After investigation, police pressed charges against the 6. After examining the records and witnesses, Additional District and Sessions Judge Mohammed Waheduzzaman Shikdar handed down the verdict, acquitting Faruk as allegation brought against him could not be proved. (source: The Daily Star) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Nov 18 22:18:42 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2015 22:18:42 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, GA., ALA., NEV. Message-ID: Nov. 18 TEXAS----execution Texas man executed for setting fire that killed 3 children A Texas inmate was executed Wednesday for setting a fire that killed his 18-month-old daughter and her 2 young half-sisters at an East Texas home 15 years ago. Raphael Holiday, 36, became the 13th convicted killer put to death this year in Texas, which carries out capital punishment more than any other state. It has accounted for 1/2 of all executions in the U.S. so far this year. Asked by a warden if he had a final statement, Holiday thanked his "supporters and loved ones." "I love y'all," he said. "I want you to know I'm always going to be with you." He thanked the warden. As the lethal dose of pentobarbital began, he took 2 deep breaths and appeared to yawn, his mouth remaining open as he wheezed several times. Then all movement stopped. 19 minutes later, at 8:30 p.m. CST, he was pronounced dead. Holiday never addressed or looked at witnesses, including the children's grandfather and mother, his former common-law wife. The mother initially stood at the back of the death chamber witness area, watching from behind a corrections officer. About 10 minutes later, with Holiday motionless on the death chamber gurney, she walked toward a window to see him. She and other relatives of the slain children declined to speak with reporters afterward. The punishment was carried out after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal seeking to halt Holiday's punishment so new attorneys could be appointed to pursue additional unspecified appeals in his case. Austin-based lawyer Gretchen Sween argued that Holiday's court-appointed attorneys abandoned him after the justices in June refused to review his case. Those lawyers advised Holiday his legal issues were exhausted and new appeals and a clemency petition would be fruitless. Earlier Wednesday, the judge in Holiday's trial court stopped the execution after Holiday's trial attorney filed an appeal saying the conviction and some trial testimony were both improper. The judge agreed the issues should be reviewed and withdrew his execution warrant. The Texas attorney general's office appealed, the judge's order was voided and the warrant reinstated, clearing the way for the lethal injection to move forward more. The execution took place about 2 1/2 hours later than scheduled because of the late state court appeal. Holiday told The Associated Press recently from a visiting cage outside death row that he didn't know how the log cabin he once shared with his wife and the children in the Madison County woods about 100 miles north of Houston caught fire in September 2000. "I loved my kids," Holiday said. "I never would do harm to any of them." Evidence and testimony showed Holiday was irate over a protective order his estranged wife obtained after his arrest for sexually assaulting one of the children. Holiday, from prison, contended he knew nothing about the assault. According to court records, he showed up at the home and forced the girls' grandmother at gunpoint to douse the interior with gasoline. After it ignited, he sped away in the grandmother's car, hit a police car that arrived outside the cabin and then led officers on a chase that ended 2 counties away when he wrecked. Defense attorneys at his trial suggested an electrical problem or a pilot light started the blaze in the early hours of Sept. 6, 2000, killing Holiday's daughter, Justice, and her half-sisters, Tierra Lynch, 7, and Jasmine DuPaul, 5. The girls' grandmother told a jury she watched Holiday bend down and then the flames erupted, court records show. Jurors convicted him of capital murder and decided he should be put to death. The lethal injection was the last one scheduled for Texas this year, but at least 5 inmates have execution dates set for early next year. Texas carried out 10 executions in 2014. Holiday becomes the531st condemned inmate to be put to death in Texas since the state resumed capital punishment on Dec. 7, 1982; he is the 13th condemned inmate to be put to death since Greg Abbott became governor in January of this year. Holiday becomes the 1420th inmate to be put to death overall in the USA since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. (sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin) ******************** Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----13 Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----531 Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. # 14---------January 20 (2016)-----Richard Masterson--------532 15---------January 27---------------James Freeman---------533 16---------February 16--------------Gustavo Garcia--------534 17---------March 9------------------Coy Wesbrook----------535 18---------March 22-----------------Adam Ward-------------536 (sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin) GEORGIA----impending execution Marcus Ray Johnson's request for clemency denied The State Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied a clemency request from attorneys representing condemned inmate Marcus Ray Johnson. In reaching its decision, in addition to hearing testimony, the Board prior to the meeting had thoroughly reviewed Johnson's parole case file which includes the circumstances of the death penalty case, Johnson's criminal history, and a comprehensive history of his life. Johnson was convicted on April 5, 1998, of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, rape and aggravated battery in the March 1994 death of Angela Sizemore in Albany. Johnson was sentenced to death. Johnson's conviction and sentence have been upheld throughout the appeals process. Johnson is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Thursday, November 19 at 7 p.m. at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. (source: WFXL news) ALABAMA----new death sentence//female Lisa Graham sentenced to death for hiring man to kill her daughter Convicted of capital murder for persuading a family friend to gun her daughter down on a remote dirt road in Russell County on July 5, 2007, Lisa Leanne Graham today was sentenced to the death penalty. After a jury convicted her March 5, Judge Jacob Walker III initially set a sentencing date of May 1, but then postponed it so Graham could have a psychological evaluation. Walker noted then that Graham had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and was taking medications prescribed for schizophrenia. Today's sentencing is not the end of the story, as Graham is expected to appeal, a process that will add new chapters to what even veterans of the criminal justice system found to be a sordid and surreal story of a mother whose jealousy and disdain for her daughter led to a cold-blooded murder on an isolated Russell County road. Graham was accused of persuading longtime family worker Kenneth Walton to kill daughter Stephanie Shea Graham, who went by Shea. Walton said the mother met him at the Columbus Public Library that day and loaned him her pistol for the job. He caught up with Shea at a Victory Drive gas station, where she left her car with friends and rode off in Walton's pickup truck. He took her on a long, night drive down Alabama Highway 165 before pulling off on Bowden Road so they could relieve themselves. When she got out to squat beside the truck's open passenger door, he pulled out the pistol and shot her in the head from the driver's seat, then got out, walked around the truck and shot her again and again. He left her half-nude body where it lay, and drove away. Asked in court how his deadly betrayal of a young woman who trusted him made him feel that night, he replied, "I felt normal." Because witnesses saw Shea leave the gas station with Walton, investigators focused on him immediately. He confessed, and told them of the mother's involvement, particularly of the pistol he had returned to her the next day. Lisa Graham further incriminated herself when authorities came looking for the gun. She had given it to an elderly neighbor she knew as "Papa" to clean, but told sheriff's investigators she didn't know where it was, and allowed them futilely to search her house before her husband told them "Papa" might have it. Finding ample evidence of her involvement in the homicide, they charged her with murder. Russell County District Attorney Ken Davis said the circumstances warranted the death penalty. But 5 years passed before the case finally came to trial - the 1st time. Walton pleaded guilty June 14, 2012, and was sentenced to life in prison. Graham's trial was set for the following fall. But after jury selection and some initial testimony, Circuit Judge George Greene abruptly declared a mistrial on Sept. 25, 2012, saying he could no longer preside because of his failing health. When prosecutors pursued a 2nd trial, Graham's defense team appealed, claiming Greene could have continued the trial, and to try Graham again would constitute double-jeopardy. During testimony in that appeal, witnesses said Greene had multiple health issues, and had been falling asleep in court, even snoring. Greene retired in December 2013, and died Jan. 1, 2014. After the Alabama Court of Appeals rejected the defense's double-jeopardy arguments on Oct. 17, 2013, Graham???s attorneys appealed to the Alabama Supreme Court. It turned them down on Aug. 8, 2014. Meanwhile other Russell County judges recused themselves from presiding at Graham's next trial. Walker, a Lee County Circuit Court judge, was appointed to fill in. Jury selection in the 2nd trial began Feb. 17, with witness testimony starting the following week. That testimony showed Graham repeatedly had remarked to witnesses that Shea was ruining her life, and she would kill her daughter if she could. The daughter was facing aggravated assault charges related to a drive-by shooting in Columbus, and Graham feared she would flee town and leave her parents responsible for her $100,000 bond. Walton testified he lured Shea into his pickup the night she died with the promise of providing her with a vehicle in which to run away. (source: ledger-enquirer.com) NEVADA----new death sentence Bean sentenced to death A Third Judicial District Court jury in July sentenced convicted murderer Jeremiah Bean to death. Judge John P. Schlegelmilch agreed Tuesday. Schlegelmilch sentenced Bean to 5 consecutive death penalties. Bean, 27, was found guilty after a 2-plus week guilt phase portion of his trial in July in the murders of Bob and Dorothy Pape, 84, inside their Fernley home on May 10, 2013, and of Eliazar Graham, 52, of Sparks, in Mustang, and of Angie Duff, 67, and Lester Lieber, 69, inside Pape's Fernley home, on May 13. He also burned the Pape home early May 13, 2013. On July 6, the jury ruled there were aggravating circumstances that warranted the death penalty. Schlegelmilch affirmed that sentence at Tuesday's hearing. Schlegelmilch sentenced Bean to death by lethal injection for each of the five murders, with an additional term of 96 to 240 months each for use of a deadly weapon. Each sentence was consecutive. Schlegelmilch also sentenced Bean on 7 other charges, including burglary with use of a firearm, grand larceny, grand larceny of a motor vehicle, 1st-degree arson, robbery with use of a deadly weapon, burglary to obtain a firearm and grand larceny of a firearm. The total aggregate sentence is 78 to 195 years. Lyon County District Attorney Stephen Rye said he was pleased with the outcome. "It's a just verdict and a just sentence," he said. "He deserves the maximum penalty, and that's what the judge imposed." (source: Reno Gazette-Journal) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Nov 18 22:20:31 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2015 22:20:31 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 18 KENYA: Kenya officially throws out 'Stone The Gays' bill----Bill proposed lifetime imprisonment or death by stoning for both gay Kenyan and foreign people Kenya's parliament has officially thrown out a proposal that would have punished homosexuality with death by stoning. The reason is that lawmakers believe current laws, which imprisons gay people for up to 14 years, are satisfactory enough at this time. This is the 2nd time a proposal to have a law prescribing the death penalty has been denied by a committee. "The [Justice and Legal Affairs] committee does not agree with the petitioner's proposed legislation as it is unnecessary. Article 45 of the Constitution adequately safeguards and protects family values," a spokesperson for the committee said. "These provisions adequately protect the family values that apply in our democracy." But this is not the last we will see of the proposed legislation. The committee said they would reconsider the bill if the leader of the bill, Kiharu MP Irangu Kang'ata, could find more sponsors in parliament. Speaking to Gay Star News, Kenyan LGBTI rights activist Denis Nzioka said while this is a 'very good step' for Kenya, it should still be a wake-up call. He said: 'We have seen a lot of anti-gay sentiment being brought out by people, politicians, religious leaders. People want to go the Ugandan way, Nigerian way. 'I thought Kenya was a safe country, the best in the continent apart from South Africa for gay rights. 'But things have got out of our hands. It just shows how in an instant - things can change dramatically.' (source: Gay Star News) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Nov 19 09:14:37 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2015 09:14:37 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., ALA., KY., UTAH, IDAHO, CALIF., USA Message-ID: Nov. 19 GEORGIA----impending execution Georgia man convicted in woman's killing to be executed A Georgia man convicted of killing a woman he met in a nightclub is set to be executed. Marcus Ray Johnson is scheduled to die at 7 p.m. Thursday at the state prison in Jackson. The 50-year-old was convicted in the March 1994 rape and murder of Angela Sizemore in Albany. Johnson's attorneys argue he shouldn't be executed because doubts remain about his guilt. Prosecutors say there is no doubt Johnson killed Sizemore. A judge on Wednesday rejected a constitutional challenge to Johnson's sentence and conviction and declined to stop his execution. His lawyers have appealed to the state Supreme Court. The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles is the only entity authorized to commute a death sentence. The board held a hearing Wednesday and voted not to grant clemency. (source: Associated Press) ALABAMA----new death sentence//female Jury recommends death penalty in murder for hire plot A jury has recommended the death penalty for an east Alabama woman convicted of hiring a hit man to kill her daughter. Multiple news outlets reported Wednesday that a jury recommended the death penalty for Lisa Graham, who was convicted of paying a family friend to fatally shoot her 21-year-old daughter Stephanie Shae Graham in July 2007. Authorities have said Graham hired Kenny Walton to carry out the slaying. Walton confessed in the case and is serving a life prison sentence. Graham was convicted during a retrial. Her 1st trial was declared a mistrial because a judge's deteriorating health prevented him from hearing the whole case. (source: Associated Press) ********** Jurors weighing death penalty in Alexius Foster case----Alexius Foster was found guilty of 2 counts of capital murder Monday morning at the Tuscaloosa County Courthouse. Jurors began the sentencing phase Wednesday of a man they found guilty of capital murder earlier this week. They could decide as early as today whether to recommend life without parole or death for Alexius Foster. The jury on Monday convicted Foster, 37, of capital murder in the 2013 slaying of his uncle George Foster. They also convicted him of felony murder in the death of his friend Antonio Williams. The possible death sentence is for the murder of George Foster, who was stabbed or cut more than 60 times before he bled to death in his bedroom. Tuscaloosa County Senior Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Cross told jurors Wednesday before they started deliberations that the crime was "heinous, atrocious and cruel." He asked jurors to sentence Foster to death. Foster's attorneys presented a report compiled from interviews with Foster's parents, wife and a friend. The report stated that Foster had bad parents while growing up and had been abusing drugs since 2008. "You can't help the cards that you're played, but you can help how you play them," Cross said. Foster graduated from Stillman College in 2004, where he had played baseball. "This defendant is very intelligent," Cross said. "He knew better." The jury will recommend either life in prison with no possibility of parole or the death penalty. Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court Judge John England then will make the final ruling at a sentencing hearing scheduled for Dec. 17. At least 7 jurors must agree to recommend a life sentence. At least 10 must concur to recommend the death penalty. The jury will reconvene at 9 a.m. today. (source: Tuscaloosa News) KENTUCKY: Central Kentucky grand jury issues murder indictments in police officer's shooting death A grand jury has indicted 4 co-defendants in the fatal shooting of a central Kentucky police officer and in the attempted robbery he was investigating earlier this month. A Madison County grand jury Tuesday indicted 34-year-old Raleigh Sizemore of Richmond, the man accused of shooting 33-year-old Daniel Ellis, multiple media outlets report. Sizemore faces murder, 2 counts of attempted murder and 4 other charges. Madison County Commonwealth's Attorney David Smith would not say whether he will seek the death penalty against Sizemore. Kentucky law allows the death penalty in murder cases where there is an "aggravating circumstance" such as robbery, rape or the death of a police officer. Ellis died Nov. 6, 2 days after he was ambushed and shot in the head while searching an apartment for a robbery suspect. 25-year-old Gregory Ratliff also was indicted on 4 charges, including complicity to murder. 44-year-old Rita Creech and 35-year-old Carl Banks are facing charges related to the attempted robbery earlier in the day in Richmond. Authorities said Ellis, a 7-year veteran of the department, went to Ratliff's apartment in search of Sizemore, who had hidden with Creech in the back bedroom. The indictment indicates that Sizmore was armed with a .22-caliber revolver. Police have said that Sizemore admitted shooting Ellis as Ellis entered the bedroom and firing at 2 other officers as they entered the apartment to help Ellis. Sizemore is being held at Kentucky State Reformatory in LaGrange in lieu of a $2.5 million bond. Ratliff's, Creech and Banks are being held in the Madison County Detention Center. Their bails are $2 million, $10,000 and $100,000 respectively. (source: Associated Press) UTAH: Preliminary hearing scheduled for man accused of killing Mt. Pleasant couple The case against a man accused of killing a Mt. Pleasant couple in their home has moved very slowly since prosecutors plan on pursuing the death penalty. "When you have 2 quality people that lost their lives at the hands of another, you certainly have an important cause," said Sanpete County Attorney Brody Keisel. That's why Keisel said that seeking justice for Woody and Ann Fullwood, the couple killed 4 years ago, takes not only time but also patience. Since their deaths at the end of 2011, prosecutors have had to wait for Logan McFarland to be prosecuted for crimes in Nevada before he could be extradited. Since he arrived in Utah in January of this year, it has taken time to get qualified defense attorneys on board, since prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty. On Wednesday, attorneys told the judge they will be ready for a preliminary hearing in March when the judge will decide if there is enough evidence against McFarland for a trial. "We look forward to having that hearing," Keisel said. "We expect it to happen. We don't see anything that would keep it from happening in the middle of March." If McFarland is ordered to stand trial on 2 counts of aggravated murder, Keisel said it could still be several more months before a trial is held. That would include a penalty phase if McFarland is convicted. The preliminary hearing for McFarland is scheduled to last 3 days, beginning March 15. (source: KSL news) ************** Lawyers want to depose all Utah prosecutors on death penalty Lawyers for a southern Utah man facing a possible death penalty sentence are planning to depose all of Utah's 29 county prosecutors in an effort to show capital punishment is unconstitutional. The Spectrum of St. George reports (http://bit.ly/1O3U5nR) that attorneys for 34-year-old Brandon Perry Smith said Wednesday that the testimony from the state's prosecutors will help them show the death penalty is unfairly applied. Attorneys Gary Pendleton and Mary Corporan say that prosecutors seek the death penalty in less than 3 percent of eligible cases, resolving most with a life prison sentence. Judge G. Michael Westfall says he doesn't want to further slow the progress of the case. A new hearing was set for Feb. 3. Smith is accused of cutting 20-year-old Jerrica Christensen's throat at a St. George townhome in 2010. (source: Associated Press) IDAHO: Idaho death row inmate gets life sentence, can't appeal A death row inmate in Idaho pleaded guilty Tuesday to a reduced charge as part of a bargain that ensures he will never be released from prison. Gene Francis Stuart pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree murder by torture for the 1981 beating death of 3-year-old Robert Miller. Miller was the son of Stuart's then-girlfriend, reported the Lewiston Tribune (http://bit.ly/1MmfhmB). Stuart was sentenced to be executed in 1983, but an appeals process began working its way through the court system and he was granted a new sentencing hearing in 2013. He was offered the plea agreement after a federal court overturned his original death sentence. As part of the deal, Stuart gave up his right to appeal or to file a motion asking for reconsideration of the sentence. The judge sentenced him to life in prison. "So it's a done deal," said Clearwater County Prosecutor E. Clayne Tyler. "We won't have to worry about re-sentencing him or retrying him." Tyler spoke to the Tribune after the hearing at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Boise. He said the judge didn't think Stuart could be rehabilitated. Stuart had appealed on the claim that he had ineffective assistance from his attorney, the late Robert Kinney of Orofino. Although re-sentencing Stuart could have cost Clearwater County as much as $1 million, Tyler said the county was willing to pay. "This particular case still remains raw in the psyche of the people of Clearwater County," the prosecutor recently told the Tribune. "Those who were around at the time remember it and it brings up emotions that have not been dulled with the passage of 30-something years. It was a terrible, terrible case. The child was beaten for months - I mean badly." The 3-year-old boy died from blows that damaged his liver and caused him to bleed to death. Stuart was convicted of 1st-degree murder by torture in 1982 for repeatedly hitting the boy over an extended period of time. Reports from the trial say Stuart was a strict disciplinarian expecting almost adult behavior from the 3-year-old. Tyler said the Clearwater County office re-evaluated the case 2 years ago, when they heard they might have to re-sentence Stuart. He said they determined that they probably had enough evidence for a hearing, including potential witnesses like a police officer present for Stuart's confession, a pathologist who testified about Miller's injuries and a radiologist who looked at film from the child's autopsy. That radiologist "is not only still alive but claims the case haunts him," Tyler said. "He recalled not only the nature of the fractures that he identified but where it was and in what area 34 years after the fact." Tyler said his office decided to offer Stuart a plea deal in consultation with the attorney general's office, law enforcement and county commissioners. He said they did the math and realized that if Stuart was given the death penalty, he could appeal again and would likely be in his mid-80s before the sentence could be carried out. "Mr. Stuart would not see a lethal injection. He would die of natural causes," said Tyler. "So the question then became, why spend up to $1 million in taxpayer money ... when the defense was offering a fixed life if I was to pull the death penalty off the table and resolve all of the appeals and the case would be done?" "It was a difficult decision, but we were all pretty much on board with, this is what needs to be done," he continued. "My ultimate goal ... was to ensure that Gene Francis Stuart will die in prison. Whether he died by lethal injection or natural causes was something that was secondary to ensure that the man did not walk out." (source: Associated Press) CALIFORNIA: Appeals court gets it wrong on death penalty How can it be that a criminal punishment is unconstitutional, but a federal court can provide no relief? The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Nov. 12 reversed Orange County federal judge Cormac Carney's decision holding that the death penalty as administered in California is so arbitrary as to be cruel and unusual punishment. But the 9th Circuit came to this conclusion without disagreeing with Judge Carney's facts or analysis about the death penalty. Instead, the court said that the challenge to the death penalty should have been dismissed by Judge Carney on procedural grounds. Although both the Supreme Court and Congress have limited the ability of federal courts to provide relief to convicted criminals, even under these very restrictive rules Judge Carney's decision should have been upheld. The case, Jones v. Davis, involved a criminal defendant - Ernest Dewayne Jones - who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1995. His appeals will last many more years. Judge Carney noted that since 1978, when the current death penalty system was adopted by California voters, over 900 people have been sentenced to death for their crimes. Of them, only 13 have been executed. The average delay between sentencing and execution is 25 years. Judge Carney explained that "for most, systemic delay has made their execution so unlikely that the death sentence carefully and deliberately imposed by the jury has been quietly transformed into one no rational jury or legislature could ever impose: life in prison, with the remote possibility of death. As for the random few for whom execution does become a reality, they will have languished for so long on death row that their execution will serve no retributive or deterrent purpose and will be arbitrary." He concluded that such an arbitrary punishment violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. Contrary to a popular misconception, this is not because of delaying tactics by those on death row and their lawyers. Countless factors - the process of direct review by the California Supreme Court without consideration by a court of appeals, the lack of qualified attorneys to handle death penalty cases, the need for care before imposing the ultimate punishment - contribute to long delays and unpredictability in carrying out death sentences. The 9th Circuit disputed none of this in reversing Judge Carney. Rather, the court said that it could not consider the issue because Jones' case was in federal court on a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, and a rule created by the Supreme Court prevented providing any relief. A federal court may grant habeas corpus to a criminal defendant and overturn a conviction or a sentence if it violates the Constitution or federal law. Long before the United States became a nation, English courts could grant habeas corpus to those wrongly convicted or sentenced. The Constitution expressly declares that the writ of habeas corpus may not be suspended except in cases of rebellion or invasion. But for the past few decades, both the Supreme Court and Congress have imposed many new limits on the ability of federal courts to hear habeas corpus petitions, even for those who have been wrongly convicted or even innocent. A 1989 Supreme Court decision, Teague v. Lane, held that federal courts, in ruling on a habeas corpus petition, cannot recognize constitutional rights that create new procedural rules. Federal courts only can apply existing rights that pertain to the procedures that law enforcement and the courts must follow in handling criminal cases. The 9th Circuit invoked Teague to reverse Judge Carney. But the court's reasoning was flawed on many levels. Most importantly, the Supreme Court repeatedly has said that changes in substantive constitutional rights, as opposed to procedural ones, always can be the basis for habeas corpus relief. That is exactly what Judge Carney found in holding the death penalty unconstitutional: its application in California is so arbitrary that the state cannot apply it in a constitutional manner. Also, Judge Carney's opinion did not create a new right. The Supreme Court long has said that arbitrary imposition of the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The more general point is the extent to which the Supreme Court and Congress have closed the courthouse doors to those who claim to be wrongly convicted and sentenced in violation of the Constitution and federal laws. Federal courts must be available to hear such claims and provide relief. The decision of the 9th Circuit in Jones v. Davis is just the most recent example of justice being denied on habeas corpus. (source: Opinion; Erwin Chemerinsky is dean of the UC Irvine School of Law----Orange County Register) USA: Fell's lawyers challenge death penalty law A Vermont man facing the federal death penalty for the 2000 killing of a woman abducted from outside a Rutland supermarket is asking a judge to declare the death penalty law unconstitutional, court documents say. In documents filed in federal court Monday, attorneys for Donald Fell argue the federal death penalty is unreliable, arbitrary and adds "unconscionably long" delays in cases. "Most places within the United States have abandoned its use under evolving standards of decency," the attorneys say. They contend that U.S. Supreme Court justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg earlier this year "issued a clarion call for reconsideration of the constitutionality of the death penalty." It also noted that the Connecticut Supreme Court, relying largely on Breyer and Ginsburg's arguments, found that state's death penalty unconstitutional. "Mr. Fell asks this Court to (rule)... that the federal death penalty, in and of itself, constitutes a legally prohibited cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by both the Fifth and Eighth Amendments," his filing said. Fell, 35, was convicted and sentenced to death in 2005 for the 2000 killing of Terry King, a 53-year-old North Clarendon grandmother who was abducted in Rutland and later killed. A judge last year ordered a new trial for Fell because of juror misconduct during the original trial. The trial is scheduled for next fall. U.S. Attorney Eric Miller said his office would respond to the defense filings at the appropriate time. Vermont has no state death penalty; Fell was sentenced to death under federal law. In 2002, the judge then hearing the case declared the federal death penalty unconstitutional. But 2 years later, an appeals court overturned that ruling, allowing the trial to go forward. Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said a decade's worth of data has accumulated showing the legal problems with the federal death penalty since the ruling allowing Fell's case to go forward. There's more evidence the federal death penalty is overwhelmingly applied in Southern states that have state death penalties, and there are significant racial disparities in the application of the federal death penalty as well, Dunham said. "You can expect going forward that there will be constitutional challenges of this type filed in most, if not all, federal capital prosecutions," Dunham said. (source: Associated Press) ***************** The Unfolding Campaign to Save the Death Penalty ---- Supporters rally around a more efficient system of execution. Late last month, a group of California district attorneys and family members of murder victims launched a campaign to save the death penalty in their state. "This is not pro-death penalty," announced Anne Marie Schubert, the district attorney of Sacramento County. "We have come together to say we acknowledge it's broken but we have come here to fix it." Over somber music in a YouTube video of the event, the advocates describe a ballot initiative, slated for November 2016, that would accelerate appeals for death row inmates and change the way they are housed, all in the interest of saving money and speeding up executions. This is not the first time supporters of capital punishment have proposed laws to make the death penalty more efficient (President Bill Clinton signed a bill to do so in 1996). What is different now is the sense of urgency: the initiative will be in direct competition with another ballot initiative, already announced, to get rid of the death penalty altogether. "We need to fix the death penalty or it's going to go away," Mike Ramos, the district attorney in San Bernardino County, said by phone shortly before the announcement of the campaign. "It's that simple." The emergence of Californians for Death Penalty Savings and Reform is the most visible sign of a growing nationwide response to the success of efforts to abolish the death penalty. For decades, executions were carried out steadily, and supporters, always a majority1, were a silent one. But since 2007, seven states have repealed the death penalty and in many others the pace of executions has slowed as prison agencies struggle to find lethal injection drugs and prosecutors decline to pursue death sentences. A group of defense attorneys want to bring a constitutional challenge to the Supreme Court, and even Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush has voiced ambivalence. According to Gallup polling, national support for the death penalty has stayed between 60 and 80% since the early 1970s, though it has been on the decline in recent years. All of this activity has led death-penalty supporters to reemerge as a political voice, and California may be their first battlefield. Only 13 executions have taken place there since the 1970s, despite hundreds sent to death row, and a recent judicial ban on executions was recently lifted. Ramos, who has already announced a campaign for California attorney general in 2018, is positioning himself as a national figure, defending the death penalty in television appearances. He is also president-elect of the National District Attorneys Association and says his colleagues around the country "are looking to California as a bellwether" of the death penalty's future. Even if California is the bellwether, there are other places to see the backlash in action. In Nebraska, the state legislature repealed the death penalty in May, only to see a grassroots effort to collect signatures - with funding from Gov. Pete Ricketts - to bring a public vote in November 2016 over whether to restore it. Over the last few years, the Florida legislature passed the Timely Justice Act to speed up appeals and North Carolina lawmakers repealed an earlier law, called the Racial Justice Act, that had given death row inmates more power to argue that their sentences were racially biased. Like many of these movements, the California initiative grew organically in response to efforts to abolish the death penalty. The victims' advocates and prosecutors now leading the charge began working together in 2012 when opponents of the death penalty brought Proposition 34 - a straightforward abolition proposal - to voters. Those opponents included men and women with tough-on-crime credibility, from Jeanne Woodford, the former warden of San Quentin prison, to Ron Briggs and Don Heller, both political figures who championed an expansion of capital punishment in the 1970s. The pro-death penalty community won the 2012 fight with a nail-biting 52% of the vote, despite being outspent by several million dollars (Silicon Valley money was major factor; Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has already given $150,000 to anti-death penalty efforts in the 2016 election). Taking this as a sign that the public was fundamentally on their side - and aware that they might not win a rematch - death-penalty advocates started raising money from law enforcement groups and individual donors in order to hire professional signature-gatherers. They enlisted several former governors and ex-NFL star Kermit Alexander, whose family members were murdered by a man who was sentenced to death but has not been executed. The group developed policy changes to address the cost of capital punishment, which is one of the primary arguments of the anti-death penalty community. Making the death penalty cheaper may appeal to Californians who voted against it last time less out of moral conviction than of fiscal concern. Despite the rarity of executions, California spends an estimated $184 million per year on death penalty trials and appeals and death row housing. The current reform proposal would give the state supreme court the power to oversee an expedited process for appeals, require that defense attorneys for appeals be appointed faster (currently it can take 5 years). It would also require death row inmates to work and pay restitution to victims' families and allow them to be placed in double-cells (currently each lives in a single cell, which is more expensive). Death Penalty Focus, the leader of abolition efforts, has cautioned that these changes might lead to less-experienced attorneys and judges taking on death penalty cases, leading to more mistakes. Paula Mitchell, a law professor who co-authored the most comprehensive report on the costs of California's death penalty, says there is little proof that proposals for fixing the system would work: the backlog is already crushing, and even if more lawyers agreed to take capital cases, they would need to be trained, which might negate the savings the reformers are touting. The initiative, says Mitchell, "should be characterized as a Letter to Santa." A year from now, California and Nebraska will test support for the death penalty at the ballot box. Could other states join them? Last week, the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys issued a statement calling on the state to offer voters a similar choice, explaining that "prosecutors want to know that when we embark on the long and difficult process of capital punishment for the worst crimes inflicted upon our community that we are doing so with the support and approval of the people we represent." (source: themarshallproject.org) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Nov 19 09:15:29 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2015 09:15:29 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 19 RUSSIA: Take no prisoners: Head of Russian region urges tougher stance in war against terror The head of the Russian republic of Ingushetia told reporters a public debate would be unnecessary if special services were simply allowed to kill terrorists on the spot. "Upper house MPs propose canceling the moratorium on the death penalty for terrorists. I think we won't have to do this once we give special services the right to search and neutralize terrorists, who threaten the lives and safety of our citizens, the property and infrastructure of our country, wherever these terrorists are found," Yunus-Bek Yevkurov wrote on his Instagram page. "All terrorists must fall under the 'take no prisoners' rule," he added. The comment came after deputy chairman of Russia's Federation Council, Frants Klintsevich, proposed that senators bring back the death penalty in Russia because of the increased terrorism threat. New challenges have arisen since Russia started its operation against Islamic State in Syria. Earlier this month, lower house MPs said Russia should cancel the moratorium on the death penalty after the Federal Security Service confirmed the deadliest air crash in modern Russian history - the downing of the A231 jet in Sinai - was caused by a bomb blast. Russia introduced a moratorium on the death penalty in 1999 when it was seeking membership in the Council of Europe. The Constitution still allows capital punishment for especially grave crimes and after a guilty verdict has been handed down by a jury court. Russian lawmakers and top law enforcement officials have on several occasions suggested lifting the moratorium for convicted terrorists, pedophiles and people who involve children in illegal drug use. There have also been calls to apply the death penalty in large-scale corruption cases. All these initiatives have been rejected. According to an opinion poll in April, 60 % of Russian citizens wouldn't object to a reintroduction of the death penalty. This is slightly lower than last year's 66 % and significantly less than 80 % in 2001. (source: rt.com) ******************* Russian MPs work on petition to reinstate death penalty for terrorism The State Duma of the Russian Federation (the Parliament) is collecting signatures for a petition to the president about the need to reinstate death penalty in Russia. Many Russian MPs are convinced that in the context of the terrorist threat, the Kremlin administration may decide to reinstate death penalty, given that there are legal nuances that make it possible to lift the existent moratorium. Currently, the Russian Penal Code envisages death penalty as a punishment for especially grave crimes. In fact, Russia does not practice death penalty, because Russia signed Protocol ?6 to the European Convention on Human Rights in 1997. The document stipulated for the abolition of this form of punishment in peacetime. Noteworthy, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the establishment of an interdepartmental commission to block financial channels of terrorists. The decree was signed after the announcement from FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov, who officially confirmed the version of the terrorist act on board the A321 jetliner that crashed over Sinai on October 31. Interestingly, the leader of the Liberal and Democratic Party of Russia, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, proposed putting captured terrorists on display in cages. "If we keep them in cages, in a museum, one can show them to students to tell them that this man has committed a terrorist act and killed people. Terrorists should see people's disdain," Zhirinovsky said. According to him, the relatives of caged terrorists would have a possibility to see them suffering. "A family may then think that there can be a terrorist growing in their family," the politician said. According to Zhirinovsky, one could take terrorists in cages from one city to another to show them to people. Death penalty is not efficient in the struggle against terrorism, Zhirinovsky said. (source: pravdareport.com) GLOBAL: ISIS Terrorist Attackers In Paris Should Face The Death Penalty! We joined the civilized and democratic world in empathizing with the people of France, following the deadly terrorist attack waged against their country by enemies of freedom. The attackers represent no religion, and their actions is reprehensible. The world should standby France and eradicate terrorism in all its form from the phase of the earth. It is our fervent belief that the earth would be a much better place to live without terrorists. Terrorists should be fought and defeated by any means necessary. Perpetrators of terrorism often used Islam as a premise to justify their senseless and barbaric killing of humanity and destruction to public property. Islam as a religion, does not advocate for violence in any form. These are misguided and ungodly nonbelievers, who masquerade in the name of religion to wage crimes against humanity. We strongly condemn their ungodly acts. The terror group ISIS should be exterminated from the phase of the earth. This group is making life miserable for freedom loving citizens around the world. The wanton killings perpetrated by ISIS should be stopped in the interest of world peace. ISIS has no place on this earth. There should be massive global campaign to hunt ISIS and its backers. I read a piece published by the UK Independent Newspaper, indicating that the mastermind of the Paris terror attack was not a devoted Muslim. That he was not a mosque goer. His own relatives told the Independent that he never attended mosque prayers. What does this tell you as a reader? It means ISIS does not represent any religion. The war on terror should be intensified. The Obama administration and other western allies have been doing a great job in trying to contain ISIS. Freedom will no doubt prevail over ISIS. It is also imperative to note that fighting terror should be the job of every freedom loving world citizen. The intelligence community should be alerted for any suspicious activity; in that way their work would be much easier to combat this global menace called ISIS. Fighting ISIS transcends religion. All people of faith should be unified under one platform to compliment the efforts of the global intelligence community in combating ISIS. ISIS is a threat to humanity and should be wiped from the phase of the earth. Finally, we know for a fact that the death penalty is a debatable topic in Europe. Many European countries do not have the death penalty in the provisions of their laws. As such offenders are on the rise. This is largely due to lack of tough laws against perpetrators of murder and terrorism. We hope the perpetrators of the Paris attack will face the death penalty, since they have caused such a collateral damage against innocent lives and freedom loving country France. We rest our case. (source: Editorial, freedomnewspaper.com [Gambia]) BANGLADESH: Family meet death-row convict Salauddin in Dhaka Central Jail Family members of Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury on Thursday met him at Dhaka Central Jail as legal procedure over his execution for war crimes was almost completed. Chowdhury, a standing committee member of the BNP, was awarded death penalty in 2013 for crimes committed during Bangladesh's 1971 war of liberation from Pakistan. The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected his plea for review the appeal court's judgement that upheld the capital punishment handed down by a special war crimes tribunal for nine counts of war crimes. The family members arrived at the jail gate slightly after midday. Quader Chowdhury, entered the jail as the authorities allowed them to see the convict. 7 others did not get permission. The copy of Supreme Court decision on the review petition was not reached the central jail until Thursday. Chowdhury has only 1 option left to seek presidential mercy as all other legal procedure in the process of legal battle were completed. The authorities will take measures after the presidential decision once the defendant seek mercy petition. (source: newsnextbd.com) *************** Defence of war criminals condemned to death simply acknowledges defeat After the Supreme Court scrapped the death penalty review petitions of Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, the defence team of the war criminals had only this to say, "We've lost, and that's it." The top appeals court on Wednesday upheld the death sentences of the 2 former ministers after the final hearings. A bench headed by Chief Justice SK Sinha pronounced the 2 verdicts with a 1-minute interval. In both cases, Justice Sinha's response was: "Dismissed." Amid much celebration and satisfaction expressed by pro-liberation forces and the State, the defence had little to say when reporters approached them for reactions. The convicts' main counsel Khandker Mahbub Hossain said, "We're lawyers. We fought a legal battle. We have lost. That's it. This is our reaction." Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary General Mujahid and BNP Standing Committee Member Chowdhury are now left with the last option of seeking presidential clemency. The government will go ahead with the executions if the convicts refuse to ask for mercy or if the president rejects their prayer. About the execution, Mahbub Hossain said, "It fully depends on the government. The verdicts will be carried out whenever the government wants in line with the International Crimes Tribunal Act." "These verdicts will go to the tribunal first. Then the government will decide and executions will take place." Supreme Court Bar Association President Khandker Mahbub also advises BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia. Asked whether senior BNP leader Chowdhury would seek mercy, he said that completely depended on the convicts. "The State can commute the sentence or acquit the convicts in line with the law even if the convicts do not seek it," he added. Responding to queries regarding the Supreme Court's judgment, Hossain said, "As a lawyer, I have nothing to say about the Appellate Division's verdicts." "Our goal is to ensure that the punishment handed to our clients was awarded lawfully." "It's not for us to see whether the accused committed the crime. We're there to see whether the charges against the accused are proved based on testimonies and evidence." "The Appellate Division has given its verdict and upheld the death sentences. We"ve got nothing else to say," he said. The International Crimes Tribunal had sentenced Chowdhury infamous as Chittagong's wartime terror, to death on Oct 1, 2013 for his role in the mass killing and torture of Hindus and Awami League supporters. The top court had upheld his death penalty in July after hearing his appeal against the tribunal's judgment. The tribunal also sentenced Mujahid to death on July 17, 2013 for the murders of intellectuals and his involvement in the killing and torture of Hindus in 1971. The Al-Badr commander, too, had appealed to the Supreme Court against the sentence; the top court upheld it in June. The Appellate Division published both full appeal verdicts on Sep 30. (source: bdnews24.com) ******************* SC publishes full verdict on Salauddin, Mojaheed The Supreme Court on Thursday published the full text of its verdicts rejecting the review petitions of war crimes convicts Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mojaheed and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, reports news agency UNB. The written verdicts were published after the four judges -- chief justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, justice Nazmun Ara Sultana, justice Syed Mahmud Hossain and justice Hasan Foyez Siddique -- of the Appellate Division bench signed the copies of the verdicts turning down the reviews petitions against its earlier orders upholding their death sentences for committing crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971. Earlier in the day, attorney general Mahbubey Alam at a press briefing at the Supreme Court said the written text of the verdicts will be sent to the jail authorities through the tribunal. The jail authorities will take necessary steps to execute the verdicts after getting the verdict copies. On Wednesday, the SC upheld its previous verdicts on Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mojaheed and BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, rejecting their pleas for reviewing death penalties for their war crimes. A four-member bench of the Appellate Division, headed by chief justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, dismissed the review petitions of the duo. On 14 October, Mojaheed and SQ Chowdhury filed the review petitions with the SC against its verdicts that upheld their death penalties for their crimes against humanity during the 1971 war. On 1 October, the International Crimes Tribunal had issued death warrants against them. The SC on 30 September released the full verdicts awarding death penalties to them for their crimes against humanity during the war, clearing the way for the execution of the judgment. The court on 16 June upheld the death sentence awarded by the ICT-2 to Mojaheed for killing intellectuals during the war. The International Crimes Tribunal-2 on 17 July, 2013 awarded Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mojaheed death penalty for committing crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in collaboration with the Pakistan occupation forces, after finding the Al Badr boss guilty of 5 charges, out of 7. On 11 August, 2013, condemned convict Mojaheed filed an appeal with the Appellate Division against his capital punishment awarded by the ICT-2. Mojaheed was arrested on charge of hurting religious sentiment on 29 June, 2010 and later he was shown arrested in a case filed for committing crimes against humanity on 2 August that year. Earlier, the court on 29 June upheld the death sentence awarded by ICT-1 to him for committing crimes against humanity, including rape and mass killing, during the Liberation War, 43 years ago. On 1 October, 2013, the then International Crimes Tribunal-1 found Salauddin Quader Chowdhury guilty of crimes against humanity during the War of Liberation and condemned him to death. On 29 October of the same year, Salauddin Quader Chowdhury filed an appeal with the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court against the ICT verdict. (source: prothom-alo.com) PAKISTAN: PM asks President to reject mercy plea of APS attack facilitators Nearly 1 month before of first anniversary of deadliest attack in history of Pakistan, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif today wrote a letter to President Mamnoon Hussain seeking the dismissal of mercy pleas of convicted terrorists, involved in carnage at army-run school in Peshawar. The letter states that the 4 terrorists were involved in brutal massacre of almost 150 Peshawar school children, and have been awarded the death penalty. All 4 suspects were sentenced to death by military courts on the charges of launching a terrorist attack on the army-run school on 16 December 2014, the black day in Pakistani history. "The brutal and merciless killings of our children convinced us that the perpetrators of such crimes do not deserve any mercy," the prime Minister wrote to the presidency. The interior ministry sent the said request to the president earlier this week through Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who advised Mamnoon to reject the mercy petitions of terrorists involved in APS attack. "Pakistan has changed after the Peshawar tragedy," PM Nawaz said, while performing his constitutional obligation under article 105 of the Constitution. Immediately, after the Army Public School tragedy, the state, the elected representatives in the Parliament, all political parties and every single state institution unanimously decided to bring the perpetrators of this crime to justice even if required amendments in the laws. "The establishment of military courts through these amendments has enabled us to bring the perpetrators of most heinous crimes to justice in a short span of time," PM Nawaz said. "The death sentence awarded to the 4 terrorists, in fact, was the will of the entire nation." In August, Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif confirmed sentences of as many as 7 terrorists involved in attacks on APS Peshawar and Safoora Chowrangi, after a military court awarded all of them with death sentences. "The army chief has confirmed that 8 terrorists were tried under the Pakistan Army Act 2015," military's media wing, ISPR, said. The statement added that convicts were given a fair trial by following all legal formalities and offering/ providing them legal aid and defence counsels. On December 16, 2014, the Taliban launched a heinous attack on an Army Public School in Peshawar, killing over 150 people, mostly children. (source: The Nation) SINGAPORE: Community service, not the noose, for drug mules The death sentence for drug-related offences should be reviewed and amended. Last year, amendments were drafted to review and spare the mandatory death sentence on some drug offences. It has not seen the light of day, but almost every other day, drug mules are arrested in our airports and traffickers are sentenced to death. The latest case involved an Iranian woman and her mother, who were sentenced to death for trafficking in 2.5kg of drugs 3 years ago. The death penalty should be abolished for low-level drug mules who are engaged in trafficking small amounts of drugs. Many are young females who could have been deceived into bringing in these substances by drug lords. These drug mules should be sentenced to community service instead. Despite the mandatory death sentence on drug-related offences, it has not curbed or reduced such trafficking in the country. There are over 1,000 convicts on death row for such offences. All international flights into our airports remind passengers in various languages of the strict mandatory death sentence on possession of drugs. It is, therefore, puzzling that passengers still get caught with drugs on them at our airports. The drugs are mostly concealed in secret compartments in the baggage. And this could have been done without the knowledge of the passenger. Many of our young girls are also behind bars in other countries serving sentences and even face the death penalty for drug trafficking. There was a report of a father yearning for the return of his daughter who is in a prison in China for almost 8 years for being a drug mule. Many of them were offered free trips and vacations to exotic destinations by acquaintances who deceived them and used them as drug mules. There is no empirical evidence to show the death penalty works as a deterrent to drug trafficking. We need a concerted effort to fight the drug war and nab the drug lords. The drug mules should be given community service. Most of the drug mules caught are young and they can do some community service. It is a waste of human potential to imprison and hang them after a lengthy trial. They can be put to better use. It will also limit the damage if there is a miscarriage of justice. (source: New Straits Times) SOMALIA: UN 'Deeply' Troubled by Somalia's Summary Executions The United Nations is "deeply concerned" about summary executions against suspected militants in Somalia, a UN official said, echoing previous caoncerns by a New-York based rights group which accused Somalia's military court of carrying out rapid executions. Speaking to the reporters in the Somali capital on Tuesday, Ivan Simonovic, the U.N Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights has urged Somalia's government to give defendant an adequate time to prepare a defense before proceeding to convictions. "I think we have to act in accordance with the international law." Mr. Simonovic said at the press conference. He also warned of abuses against militants in the government-run jails, urging the government against convicting and sentencing suspected militants without due process. "You cannot defeat Al-Shabab only by military operations only, but you should instead address the actual roots and origins of the extremism, which includes poverty, corruption, mismanagement and discrimination against minority people." he said. The UN's concerns follow previous reports by the Human Rights Watch which called into question the quality of justice in Somalia's military courts. Under international law, the death penalty is permitted only after a rigorous judicial process - a fair trial in which the defendant has adequate time to prepare a defence and appeal the sentence, among other requirements. "A central concern was the speed at which death sentences have been carried out." the rights group said in a lengthy report issued this year. The group has also called for Somali president to impose a moratorium on the death penalty, and that his government to work to ensure that all national courts, civilian and military, respect fair trial standards. "Without serious improvements in the quality of trials, the injustices of the past will continue." the report said. MFA (source: geeskaafrika.com) KENYA: Jubilee MPs join Cord referendum call, want death penalty for corrupt officials A group of Jubilee MPs has said it will build consensus with Cord's Okoa Kenya initiative to have the referendum conducted during the 2017 general election. The MPs, led by Tiaty's Asman Kamama, want the constitution amended for counties to get at least 46 % funding and the CDF doubled. "We will try to collect 3 million signatures within the shortest time possible to force a referendum," Kamama said during a briefing at Parliament buildings on Thursday. The Opposition collected 1.4million signatures for the initiative and submitted them on November 9 to the IEBC, which said it will give feedback in 3 months. Kamama said the MPs, who announced plans for the 'Boresha Katiba' intiative, will work with the Opposition in harmonising a draft for a single referendum drive during the next poll. They will organise a special kitty for the ward development fund that will be administered by MCA's at the county level, he said, adding 125 legislators support the initiative. The MPs further proposed the death penalty for for drug dealers and corruption officials, a day after the EACC boss said Kenya needs a 'big fish' conviction. On Wednesday, EACC boss Halakhe Waqo said more than 300 cases involving alleged corruption by officials are currently pending in Kenya's courts as a result of the work of his commission. He said the public wants to see a "big fish" convicted. "If you have a government minister, who else are you looking for? As far as I am concerned, you can't talk of a bigger fish," he said Kamama also proposed Parliament appoints CSs whom he said need insights on connecting with the people. The constitution states that the President shall nominate and, with the approval of the National Assembly, appoint cabinet secretaries. It says a CS shall not be an MP, and assumes office by by swearing faithfulness to Kenya and its people and obedience to the constitution. Cabinet secretaries "may resign by delivering a written statement of resignation to the President", the constitution also says. Kamama was accompanied by MPs including Gideon Konchella (Kilgoris), Kabando wa Kabando (Mukurweini), Joseph Samal (Isiolo North). (source: the-star.co.ke) INDONESIA: Indonesia holds executions; Mary Jane family rejoices Mary Jane Veloso's family rejoiced over news that ranking Indonesia official issued a pronouncement that they are not considering carrying out anymore executions. "We are very happy because this would give the government and our lawyers to look into her (Mary Jane's) case. But we are really asking God to give Mary Jane's freedom as Christmas present," Celia Veloso, Mary Jane's mother, told Bulatlat.com. Indonesian Politics, legal and security affairs Coordinating Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said in news reports today, Nov. 19, that executions would be put on hold as their country needs to focus on "fixing its weak economy." "We haven't thought about executing a death penalty with the economic conditions like this," Pandjaitan said in the report. Meanwhile, the Department of Foreign Affairs said they are still verifying the information. National Union of Peoples' Lawyers and Mary Jane's lawyer Edre Olalia said in a statement that if this is confirmed, it is "certainly welcome not only for Mary Jane Veloso but for all concerned." "We hope in time that it leads to a permanent abolition as we have serious objections and questions about its effect and purpose in deterring crime, it precludes rehabilitation and reformation and worse, may victimize innocent individuals who are wrongly convicted for different reasons or factors and brought irretrievably to the next life or world," Olalia said. Olalia told Bulatlat.com that this is a validation of earlier pronouncements of Indonesian Attorney General Prasetya that executions are not priority. "But whatever you call it - moratorium, postponement, suspension or not a priority - the net effect is that there will be no execution until further notice for purported reason that they want to focus on their economy," he added. Mary Jane, a victim of human trafficking, was arrested and sentenced to die in Indonesia some 5 years ago for carrying 2.6 kilograms of heroin. Her execution was stayed at dawn of April 29 due to strong local and international outcry. (source: bulatlat.com) *********************** British drug granny Lindsay Sandiford is SAVED from facing a firing squad after Indonesia decides to scrap executions... but she still faces a life behind bars in hellish prison British grandmother Lindsay Sandiford has been given a stay of execution She was caught at Bali airport in May 2012 carrying 10.5lb of cocaine Mrs Sandiford, a former legal secretary, was sentenced to death in 2014 A British grandmother facing the firing squad in Indonesia after being caught smuggling drugs has been given a temporary reprieve after the country dramatically decided to halt all executions. Former legal secretary Lindsay Sandiford, from Redcar in North Yorkshire, has been on death row since her sentencing last year for attempting to smuggle cocaine into Bali. But Indonesia has decided to stay all executions - temporarily at least. In an unexpected announcement made today, Luhut Panjaitan, co-ordinating minister for political legal and security affairs, said that a moratorium on executions had been put into place. The ABC reported that the Minister said Indonesia needed to concentrate on the economy as the country's economic growth had dipped below 5 % for 2 consecutive quarters this year. Much needed foreign investment was still needed to help build up the country's depleted infrastructure, he said. Drugs mule Mrs Sandiford was caught at Bali airport in May 2012 carrying 10.5lb of cocaine worth 1.5million pounds and she had lost a number of appeals but recently won the right to a retrial. She told other prisoners she was still concerned that eventually she would be led before the firing squad. But her hopes of staying alive have now risen dramatically. Prison sources said today that Mrs Sandiford, 59, was 'thankful' at hearing the news through the jail 'grapevine' but was still concerned that she might have to spend the rest of her life behind bars. There had been suggestions earlier this year that Indonesia was considering banning all executions, but lawmakers said that would not be possible until the constitution was changed, perhaps in 2016. Mrs Sandiford claims she was forced to carry the drugs after threats to the life of her younger son and was sentenced to death despite co-operating with police in a sting operation to arrest people higher up the syndicate. The plot's alleged ringleader, Briton Julian Ponder - who conducted a behind-bars romance with British Vice-Consul Alys Harahap that led to her sacking - is expected to walk free next year after serving a 6-year term with remission. Another of the men suspected of masterminding the smuggling plot, 43-year-old Paul Beales, of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, was sentenced to just 4 years and is expected to be freed and deported before the end of this year. Ponder's former partner Rachel Dougall, also initially suspected to be a senior member of the drugs smuggling syndicate, was released last year after serving just 1 year on a reduced charge of failing to report a crime. The British government has repeatedly refused to fund Mrs Sandiford's legal battle against her death sentence despite a recommendation from 5 Supreme Court judges in London who said 'substantial mitigating factors' had been overlooked in her original trial. (source: Daily Mail) ************** 14 suspects involved in kidnapping businessman's sister nabbed Selangor police have solved the kidnap for ransom of a businessman's (Tan Sri) sister involving a RM2 million ransom on Nov 10, with the detention of 14 suspects, including the mastermind on Tuesday. All the suspects including 4 women, aged 19 to 40 years, were locals and nabbed at 3 separate locations on Tuesday in Kuala Lumpur, namely, at a cafe in Jalan Doraisamy, a club in Jalan Tun Razak and a shop house in Cheras. Selangor Police Chief Datuk Abdul Samah Mat said the victim, 63, who was also a businesswoman, was kidnapped by 3 men in a Toyota Estima while seeking treatment at a traditional treatment centre in Kelana Jaya. "3 workers at the centre had tried to stop them and 1 was assaulted with a helmet. The victim was detained in a house in Cheras," he told reporters at the Selangor Police Contingent Headquarters here, yesterday. He said the suspects had demanded a RM2 million ransom from the family of the victim for her release. The victim's family handed the ransom to the suspects at 10pm on Nov 16 and the victim was immediately freed at the Bandar Baharu Sentul LRT Station in Kuala Lumpur, he said. Abdul Samah said, subsequently, a task force, which was set up to investigate the case, swung into action. "A total of RM722,670 in ransom money was recovered and investigations are still ongoing to recover the rest," he said. Abdul Samah said the mastermind, in his 40s, was also a businessman and police are checking the status of his business. He added that the suspects would be remanded for a week starting yesterday to help investigations under Section 3 (1) of the Kidnap Act which carries the death penalty or life imprisonment if found guilty. (source: theborneopost.com) **************** Indonesia denies moratorium on death penalty One of Indonesia's most senior ministers has denied there will be a formal moratorium on executions in Indonesia. Co-ordinating Minister for political, legal and security affairs Luhut Panjaitan had earlier on Thursday said there would not be any executions for the time being because Indonesia was focusing on its economy. This prompted media reports that the Indonesian government had declared a moratorium on the death penalty. However when asked by reporters if it was true Indonesia would stop executions, Mr Panjaitan said: "No, I told them we will not carry out executions for the time being because we are now focusing on the economy." The softening economy, the international backlash and a desire to attract foreign investment have dampened talk of a further round of executions in the near future, although many prisoners remain on death row. Indonesian Attorney-General Muhammad Prasetyo said in October that his office would not carry out a third round of executions of inmates until the country got out of the current economic slowdown. "The Attorney-General's Office is currently helping the government in prioritising the economy," Mr Prasetyo told The Jakarta Post. "We are still very busy with our economy," Mr Panjaitan said, when asked about executions at the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club last week. 14 people were executed by firing squad in Indonesia this year, including Bali 9 heroin smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. (source: Sydney Morning Herald) MALAYSIA: MP welcomes govt plan to abolish death penalty Stampin MP Julian Tan Kok Ping welcomes the government's proposed move to abolish the mandatory death sentence especially for drug-related offences. He said he was glad the government was moving in the right direction to have the law amended. "This issue affects us Sarawakians as highlighted by the case of Kho Jabing a Sarawakian who is on death row in Singapore. With the removal of the mandatory death sentence for drug-related offences, it gives more powers and discretion to the courts to decide on case-to-case basis. "Death penalty is also an irreversible form of punishment and it runs the risk of sending an innocent man to his death," said Tan through a press statement yesterday. He said he and few others met with the family of Kho Jabing and heard of their plight. "Together with the family, we met Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nancy Shukri who told the family that the state government has conveyed a humanitarian plea to the Singapore High Commission." The PGA Parliamentary Roundtable meeting on the Abolition of the Death Penalty is Malaysia was held in Kuala Lumpur on Nov 17. Tan, who also attended the meeting chaired by Minister of Tourism and Culture Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz said: "The mandatory death penalty currently is imposed for 5 main offences in Malaysia including murder, offences against the King and Heads of States, Trafficking of Dangerous Drugs, Discharging of Firearms and Accomplice in case of Discharge of Firearms." Apart from Nancy, those attending the meeting were several other MPs from both sides of the house as well as MPs and High Commissioner from multiple countries, ex-court judges, the Bar Council and members of various NGOs. (source: The Borneo Post) ************ Freeze all executions pending mandatory death penalty review, says Ambiga The National Human Rights Society of Malaysia (Hakam) has urged the government to impose a moratorium on the execution of 1,022 prisoners on death row for the time being, following Putrajaya's announcement that it planned to abolish the mandatory death sentence on drug-related offences. Hakam president Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan said the plan was a step in the right direction and added that it should also be applied to all criminal offences. She said the mandatory death sentence deprived the sentencing judge the discretion to consider all the relevant facts of the case and the individual circumstances of each convicted person. "A sentencing judge must be given the option to impose the appropriate sentence," Ambiga said in a statement today. On Tuesday, de facto law minister Nancy Shukri said Putrajaya planned to table a bill in March to abolish the mandatory death penalty in drug-related offences. She had said this would allow judges to use their discretion to choose between sentencing a person to jail and the gallows in non-criminal cases. "What we are looking at is the abolition of the mandatory death sentence. It is not easy to amend and we are working on it. "We can get rid of the word 'mandatory' to allow judges to use their discretion in drug-related offences," the minister said. Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali had told The Malaysian Insider in an exclusive interview recently that he would propose scrapping the mandatory death penalty to the Cabinet, adding that it was a "paradox", as it robbed judges of their discretion to impose sentences on convicted criminals. Apandi said that this would be in line with the "universal thinking" on capital punishment, although he dismissed total abolition of the death penalty altogether. Ambiga said today that a recent Public Opinion Survey on Death Penalty in Malaysia undertaken by Emeritus Professor Roger Hood QC from the University of Oxford revealed that the majority of Malaysians did not support the death penalty. It violated the right to life guaranteed under Article 5 of the Federal Constitution and was undoubtedly a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment contrary to international law, she added. As such, the activist and lawyer said Malaysia should show genuine commitment to abide by international norms in relation to the right to life and the prohibition against cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, given that it had been on the United Nations' Human Rights Council and was presently on the Security Council as a non-permanent member. "We hope that the government will continue taking steps in the right direction towards the ultimate abolition of the death penalty," Ambiga said. (source: themalaysianinsider.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Nov 19 15:11:36 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2015 15:11:36 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----VA., GA., OKLA., IDAHO, USA Message-ID: Nov. 19 VIRGINIA: Open-Government Advocates Wary Of Virginia Supreme Court Decison Members of the Virginia Supreme Court ruled in September on a case about availability of documents and information about the death penalty. Advocates for open government fear that ruling will have broad consequences that reach far beyond the death penalty. A Virginia Supreme Court decision that preserves secrecy around death penalty policies is prompting new concerns about open government that go far beyond what happens in the state's death chamber. The debate took center stage this week as members of the Virginia Freedom of Information Council met to chart a legislative strategy for the upcoming General Assembly session. At issue is a September ruling in a lawsuit filed by Scott Surovell (D-44), a member of the Virginia House of Delegates. He filed a Freedom of Information Act request for policies, procedures, training manuals and details of executions. That request was denied, and the appeals process carried the issue to the state Supreme Court, which ruled against Surovell. "If anyone is to blame for a broad interpretation of the Supreme Court opinion, it is the plaintiffs in this particular case." - Brian Moran, state secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security The justices issued a broad ruling in Department of Corrections v. Scott Surovell that allows state agencies to withhold entire documents instead of redacting parts of them. It also says courts must give "substantial weight" to determinations made by government agencies about which documents they want to keep secret and which ones they want to reveal. Did Surovell pick the right avenue for his fight? To some observers, it's an open question. "It is surprising, frankly, that the plaintiffs in this case would choose the death chamber to challenge FOIA law," says Brian Moran, secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security in Virginia. "And so if anyone is to blame for a broad interpretation of the Supreme Court opinion, it is the plaintiffs in this particular case." Surovell, who was recently elected to the state Senate for 2016, disagrees. "Actually I think the death penalty is the perfect place to start out with transparency," he says."The only place where I know that people are executed in secret under a shroud of secrecy in closed rooms are in places like North Korea, the Soviet Union or in China. That's just not how we do business in this country." Virginia legal expert Rich Kelsey says the state Supreme Court decision is consistent with a body of federal and state law that gives government agencies discretion. Nevertheless, he says, the decision should indeed raise concerns for open-government advocates. "This type of decision will have a chilling effect. Will it be dramatic? We don't know," he says. "But it will certainly result in fewer documents rather than more documents being released." The Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council - a state-run agency that helps resolve FOIA disputes - hopes to have legislation ready for the upcoming session, which starts in January. Council members directed their staff to draft a bill reversing the court ruling allowing agencies to conceal entire documents that contain sensitive information. Instead, they would have to release them, even if portions are redacted. Surovell says he also wants to reverse what he considers a dangerous precedent - that courts must give special consideration to a state agency's determination about what information it wants to keep secret. "That's really scary," said Surovell. "To me, that's like saying you have to trust the fox that's guarding the henhouse. That's nonsense." (source: WAMU news) ***************** Incoming, outgoing Jesse Matthew prosecutors prepare for transition The Albemarle County prosecutor who secured murder indictments against Jesse Matthew in the deaths of two Virginia college students has detailed the cases to the former federal prosecutor who beat her on Election Day. Denise Lunsford tells WTOP she and Robert Tracci, who staged a bitter battle during Lunsford's bid for re-election, have sat down to discuss the specifics of the commonwealth's cases against Matthew in the deaths of University of Virginia student Hannah Graham and Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington. "Law enforcement officers and I have met with Mr. Tracci regarding the Matthew case," Lunsford said in an email. "He was briefed on many particulars of the circumstances of the offense and investigation, however the matter is quite involved and he will have a great deal of work to do to become familiar with everything." Tracci will take office Jan. 1, 2016. Matthew is charged with capital murder in the 2014 death of Graham, and 1st degree murder in the 2009 death of Harrington. He could face the death penalty in the Graham case, which is scheduled to begin July 5, 2016. The Harrington case is scheduled to start Oct. 24, 2016. Lunsford, who was a defense attorney for 17 years before being elected to the role of commonwealth's attorney in 2008, had been critical of Tracci's lack of experience in trying state crimes, including murder. >From 2008 to 2012, Tracci served as a federal prosecutor in Charlottesville, in cases involving crimes against children, computer crimes, corruption and murder for hire. He has acknowledged he hasn't been lead prosecutor in any felony cases. Tracci has said he will attach the same level of priority to the Matthew case as he does others, and will ensure justice is done on behalf of the community. His spokesperson has declined several requests to make Tracci available for an interview on the Matthew case, which is one of the most high-profile matters in the Charlottesville area???s history. Tracci has not indicated whether he personally plans to prosecute the Matthew cases, or will assign the trials to subordinates. Most legal experts talked to by WTOP, including those who have tried or defended murder cases, don't expect the transition of prosecutorial power to substantially affect Matthew's trial or punishment. Typically, in cases where prosecutors change after a case has been charged, prosecutors and their assistants, as well as police agencies involved, sit down and discuss the timeline, as well as potential witnesses, as well as forensic evidence that has been gathered. Tracci, like Lunsford and all prosecutors in office, will be limited in what he can discuss about ongoing cases. In the months after Matthew's indictments, Lunsford has said she would seek the death penalty, if Matthew goes on trial for the Graham murder, but she was open to the possibility of plea agreement. According to Internet searches, it does not appear Tracci has discussed whether he would be open to a plea, or whether he intends to seek the death penalty. (source: WTOP news) GEORGIA----impending execution Georgia Supreme Court denies stay for condemned killer Marcus Ray Johnson----Johnson is scheduled to be executed at 7 p.m. today The Supreme Court of Georgia has denied a stay of execution for Marcus Ray Johnson, who is scheduled to be put to death at 7 p.m. by lethal injection at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. The decision was unanimous. Johnson, 50, was sentenced to death in Dougherty County for the 1994 murder of Angela Sizemore, whom he met in an Albany bar hours before her death. In addition to denying Johnson's motion for a stay of execution, the state Supreme Court today denied his request to appeal a ruling made Wednesday by the Butts County Superior Court. The Superior Court both denied his motion for a stay and dismissed his claims, including his claim that new evidence shows the eyewitness testimony was unreliable and the State failed to disprove that someone else could have committed the crime. Johnson's attorney, Brian Kammer, fin response to the lower court denials, Kammer filed with the Georgia Supreme Court an application for Certificate of Probable Cause to Appeal, challenging the constitutionality of Johnson's convictions and sentence of death. In a preface to the application, Kammer placed in quotes: "It would be an atrocious violation of our Constitution and the Principles upon which it is based to execute an innocent person." Johnson was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Angela Sizemore near a west Albany bar named Fundamentals in the early hours of March 24, 1994. The bar owner and its security officer, who both knew Johnson, testified they had earlier seen Johnson and Sizemore kissing and behaving amorously. Evidence at trial indicated that Johnson and Sizemore left Fundamentals together and authorities say they were seen walking toward 16th Avenue. Around 8 a.m. on March 24, 1994, a man walking his dog found Sizemore's white Suburban parked behind an apartment complex in East Albany, her body lying across the front passenger seat. Later reports showed she'd been cut and stabbed 41 times with a small, dull knife. Kammer has maintained Johnson's innocence, stating that no incriminating DNA or fingerprints were found in Sizemore's SUV, that there was only a "drop" of Sizemore's blood found on Johnson's leather jacket, and none was found on the alleged murder weapon. Johnson has admitted having consensual sex with Sizemore, then punching her in the nose and drawing blood because she later insisted on "snuggling." Johnson told police that the last time he saw the victim she was sitting in a field and crying. Deputy Attorney General Beth Burton wrote on Tuesday in response to a filing by Johnson's attorney that the condemned Johnson "has been repeatedly given avenues and opportunities to attempt to present evidence to support his claim (of innocence). He has repeatedly failed. The miscarriage of justice in this case would be if the victim's 26-year-old daughter, who was 5 at the time of her mother's murder, is not allowed closure in this case." According to the Tribune News Service, Johnson, 50, requested a 6-pack of beer with his last meal on Wednesday, but was denied the alcohol by prison officials. With beer out of the question, Johnson settled for the same dinner other death row inmates will have. If the execution is carried out, Johnson will be the 4th person put to death this year in Georgia. (source: Albany Herald) ********* Marcus Ray Johnson Set to be Executed in Georgia The state of Georgia is scheduled to execute Marcus Ray Johnson this evening. Johnson was convicted of a 1994 rape and murder and sentenced to death. He has maintained his innocence since his conviction in 1994. Johnson's attorney asked the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute Johnson's death sentence or delay his execution for 90 days to allow for additional DNA testing that could exonerate his client. The board denied the request last night, clearing the way for his execution. "The U.S. capital punishment system is costly and broken, and the death penalty itself is cruel and inhuman" said Steven W. Hawkins, executive director of Amnesty International USA. "It risks taking the lives of the wrongly convicted and wastes resources without deterring crime. It's time to end the death penalty once and for all." Amnesty International USA opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception as the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. As of today, 140 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. The U.S. was one of only nine countries in the world that carried out executions each year between 2009 and 2013. (source: Amnesty International USA) OKLAHOMA: More Oklahomans Oppose Death Penalty If Given Alternative An exclusive News 9/News On 6 poll shows more Oklahomans support the abolition of the death penalty, but on the condition that an alternative is offered. In the poll, we asked Oklahomans if they would support or oppose the abolition of the death penalty in Oklahoma, if those typically given the death penalty were given life without any possibility of parole and ordered to pay mandatory restitution to the victims' families for the rest of their life. According to the poll, 52 % said they support the abolition of death penalty, while 34 % said they oppose it. And 14 % said they have no opinion on this issue. "A lot of people are in support of the death penalty right now, because they were never given an alternative," said Bill Shapard, founder of SoonerPoll.com. "Right now the death penalty is really the only alternative to those who have committed some of the worst crimes in our society. But yet, now we are given an alternative, people are open to that." (source: 9news.com) IDAHO: Idaho's death row now down to 9, after Stuart's sentence reduced to life Idaho's death row is down to 9 offenders, 1 woman and 8 men, now that Gene Francis Stuart has had his sentence reduced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Stuart pleaded guilty to murder by torture in the 1981 beating death of 3-year-old Robert Miller, the son of Stuart's then girlfriend, and was sentenced to death, but after appeals, was granted a new sentencing hearing in 2013. The Lewiston Tribune reports he's now agreed to a plea bargain in which he will never be released from prison and he gives up all rights to appeal. Those remaining on Idaho's death row are Azad Abdullah, sentenced to death in 2004 for the murder by arson of his wife, Angie; David Card, sentenced to death in 1989 for the shooting deaths of 2 people in Canyon County; Thomas Creech, sentenced to death in 1983 for the beating death of another inmate while serving a life sentence for 2 other murders; Timothy Dunlap, sentenced to death in 1992 for killing a woman during a bank robbery in Caribou County; Zane Fields, sentenced to death in 1991 for a murder by stabbing in Ada County; James Hairston, sentenced to death in 1996 for shooting 2 people to death in Bannock County; Erick Hall, sentenced to death in 2004 for raping and murdering 2 women in Ada County; Gerald Pizzuto, sentenced to death in 1986 for beating 2 people to death in Idaho County; and Robin Row, sentenced to death in 1993 for the murders by arson of her husband, son and daughter in Ada County. Idaho has carried out 3 executions since the state's death penalty was reinstated in 1977: Keith Wells in 1994, who waived his appeals and asked that his execution be carried out; Paul Ezra Rhoades in 2011; and Richard Leavitt in 2012. 2 former Idaho death row inmates were released: Charles Fain was exonerated and released in 2001, after serving 18 years; and Donald Paradis moved off death row in 1996 after his sentence was commuted amid questions about his original conviction; he was released in 2001 after pleading guilty to being an accessory to murder. Idaho's death row inmates are kept in their cells 23 hours a day. They have the option of being in an outside recreation area for 1 hour a day. The only other time they are out of their 12-foot by seven-foot cells is when they are escorted to the shower, meeting with an attorney or being given medical care (source: Spokesman-Review) USA: Salinas men charged in gang-related slayings 2 Salinas men who could face the death penalty for a dozen gang-related slayings were arraigned in federal court Wednesday. A 3rd defendant is charged with conspiracy and bank robbery. Victor Skates, 26, Antonio Cruz, 28, and Anthony Lek, 28, entered not-guilty pleas at the arraignment. Skates, Cruz and several others are also charged with numerous attempted murders and bank robberies. The crimes were committed in 2009-2011 in Salinas, Watsonville, San Jose and Santa Maria. The 73-count indictment was unsealed Monday. 6 other defendants are awaiting arraignment, which prosecutors said will likely take place in December. Federal prosecutor Stephen Meyer said, "This is an important case for Salinas. It is our hope that this has an impact" on the violence. He said the Northern District U.S. Attorney's Office has not yet decided if prosecutors will pursue the death penalty, but the indictments indicate several defendants are eligible for capital punishment. 8 of the 9 defendants are alleged Salinas-based Norteno gang members. The ninth defendant is an alleged associate of the gang. Prosecutors seek to prove this is a racketeer-influenced and corrupt organization, or RICO, case in which crimes were committed for the purpose of "gaining entrance to, maintaining or increasing personal position in the Salinas Nortenos enterprise." Salinas Police Chief Kelly McMillin said, "I was glad to see that the case was taken as a conspiracy case, because that's clearly what this was. It's important to spotlight the violence in Salinas." All 12 slayings took place in Salinas. The bank robberies the defendants are accused of occurred at a Bank of America and Golden 1 Credit Union in Salinas; Bank of the West in San Jose; Wells Fargo Bank, Rabobank and Bay Federal Credit Union in Watsonville; and Chase Bank in Santa Maria. They are also accused of robbing a Zales jewelry store in Gilroy. The 64-page indictment was part of Operation Daybreak, a 4-year-long investigation by the Salinas Police Department with the help of the FBI. The operation was named for the time of day that many of the murders occurred, police said. According to McMillin, "One of the hallmarks of this series of murders was that several occurred in the early morning before school started, and some of the victims were high school students." The indictment alleges that Salinas resident Skates and other Norteno gang members "hunted for rival gang members and other enemies, and shot and killed them and others suspected of being rival gang members." Prosecutor Meyer said Skates participated in nine of the homicides. Skates alone is charged with killing 15-year-old Alisal High School student Jose Daniel Cisneros as the boy entered campus the morning of Oct. 1, 2010. Witnesses reported seeing an assailant walk past them before he shot Cisneros multiple times in the torso. The boy died later at a trauma center. Skates, along with Daniel Chavez, 33, is charged with the November 2012 murder of Jose Vasquez, 32, who was sitting in a wheelchair at the time he was shot. Most of the defendants were already in custody for other crimes at the time that the indictment was issued. Defendants Chavez, Skates, Eduardo Lebron, 36, Eder Torres, 29, Julian Ruiz, 26, Antonio Cruz, 28, Terrell Golden, 24, and Anthony Lek, 28, are currently detained in various state prisons and local jails with no option of bail. Chavez, Skates, Golden, Cruz, Torres and Lebron face the possibility of the federal death penalty. The maximum sentence for the other defendants is life imprisonment. The next appearance is set for Feb. 3 in the San Jose courtroom of federal Judge Lucy Koh. (source: Santa Cruz Sentinel) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Nov 19 15:12:42 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2015 15:12:42 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 19 PAKISTAN: Pakistani PM urges president not to pardon 4 sentenced to death over Peshawar school attack Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has asked the country's president to reject a petition for pardon for 4 suspected militants sentenced to death over the Peshawar school attack last December that killed 150 people, mostly children. The horrific Dec. 16 attack was claimed by the Taliban and prompted Pakistan to lift a 2008-moratorium on the death penalty. The government released a statement on Thursday quoting Sharif as saying that the "brutal and merciless killings" of the children in Peshawar have convinced him that the perpetrators of such crimes don't deserve any mercy. Under the constitution, Pakistan's president has the authority to pardon any convicted person. Since the moratorium was lifted, Pakistan has hanged nearly 300 on death row, most of them convicted criminals - not the Taliban or other insurgents. (source: Associated Press) *********** Pakistan set to reform its Blood Money Law Pakistan is set to reform its controversial Islamic blood money laws that allow murderers to escape punishment if they are forgiven by their victim's heirs, a senior official told AFP today. Critics contend that the law, which was passed in 1990, allows the wealthy and the powerful to walk scot-free from homicide convictions either by intimidating their victim's loved ones, making them a financial offer that they cannot refuse, or both. The Qisas (retribution) and Diyat (blood money) law was famously invoked in the case of Raymond Allen Davis, a CIA contractor who shot 2 men dead in the eastern city of Lahore in 2011. The incident sparked a diplomatic furore which was only resolved when Davis was pardoned in return for a USD 2.4 million settlement with the men's families. The 2012 killing of 20-year-old Karachi student Shahzeb Khan by 2 young men who belonged to powerful political families also drew national outrage after Khan's parents pardoned the killers, reportedly due to threats. But under the proposed reforms, a pardon can only be granted if a murderer has been convicted, according to Ashtar Ausaf Ali, the special assistant to the prime minister on legal affairs. And a convicted murderer will have to face a minimum of 7 years in prison, even if they are pardoned by their victim's relatives and avoid the death penalty, Ali said. "This law has been abused," he told AFP. "This abuse was to the degree that influential and rich people would get away with murder, literally." Furthermore, a murder convict must have confessed to his crime before a trial has taken place in order to be eligible to seek such a pardon; or have been convicted on the basis of the eye-witness testimony of 2 upstanding Muslim men -- a condition that is unlikely to be fulfilled in reality. According to Ali, a pardon would no longer be enough to avert a prison term. "Forgiveness is with God. To safeguard the rights of a person is the obligation of the state." The proposed changes are likely to be tabled in parliament next month and have also received the blessing of prominent Islamic scholars, Ali added. According to "The application of Islamic criminal law in Pakistan" by scholar Tahir Wasti, Pakistan's murder conviction rate dramatically declined from 29 % in 1990 to just 12 % in 2000 after the enactment of the Qisas and Diyat law. The percentage of cases that were cancelled before they were brought to court meanwhile more than doubled in the same period as police "availed the loopholes in the new law". (source: Business Standard) BANGLADESH: Halt the Execution of Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury see: http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/bangladesh-halt-the-execution-of-ali-ahsan-mohammad-mujaheed-and-salauddin-quader-chowdhury-ua-2621 (source: Amnesty International USA) FINLAND: Minister of Justice: "I could consider the death penalty for terrorists" Finns Party MP and Minister of Justice and Labour Jari Lindstrom says he could be prepared to revoke the passports of persons taking part in terrorist activities. He told Yle on Thursday that he would even consider resorting to capital punishment. Jari Lindstrom, Minister of Justice and Labour and Finns Party MP suggested being open to harsh measures against terrorism in an Yle interview on Thursday. These measures could involve condemning terrorists to death. Lindstrom made his statements following a Europe-wide heightening of threat levels and the Paris massacre. Lindstrom's stance on capital punishment made headlines earlier this year when it came to light that he had suggested the measure for especially brutal crimes in a 2011 questionnaire for MPs. "The death penalty is one way to solve things like these, but I'm not quite sure what the proper kind of punishment would be for these situations," the Minister of Justice said on Thursday. "Would it be to throw the perpetrator in jail for the rest of their life, which society would pay for? Or to kill them and be done with it?" Lindstrom also says he would be prepared to revoke a terrorist's passport. Causing a person to be stateless is against international human rights. (source: yle.fi) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Nov 19 21:54:06 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2015 21:54:06 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, GA., FLA., TENN., CALIF. Message-ID: Nov. 19 TEXAS: Texas 'Out of Step' With Other US States on Ending Death Penalty Texas is not following the practice of other US states to eliminate using capital punishment, advocacy group Equal Justice USA Executive Director Shari Silberstein told Sputnik. "The 6 states, including Texas, that have participated in executions this year are out of step with the growing number of states that have completely abandoned the death penalty," Silberstein said. On Wednesday, Texas put to death its 13th convicted killer this year. The killer, 36-year-old Raphael Holiday, was convicted for intentionally set fire and killed his 18-year-old daughter and 2 step sisters. "Even Texas' 13 executions this year, almost 1/2 of the national total, are down significantly from 2000, when the state executed 40 people," Silberstein noted. "The death penalty is in deep decline throughout the United States, with executions at all-time lows." More than 800 people have been executed in the United States in the past 15 years, according to the non-profit Death Penalty Information Center. The state of Texas has executed 329 people since 2000. (source: sputniknews.com) GEORGIA----execution Georgia executes Marcus Ray Johnson for 1994 murder Marcus Ray Johnson has been put to death, the 1st of 7 expected to come over the next weeks and months as issues of the state's lethal injection drug has been resolved and death penalty cases complete the usual round of appeals. The appointed time of his death was 7 p.m., but actual execution almost never comes until hours later, after all the courts have reviewed last-minute appeals and decided. He was pronounced dead at 10:11 p.m. Johnson visited with 3 paralegals, an attorney, 2 investigators, 1 friend and 5 family members until around 3 p.m., and then was moved to a holding cell just a few steps from the death chamber. He declined to make a recorded final statement. Johnson, 50, had asked for a 6-pack of beer for his last meal but that request was turned down because, the Department of Corrections said, alcohol is "contraband" inside a prison. Instead, Johnson settled for the same meal served to the rest of the inmates at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison about 50 miles south of Atlanta. But he did not eat his dinner. Outside the prison, death penalty opponents gathered at the edge of the prison property and about a mile from the building that houses the execution chamber. They prayed as they waited on final word. Wednesday night the state Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Johnson's request for clemency and court after court on Thursday also rejected his appeals, in which he claimed he was innocent of murdering Angela Sizemore. Johnson and Sizemore met at an Albany bar called Fundamentals shortly after midnight on March 24, 1994. They drank, danced and kissed before leaving for a nearby empty lot where they had sex. Johnson told police he remembered little because he had drank so much tequila, but he did recall punching Sizemore because she wanted to cuddle. He insisted, however, that she was alive when he left her sitting in the field, crying. Her body was found around 8 a.m. inside her SUV, which was parked behind an apartment complex on the other side of town from the bar. She had been stabbed 41 times. Johnson's lawyers said there was little physical evidence connecting the 2 - a drop of her blood on his jacket (which Johnson said got on him when he punched Sizemore) and the remnants of their sexual relations. His lawyer said there would have been copious amounts of blood on his clothes if he had stabbed her, and his fingerprints and other DNA would have been inside her SUV if he had driven it across town. He also challenged the eyewitnesses who said they saw him in the neighborhood where Sizemore's Suburban was found. The Parole Board, as is its practice, did not give a reason for denying Johnson's clemency request, writing in the order only that the 5 members had "thoroughly and painstakingly reviewed and considered all of the facts and circumstances of the offender and his offense, the clemency application, argument, testimony and opinion in support of and against clemency." The courts turned down his appeals on the basis that his arguments had been heard before and were not new. Johnson becomes the 4th condemned inmate put to death in Georgia this year and the 59th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1983. Johnson becomes the 27th and final condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA, and the 1,421st overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. The 27 executions continues a downward trend in the USA since 2010, and represents the fewest amount of executions in the USA since 1991, when the nation carried out 14 executions. The next scheduled execution in the US is set for January 20, 2016, in Texas. (sources: Atlanta Journal Consitution & Rick Halperin) *********************** Marcus Ray Johnson executed----U.S. Supreme Court denies stay Thursday night After the U.S. Supreme Court denied an appeal by convicted killer Marcus Ray Johnson, he was executed at 10:11 p.m. Thursday, the Georgia Department of Corrections said. Johnson declined a final prayer and refused to record a final statement. With his plea for clemency denied by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole late Wednesday and his appeals to the Georgia Supreme Court rejected Thursday afternoon, convicted Johnson's attorney, Brian Kammer, had asked the nation's high court for a stay of execution. Johnson, 50, was sentenced to death in Dougherty Superior Court for the 1994 murder of Angela Sizemore, whom he was seen with in an Albany bar hours before her death. In addition to denying Johnson's motion for a stay of execution, the Georgia Supreme Court denied his request to appeal a ruling made Wednesday by the Butts County Superior Court. The Superior Court both denied his motion for a stay and dismissed his claims, including his claim that new evidence shows the eyewitness testimony was unreliable and the State failed to disprove that someone else could have committed the crime. That led to the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday night that went past the scheduled 7 p.m. execution time. In a preface to the clemency application, Kammer placed in quotes: "It would be an atrocious violation of our Constitution and the Principles upon which it is based to execute an innocent person." Johnson was scheduled to die by lethal injection at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, which was the 4th death penalty carried out this year in Georgia. Johnson was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Angela Sizemore, who he had met at a west Albany bar named Fundamentals, in the early hours of March 24, 1994. The bar owner and its security officer, who both knew Johnson, testified they had seen Johnson and Sizemore kissing and behaving amorously. Evidence at trial indicated that Johnson and Sizemore left Fundamentals together and authorities say they were seen walking toward 16th Avenue. Around 8 a.m. on March 24, 1994, a man walking his dog found Sizemore's white Suburban parked behind an apartment complex in East Albany, her body lying across the front passenger seat. Later reports showed she'd been cut and stabbed 41 times with a small, dull knife. Kammer has maintained Johnson's innocence, stating that no incriminating DNA or fingerprints were found in Sizemore's SUV, that there was only a "drop" of Sizemore's blood found on Johnson's leather jacket, and none was found on the alleged murder weapon. Johnson has admitted having consensual sex with Sizemore, then punching her in the nose and drawing blood because she later insisted on "snuggling." Johnson told police that the last time he saw the victim she was sitting in a field and crying. Deputy Attorney General Beth Burton wrote on Tuesday in response to a filing by Johnson's attorney that the condemned Johnson "has been repeatedly given avenues and opportunities to attempt to present evidence to support his claim (of innocence). He has repeatedly failed. The miscarriage of justice in this case would be if the victim's 26-year-old daughter, who was 5 at the time of her mother's murder, is not allowed closure in this case." Officials with the Georgia Department of Corrections said Johnson requested a 6-pack of beer as his last meal, but the request was denied because the alcohol was a contraband item. Johnson was to get the same one the other 78 death row inmates were to have. The department said there have been 57 men and 1 woman executed in Georgia since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1973. 35 prior to Johnson were put to death by lethal injection. (source: Albany Herald) *************** Georgia ranks high with number of death row inmates As of Wedensday there have been over 1,400 executions in 31 death penalty states in this country. Georgia is one of those death penalty states. According to deathpenaltyinfo.org Georgia has had 58 executions since 1976 and as of April 1st of 2015, Georgia is the 9th highest state with death row inmates. Dougherty County District Attorney Greg Edwards said that number is high because of the appeal process. "There is a long process that is automatically put into place at the conclusion of a trial anyway. There would be first a series of appeals through the state appeals system and then generally what follows is an appeal process that is carried out in the federal which goes all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court," said Greg Edwards, District Attorney, Dougherty Judicial Circuit. "Just in general terms it will take at least a minimum of about 5 years for just the state processes to be generally completed by the time a person is convicted," he added. Edwards said a death penalty sentence can only be handed down by a jury. In Georgia a life sentence without the possibility of parole is an option. He also said as of recently Georgia changed the law where now a judge can decide life with or without the possibility of parole in homicide cases. (source: WFXL news) FLORIDA: Jury finds Tampa man guilty of Lakeland woman's killing----Benjamin Smiley was found guilty of 1st-degree murder Wednesday. A 23-year-old Tampa man was found guilty Wednesday of fatally shooting a Lakeland woman in her home in 2013. Benjamin Smiley faces the death penalty for killing Carmen Riley, 46. The death penalty phase of the trial before Circuit Judge Jalal Harb is expected to begin in 2016. A separate panel of jurors will be chosen to determine whether to recommend death for Smiley. In addition, Smiley faces a 2nd death penalty trial in 2016. Smiley is accused of killing Clifford Drake about a month after Riley was shot and killed. A jury of 4 men and 8 women deliberated for 5 hours before finding Smiley guilty of 1st-degree murder and robbery with a firearm. Riley's brother said his only sister was well-liked in the community. ? "She was the big mama of the neighborhood," Dwain Babb said after the ruling. Babb said Smiley deserves to die. "He killed somebody so he deserves that," Babb said. In closing arguments Tuesday, Kristie Ducharme, assistant state attorney, said Riley, who sold liquor and food out of her home, was targeted because of the money from the business. "He went to her house, and knocked on the door with a .38-caliber in hand," Ducharme said. Smiley was on a mission to steal, Ducharme said. When he found $2,000 and marijuana after the shooting, he ran out the back door. No one learned of the connection to Smiley until earlier this year when officials say a break in the case came when a concerned citizen called police after finding clothing that did not belong to him in the bed of his truck, which was parked at his home near the crime scene. A dark-colored, hooded jacket with a pair of latex gloves in the pocket was seized by police. Detectives were able to link DNA from the clothing to DNA found on a backpack left behind at the scene of the Drake homicide, but at that point, they did not have a suspect. Smiley was later charged after investigators were alerted to a DNA match following his arrest in Hillsborough County for armed robbery, for which he's currently serving a 6-year sentence. A witness questioned about the Drake killing told police about Smiley's involvement in the death of Riley. David Carmichael, Smiley's lawyer, said the witnesses in the case were unreliable, dishonest and only talked to investigators so they could avoid charges. Carmichael pointed to a text message exchange one of the witnesses had with another witness about possibly making up a story to avoid jail time. "I felt like they made me make up this story so I wouldn't go to jail when I really don't know nothing about it," the text exchange read from one of the witnesses. Carmichael said there wasn't any scientific evidence to link Smiley to Riley's death. "The only evidence is that testimony," Carmichael said. "He's a liar, convicted felon and the state gave him immunity," Carmichael said of the state's witness. There was no reaction from Smiley when the verdict was read. (source: The Ledger) ************* Polk man faces death penalty for killing daughter, girl's mother A central Florida man has been convicted of killing his 3-year-old daughter and her mother. The Lakeland Ledger reports that a Polk County jury found 37-year-old Lester Ross guilty today of 1st-degree murder and aggravated manslaughter. He faces life in prison or the death penalty. Authorities discovered the bodies of Ross' daughter, MaSarah Ross, and the girl's mother, Ronkeya Holmes, buried in a Winter Haven grove in December 2010. Ross was arrested about 2 years later, following an intense investigation. Ross' ex-wife, Sharon Evans, testified that she drove Ross to bury the bodies in 2009 because she feared her husband would kill her if she talked to police. (source: Associated Press) TENNESSEE: Slain Covington purse-snatch victim's credit card found in Tenn. Covington police are investigating whether suspects in a fatal purse-snatching at a Wal-Mart earlier this week have a connection to a Chattanooga poultry processing plant, where the victim's credit card was found. Police believea man seen on surveillance video struggling with Marsha Johnson before running over the woman Monday night outside the Wal-Mart at 103000 Industrial Blvd. fled to Tennessee with a female who was also in the vehicle. Johnson, who police said fell to the ground as the man grabbed her purse and then was run over multiple times by the same man, died later at Newton Medical Center. Covington detectives were in Chattanooga on Thursday distributing sketches of the couple suspected in the killing. Capt. Craig Treadwell said the victim's VISA card had been found in a walkway of the Koch plant, leaving detectives to speculate that either the couple worked at the plant or had a friend or relative who did. "No one has been named a suspect," Treadwell said at a news conference Thursday in Covington. "That is why we are in Tennessee distributing the flyers. We feel somebody there will know them or know somebody who knows them." Are these the same suspects who were involved ina purse snatching that led to a woman's death in Covington and a purse snatching a week ago outside a Family Dollar store in St. George, S.C.? There was no indication that the Johnson's bank card had been used, police said. After the attack on the Covington woman, the suspects drove off in a silver or gray, mid- to late-1990s Honda Accord, police said. The car has damage on the driver's side door and may have a dealer drive-out tag, police said. The bank card is one of the department???s strongest leads at this time despite running down numerous tips about the couple, who are also suspected in a violent purse-snatching in St. George, S.C., Treadwell said. A week ago, a 75-year-old woman was walking into a Family Dollar store in St. George when she was approached by a woman who pointed a handgun at her head and grabbed her purse, police said. "As the victim fought to keep her purse, the victim felt a gun against her head heard the click where the suspect had pulled the trigger, but the gun did not fire," St. George police said in a statement. The victim fell to the ground, breaking the purse strap, and the suspect ran to a car with a man inside. The 2 then drove off with the victim's purse. The couple appeared to match the description of the couple involved in the Covington incident, and the getaway vehicle was similar to the one seen in surveillance video in Covington: a gray Honda Accord with paper tags. Treadwell said the descriptions of the couple and car and the fact that both crimes were in close proximity to I-20 made detectives believe the same 2 people were responsible for both crimes and are possibly on a crime spree. In the Covington case, Treadwell said surveillance video made him think that the driver did not see Johnson before he initially struck her with his vehicle. "But there is no way possible that he could not have known she was under the vehicle," Treadwell said. "That is what the death penalty is for - these totally innocent victims. They are shopping at the Wal-Mart and the next thing they are dead." Police also have announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Johnson's killer. (source: Atlanta Journal Constitution) CALIFORNIA: 'Western Bandit' suspect charged with 53 counts, including 2 murders A man authorities believe to be the "Western Bandit" was charged Nov. 2 in connection with a series of armed robberies and shootings beginning in 2011, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. Patrick Watkins, a 51-year-old black man, is charged with murder in the deaths of Nathan Vickers, 32, on Jan. 17, 2011, and Larise Smith, 56, on Dec. 8, 2014. The special circumstance of multiple murders makes Watkins eligible for the death penalty, if convicted (though prosecutors will decide later whether to seek the death penalty). Watkins also faces 51 other counts, including 26 counts of attempted murder, 13 counts of assault with a firearm, 5 counts of shooting at an occupied motor vehicle, 4 counts of 2nd-degree robbery, and felon in possession of a firearm. The incidents occurred between November 2011 and November 2014. Watkins is accused of riding his bicycle up to people sitting in their cars, then either demanding cash or opening fire on the occupants. The prosecutor also suspects that he approached people on foot and either robbed or shot them. Watkins is scheduled to return to court Dec. 1. (source: Los Angeles Times) ************ California Death Penalty Repeal Supporters Cleared To Gather Signatures Supporters of a measure to repeal California's death penalty can begin gathering signatures, the state attorney general's office announced on Thursday. The Justice That Works Act of 2016 aims to repeal the death penalty and would apply retroactively to people already sentenced to death. The measure cites the high cost of maintaining the death penalty system versus only 13 executions by the state since 1978, and none in nearly 11 years, as well as the fact violent murderers are typically sentenced already without the chance of parole. The measure comes from Mike Farrell, who played Capt. B.J. Hunnicutt on the long-running TV series M*A*S*H. A report from the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office finds the measure could save the state money by removing consideration for the death penalty from trials - a move that can dramatically lengthen trials. However, in the absence of a death penalty, the report says some cases resolved by plea agreements would instead go to trial, offsetting those cost savings. The report also points to savings by removing the need for death penalty appeals. When it comes to prisons, the report says the state would save on not having separate death row sections. In all, it estimates the measure could save the state "around $150 million within a few years," give or take tens of millions of dollars depending on its implementation. (source: CBS news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Nov 19 21:54:59 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2015 21:54:59 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 19 KENYA: Students aim to use Innocence Project to help young Kenyan----Ben-Hadad Kimani was convicted of murder, but many believe he is innocent When Griffith College dean of law and founding director of the Irish Innocence Project David Langwallner was teaching Liz Harpur intellectual property law and jurisprudence, he had no idea he would one day be pleading in a death penalty case in Kenya on behalf of her nephew Ben-Hadad Kimani. Kimani was 17 when he was arrested on August 29th, 2001 for a double murder in Kenya. He was convicted and sentenced to death row but has always maintained his innocence. Some time early next year, at the behest of Kimani's aunt in Dublin and the invitation of the Kenyan government - and dependent on funding - the Irish Innocence Project at Griffith College hopes to send a delegation to appear before the power of mercy advisory committee to plea on Kimani's behalf. The committee, a government body founded in 2011 and chaired by the attorney general, advises Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta on matters pertaining to miscarriages of justice, pardons and commutations. According to a 2014 report prepared by the committee, there were nearly 24,000 petitions received between June 2013 and July 2014 seeking presidential review, including 3,376 serving life sentences and 1,107 on death row. Openness "We are enormously grateful for this opportunity to appear before the power of mercy advisory committee in Kenya on behalf of Ben Kimani, who has been sentenced to death as a result of a murder conviction. We thank the committee for their openness and welcomeness," says Langwallner. "We respect the authority of this government advisory committee and welcome the chance to meet with its members." Kimani's case was first referred to the Irish Innocence Project in 2013 by Harpur, a Dublin resident and barrister. She sought the project's assistance after she learned from her sister during a trip to Kenya for her mother's funeral that her nephew had been sentenced to death and was imprisoned at Naivasha prison. "On July 24th, 2013, I met Ben briefly at the Kenya high court where his appeal was being heard. He was in the custody of a prison officer and was holding his own brief. There was no sign of his lawyer. He handed me the brief and said to me, 'Please, Auntie, help me !'" says Harpur. "When I returned to Ireland I got in touch with Ben's lawyer who provided me with more details of the case. We worked on some points to put forward in the appeal which had been put forward to November. Unfortunately the appeal was dismissed." Reviewing the case Harpur had contacted Langwallner about enlisting the help of the Irish Innocence Project while preparing for the appeal. Langwallner and a number of student caseworkers have been reviewing the case and consulting with Kimani's lawyers. On the night of August 29th, 2001, Kimani claims he bought a bus ticket from Buscar Company and boarded a bus at 7.30pm to travel from Nairobi to Mombasa. About that same time, 232km away in the Mtito Andei township, a small town of fewer than 5,000 people, shopkeeper Irene Ng'endo and her young son Stephen Mwaura were shot to death. Kimani claims the bus finally pulled away from the bus-stop in Nairobi at about 8.30pm and on the way to Mombasa stopped at a canteen called the Wayside in Mtito Andei for a tea break at about 11.45pm. It was there that the canteen supervisor reportedly told police that Kimani and a 2nd man were acting suspiciously and Kimani was arrested. The Irish Innocence Project was launched in September 2009 by Langwallner to investigate and overturn suspected wrongful conviction cases in Ireland. It is one of 68 projects recognised globally by the Innocence Network and 1 of 2 such projects with both law and journalism students working together on cases. It currently has 22 law and journalism students from Griffith College and Trinity College Dublin working on about 30 cases under the supervision of 12 pro-bono lawyers. The services of the project are provided free and the project was recognised as a tax-exempt charity in Ireland by the Revenue Commissioners in December 2014. While Griffith College provides an institutional home, it is otherwise self-funded. It is the only Innocence Project in Ireland. In order to fund the delegation, which will include Langwallner, along with at least one student caseworker, the Irish Innocence Project journalism interns launched a month-long crowd-funding campaign at Indiegogo with a target of raising 5,000 euros. The campaign concludes on December 7th, and the proceeds from the crowd funding campaign will be used to support the project and underwrite the expenses of the trip. "We've received incredible support from the public with previous crowd-funding campaigns," said Therese Ekevid, an Irish Innocence Project journalism caseworker. "They've helped us raise awareness on wrongful convictions as a human rights issue, enabled us to provide the people whose cases we're on with support and professional help, as well as getting influential contributors to discuss wrongful convictions at public programmes. This time, the funds and public awareness we raise will not only do that, but we actually have a chance of saving Ben from death row." Wrongful convictions According to the Innocence Project in New York, which was founded in 1992 to investigate cases in which DNA evidence could be used to prove a wrongful conviction, research suggests that somewhere between 2.3 and 5 % of all convictions in the US are actually of innocent people. Langwallner says this is a concern in every country since wrongful convictions know no boundaries. "I would say that the Innocence movement has become a Medecins Sans Frontie PAkres of lawyers. There are mistakes made in every jurisdiction and we hope to help correct them or, even better, prevent them from happening." Anne Driscoll is the journalist project manager of the Irish Innocence Project at Griffith College and a 2013-2014 US Fulbright scholar. Simon Walsh is an Irish Innocence Project journalist student intern The Indiegogo campaign can be found at http://bit.ly/1MxoQQQ (source: Irish Times) PAKISTAN: No mercy for APS convicts ---- Sharif advises president to reject appeals | Says killers of our kids don't deserve any leniency Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif yesterday advised President Mamnoon Hussain to reject mercy pleas of all the 4 convicted terrorists involved in last year's bloody attack on Army Public School in Peshawar. The military courts had sentenced the 4 terrorists - Sabeel alias Yahya, Abdu Salam, Hazrat Ali and Mujeebur Rehman alias Najibullah - to death in August after finding them guilty of committing the massacre that left more than 150 dead - 135 of them children. On December 16, 2014, 7 Taliban gunmen launched the terrorist attack on the APS. The militants, all of whom were foreign nationals, included 1 Chechen, 3 Arabs and 2 Afghans. They entered the school and opened fire on school staff and children. A rescue operation was launched by the Pakistan Army's Special Services Group (SSG), who killed all the 7 terrorists and rescued 960 people. This was the deadliest terrorist attack ever to occur in Pakistan since the 2007 Karachi bombing on former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's homecoming. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack, describing it as revenge for operation Zarb-e-Azb, the military offensive in North Waziristan that started in summer 2014. TTP spokesman Mohammed Omar Khorasani said, "We targeted the school because the Army targets our families.We want them to feel our pain." Later though the Taliban claimed contrary by putting out a statement saying, "More than 50 sons of important army officers were killed after being identified. The attacks were mainly coordinated by TTP leaders operating in Afghanistan." Investigations were launched to determine the nationalities of the terrorists, who were all found to be foreign fighters. Chechen fighter Abu Shamil, Afghan militant Nouman Shah Helmand with a $ 500,000 bounty, Afghan national Wazir Alam Herat, Egyptian Khatib al-Zubaidi, Morrocon Mohammed Zahedi and Jibran al-Saeedi - an Arab of unknown nationality were identified by the authorities. On Thursday, Prime Minister Sharif said, "The perpetrators involved in brutal and merciless killing of our children do not deserve any mercy." He said the Peshawar tragedy had shaken the country and 'changed Pakistan'. The premier added, "By rejecting the mercy petition of these terrorists, I am also reflecting the will of the people and honouring the promise made to the families of my children who lost their lives in the Army Public School tragedy." The December school attack is seen as having hardened the country's resolve to fight militants along its lawless border with Afghanistan. Authorities lifted a 6-year moratorium on executions last December and since that time more than 200 convicts have been executed. Amnesty International estimates that Pakistan has more than 8,000 prisoners on death row, most of whom have exhausted the appeals process. Supporters argue that the death penalty was the only effective way to deal with the scourge of militancy in the country. (source: The Nation) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Nov 20 11:53:52 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2015 11:53:52 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., N.C., GA., FLA., ALA., CALIF., USA Message-ID: Nov. 20 TEXAS: Man charged with 6 counts of capital murder in East Texas campsite killings A man was charged with 6 counts of capital murder Thursday in the killing of a family at an East Texas campsite. William Mitchell Hudson, who remained jailed on a $2.5 million bond, is accused of shooting 2 of the victims at a travel camper and dumping the other 4 bodies in a pond near his property. The warrants were issued by the Anderson County district attorney's office after preliminary autopsy results showed all 6 victims died by homicide. The autopsies identified the dead as Carl Johnson, 76; Hannah Johnson, 40; Kade Johnson, 6; Thomas Kamp, 46; Nathan Kamp, 23; and Austin Kamp, 21. No other details from the autopsies would be released, Sheriff Greg Taylor said. According to a previous warrant, the 33-year-old suspect was drinking with the group Saturday when he accompanied four of them into surrounding woods. The warrant says the lone survivor, Cynthia Johnson, heard gunshots before Hudson returned alone to the campsite, chased her husband and daughter into a travel camper and shot them. No motive has been released. "There are no adequate words to truly describe this horrific and senseless act. 6 members of 2 different yet joined families are gone," District Attorney Allyson Mitchell said in a statement issued Thursday afternoon. "Our hearts grieve for the Johnson and Kamp families and we will use all our resources to prosecute Hudson to the fullest extent of the law." Capital murder in Texas is punishable by either death by lethal injection or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. No decision has been made on whether the death penalty will be sought. Hudson's attorney, Stephen Evans of Palestine, declined to comment. After-hours messages seeking more information from the district attorney's office were not returned Thursday. (source: Associated Press) PENNSYLVANIA: Death penalty can be sought for Ross murder retrial The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has cleared the way to seek the death penalty against Paul Aaron Ross of the Hollidaysburg area, who is awaiting a new trial in the death of a 26-year-old woman at Canoe Creek State Park more than 11 years ago. (source: Altoona Mirror) NORTH CAROLINA: Racial discrimination remains plague on criminal justice system One of the fundamental promises of the American criminal justice system is that ordinary citizens have the power to help decide how justice is handed down. But the truth is, we have never fully extended this power to African Americans. The U.S. Supreme Court underscored that truth this month, when it heard arguments in Foster v. Chatman, a Georgia case in which jury selection notes reveal that prosecutors purposely excluded every potential black juror and that they ranked the African Americans in case "it comes down to having to pick one of the black jurors." If the court rules for the defendant in Foster, its decision will force courts across the country to stop ignoring clear evidence that African Americans have been systematically denied the right to serve on juries across the country. Here in North Carolina, we should watch this case closely. In the investigation of cases tried under N.C. Racial Justice Act, we found evidence even stronger than that which drew the Supreme Court's attention this month. The prosecutor's handwritten notes in a Cumberland County capital case labeled jurors with terms like "blk wino" and "blk, high drug neighborhood." Another juror was deemed "ok" because she was from a "respectable blk family." RJA defendants also discovered that their prosecutors attended a training seminar, sponsored by the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys, where they were given a cheat sheet of "race-neutral" excuses they could use to justify excluding African-American citizens from jury service. To top it off, a comprehensive statewide study of more than 150 capital cases from 1990-2010 found that prosecutors dismissed qualified African-American jurors at more than double the rate of white jurors. The disparity was even more pronounced when the defendant was African American. Despite this clear evidence, North Carolina has hardly begun to remedy the problem. The courts' record In the 30 years since it became illegal to strike a juror based on race, the North Carolina appellate courts have heard more than 100 cases where prosecutors were accused of intentionally excluding jurors of color. These courts ruled there was evidence of discrimination against African-American jurors in only 1, a case where the prosecutor failed to provide any explanation for his strikes." The courts' record was so troubling that the General Assembly enacted the Racial Justice Act, a law that forced the courts to consider statistical evidence of racial disparities in jury selection and charging and sentencing. The hope was that RJA would finally force our courts to root out racial injustice, a major factor in wrongful convictions. (8 of the 9 innocent men who have been sent to death row in North Carolina are black.) Following 2 evidentiary hearings under the RJA, the court found "powerful" evidence that prosecutors "regularly took race into account in capital jury selection and discriminated against African-American citizens." The defendants involved in these hearings were resentenced to life without parole. Sadly, only these 4 of the state's nearly 150 death row inmates had their RJA claims heard before the legislature repealed the law. Now, the state Supreme Court is mulling whether to overturn the lower court's finding of pervasive race discrimination in those 4 cases. Sometimes it feels as if no amount of evidence will force our state to change. But watching the arguments this month in the U.S. Supreme Court, I find reason to hope. Hope that North Carolina will not sweep this problem under the rug forever. Hope that we will finally see that denying African Americans the right to serve on juries not only violates their rights, but makes wrongful convictions more likely and undermines the integrity of our system as a whole. Hope that we will one day truly live up to our creed: Equal Justice Under Law. (source: Opinion; Gretchen Engel is the executive director of the Durham-based Center for Death Penalty Litigation. N.C. Policy Watch is a project of the N.C. Justice Center----News & Observer) GEORGIA: Georgia carried out what is likely the last execution of 2015 after Supreme Court denied appeals The last execution currently scheduled to take place in the United States this year was carried out Thursday evening when Georgia executed a man convicted of raping and murdering a woman in 1994. As the execution approached, attorneys for Marcus Johnson had petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a reprieve and continued to argue that he is innocent. However, the justices denied these requests on Thursday. Johnson was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson at 7 p.m., but the execution was delayed for a little more than 3 hours due to the appeals. He was sentenced to death for killing Angela Sizemore. In March 1994, Johnson and Sizemore met at a bar in Albany, Ga., and left together. Her body was found several hours later, having been brutally beaten and sexually assaulted, according to a summary of the case released by the office of Sam Olens, the Georgia attorney general. 4 years later, Johnson was convicted and sentenced. In a filing to the Supreme Court, Johnson's attorneys argue that his "conviction for murder is based on fundamentally inaccurate and unreliable evidence." Johnson told police he had sex with Sizemore in a nearby vacant lot before punching her in the nose "when she became clingy," his petition states, but he said she was alive when he left. His attorneys argue that no physical evidence has linked him to the murder. They say that as a result, the case relied upon eyewitnesses who identified Johnson as being in the area shortly before Sizemore's body was found, even though studies have shown that eyewitness testimony is unreliable. A filing from Olens, on behalf of the state, insists that the people who say they saw Johnson leaving the area were reliable and dismisses his other claims in arguing for the justices to reject the request to stay the execution. The Supreme Court rejected the request without explanation or any recorded dissents Thursday night, but Johnson's lawyers quickly filed another appeal and Georgia officials also asked the justices to dismiss it. Shortly after 9 p.m., the justices denied the 2nd appeal, also without explanation or any recorded dissents. On Wednesday, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected Johnson's request for clemency. In Georgia, only the parole board can commute a death sentence or change it to life in prison or life without parole. "The duty of the Board of Pardons and Paroles is to act as a fail-safe to prevent miscarriages of justice such as the execution of persons whom the evidence shows may be innocent," Brian Kammer, an attorney for Johnson, said in a statement. "The board failed egregiously in this respect, and as a result the state of Georgia is about to execute an innocent man." Johnson's execution will likely be the country's last one in 2015. On Wednesday evening, Texas carried out its last scheduled execution of the year, putting Raphael Holiday, 36, to death for killing 3 children by burning their home down in 2000. In his last statement, Holliday thanked his "supporters and loved ones." Georgia has carried out 4 executions already in 2015, trailing only Texas and Missouri for the most so far this year. However, the total number of executions this year is the lowest in nearly a quarter of a century, something that occurs as states like Oklahoma, Arkansas, Ohio, Florida and others have scheduled and postponed or scrapped executions due to court challenges, an ongoing drug shortage and other issues. The last inmate executed in Georgia before Johnson was Kelly Gissendaner, who was put to death in September after the state twice tried to execute her and had to cancel its plans (first due to a winter storm, then because of "cloudy" lethal injection drugs). Gissendaner was 1 of 3 inmates executed during a brief window that saw states schedule 6 lethal injections, though half of those were ultimately not carried out. If no other executions are scheduled before the end of the year, Georgia will have carried out the 1st and last executions of 2015, as the state executed Andrew Brannan in January. (source: Washington Post) FLORIDA: Man faces death penalty for killing daughter, girl's mother A central Florida man has been convicted of killing his 3-year-old daughter and her mother. The Lakeland Ledger (http://goo.gl/D3WwNh ) reports that a Polk County jury found 37-year-old Lester Ross guilty Thursday of 1st-degree murder and aggravated manslaughter. He faces life in prison or the death penalty. Authorities discovered the bodies of Ross' daughter, MaSarah Ross, and the girl's mother, Ronkeya Holmes, buried in a Winter Haven grove in December 2010. Ross was arrested about 2 years later, following an intense investigation. Ross' ex-wife, Sharon Evans, testified that she drove Ross to bury the bodies in 2009 because she feared her husband would kill her if she talked to police. (source: Associated Press) ALABAMA: The 5 women on Alabama's death row have this in common The 5 women facing execution by the state of Alabama all have 1 thing in common -- they were convicted of killing their child or someone else's child. Women make up less than 3 % of the 188 inmates facing the death penalty in the state, according to the Alabama Department of Corrections. Lisa Graham, currently held at the Russell County Jail, will soon join 4 other women at the female death row at Tutwiler Prison. The 183 condemned men are housed at Holman and Donaldson Prisons. Graham was sentenced to die Wednesday for paying a family friend to kill her 21-year-old daughter Stephanie Shae Graham in July 2007. Despite the fact Graham has an IQ of 77, a judge upheld a jury's recommendation of death, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reported. Here are the 4 other women on death row in Alabama: --Patricia Blackmon, convicted in the May 1999 capital murder of her 2-year-old adopted daughter, Dominiqua Bryant. The child's body sustained numerous injuries, including a fractured skull, and was stomped with such force that an imprint from a shoe was left on her chest. --Tierra Gobble, convicted in the death of her 4-month-old son Phoenix Jordan ''Cody'' Parrish in 2004. The child suffered a fractured skull, 5 broken ribs, broken wrists and numerous bruises. An autopsy showed he died from head trauma consistent with child abuse. --Christie Michelle Scott, convicted of setting a house fire that killed her 6-year-old son Mason Scott in order to collect life insurance in 2008. --Heather Leavell-Keaton, convicted of murdering her common law husband's 3-year-old son Chase DeBlase in 2010. Prosecutors allege that Leavell-Keaton cooked anti-freeze into the children's food. Alabama has not executed a woman since 2002, when Lynda Lyon Block was put to death for killing Opelika police officer Roger Motley. Block's execution marked the last time Alabama used its electric chair. The state switched to lethal injection after her execution. Since 1927, when Alabama switched from hanging to electrocution, the state has executed only 4 women. Records are not available for executions prior to that year. Block was the 1st woman executed in Alabama since 1957. Rhonda Bell Martin was executed after she confessed in 1956 to poisoning her mother, 2 husbands, and 3 of her children. Earle Dennison in 1953 became the 1st white woman to die in Alabama's electric chair after poisoning her 2 nieces for insurance money. The 1st woman to die in Alabama's electric chair, Silena Gilmore, said she shot a waiter as he begged for mercy because she was drunk. "Crime does not pay," she said before her 1930 execution. More than 2 years have passed since Alabama executed an inmate. The U.S. Supreme Court in June approved the use of the lethal injection drug combination that Alabama and other states use to kill the condemned, but it is not clear when executions will re-start in the state and which death row inmate will be 1st. AL.com has joined with other news organizations around the nation in "The Next to Die," a project to track the upcoming executions of death row inmates. Led by The Marshall Project, a non-profit, non-partisan journalism group that covers the criminal justice system, "The Next to Die" is currently set up to track execution dates in 10 states. (source: al.com) CALIFORNIA: 3 murder suspects deny guilt in Fairfax and San Francisco shootings 3 young itinerants charged with murdering a Fairfax hiker and a San Francisco tourist entered pleas of not guilty Thursday, 6 weeks after their arrest in Oregon. The defendants - Morrison Haze Lampley, 23, Sean Michael Angold, 24, and Lila Scott Alligood, 18 - appeared in court for the 4th time before Judge Kelly Simmons, who has been postponing their arraignment while initial legal representation was arranged. Simmons set May 9 as the date for the preliminary hearing, the proceeding at which she will decide whether there is sufficient evidence to hold the defendants for trial. All 3 could face the death penalty. Lampley is being represented by the Marin County Public Defender's Office, while Angold and Alligood have been assigned to court-appointed attorneys. The body of the 1st victim, Audrey Carey, 23, was found Oct. 3 in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Carey, a resident of Quebec, was on a backpacking trip to the United States when she was killed. The killers stole Carey's tent, a sleeping bag, a passport, airline tickets, camping equipment and a tarp, according to prosecution filings. The alleged murder weapon, a Smith and Wesson handgun, was stolen from a car in the Fisherman's Wharf area of San Francisco, police said. 2 days later, the 2nd victim, 67-year-old Steve Carter, was shot to death while walking his dog on a trail off Sir Francis Drake Boulevard in the Loma Alta Preserve near Fairfax. The dog, a Doberman Pinscher named Coco, was shot and survived. The suspects then allegedly stole Carter's car and headed north. They were arrested in Portland on Oct. 7 with the stolen car, Carey's stolen property and the stolen gun allegedly used in the crime spree, authorities said. The defendants are charged with 1st-degree murder with the special circumstances of lying in wait and committing murder during a robbery. The special circumstances mean the defendants could be eligible for the death penalty if convicted, but prosecutors could instead seek life in prison without the possibility of parole. The defendants are also charged with robbery, vehicle theft, possession of a stolen vehicle, animal cruelty and being in possession of property stolen from both victims. Lampley, the alleged gunman in both deaths, faces additional charges of possessing a stolen gun and being a convicted felon with a gun. Prosecutors say he was convicted of possession of a stolen vehicle last May in San Diego County. The defendants are being prosecuted in Marin Superior Court for both the Fairfax and the San Francisco homicides. Carter, a yoga and Tantra instructor, was living in San Geronimo with his wife Lokita. The couple, who had previously lived in Lake County and Costa Rica, moved to Marin so she could receive breast cancer treatments. (source: marinij.com) USA: Sotomayor Says Congress Should Not Tell Judges How to Review Cases The framers of the Constitution should have barred Congress from telling judges how to review certain types of cases, such as challenges brought under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said this week. "I probably would have told the framers that Congress could not specify our standards of review," Sotomayor said in a conversation with law students at the University of Richmond School of Law. "I personally think judicial independence is compromised when Congress decides with detail what the standards should be - [the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act] is one of them." Cases under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, or AEDPA, generally come to the U.S. Supreme Court as habeas petitions from prisoners challenging their sentences or convictions. Sotomayor had been asked by a student what structural changes she would make in the high court or what more she would have liked the framers to say about the court in the Constitution. Because of AEDPA's standard of review, she said, "We are now in a place where a clearly constitutional wrong or one that's clear enough will still be upheld because AEDPA tells us if it's not 'unreasonably' wrong, it's OK. Try explaining that to someone in jail or try explaining that to the founding fathers who might have had a very different view of what justice is about." Roaming through the audience, as has become Sotomayor's style, the justice fielded a wide range of questions from students on Nov. 17 following a brief conversation with Dean Wendy Perdue. The "roaming" style, Sotomayor said, was a reflection of her innate restlessness. Being a restless child, she said, her family called her "aji," meaning "hot pepper." Sotomayor called her failure to do a judicial clerkship a "professional mistake," and she strongly urged the law students to clerk for a judge. "Clerking will substitute for anywhere from 5 to 10 years of legal experience," she told them. "You will see more styles of advocacy than you can see in private practice. You'll see what advocates do and figure out what works best and doesn't work. And you'll get exposed to every facet of legal practice. I thought it meant just going to work in a library and I didn't want to do that." A clerkship, she added, is a "human exposure to learning." And, she said, most clerks become part of their judge's family "and that mentorship lasts a lifetime." Her other mistake was a "life mistake," she said. "It took me too long to realize that really being open to people, letting them into you life and into your feelings, is a positive thing. I spent too many years of my life being closed off from my pain and my fears of pain." Once you open yourself to people, they reciprocate by being more open to you, she said. Sotomayor's prior jobs as a district attorney and a federal trial judge, she said, prepared her best for her position on the high court. "The ability to understand how facts should be developed and how arguments can flow from the creation of facts and influence doctrinal outcome are what make a really great lawyer," she said. Sotomayor also recounted the period during her Senate confirmation hearings when she thought about withdrawing. "There were many who said I wasn't intelligent enough, smart enough to be on the court," she recalled. "It was very, very painful to me. I had spent a lifetime of legal work, making colleagues on the Second Circuit, and all of a sudden things I thought people thought of me were proven wrong by some. I talked to a dear friend and said, 'Is it worth getting to the court with a diminished reputation?'" Her friend was angry with her. "She said: 'This is not about you. This about my daughter. She's 8 years old and there's no Hispanic in high position of power in the United States of America. Your presence there will give her and many other children of similar backgrounds the possibility of hope. Yeah, you feel bad. Get over it.'" And Sotomayor did. Sotomayor said she considers the late Constance Baker Motley, a federal judge and civil rights lawyer, a role model who, one day, said to her: "To those whom blessings are given, you have an obligation to give back." (source: National Law Journal) ****************** Adjusting IQ Scores so More Minorities Are Eligible for the Death Penalty In 2002, in Atkins v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court held that executing an intellectually disabled (formerly called mentally retarded) individual violates the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishments. Since then, a number of experts have come forward with the following claim: IQ tests, used as a component of assessing intellectual disability for Atkins purposes, are biased against minorities, whose scores should accordingly be upwardly adjusted for a more accurate picture of their intelligence. Some state prosecutors and courts, moreover, have been friendly audiences to this line of argument. In this column, I will consider the argument along with how it ought to fare in the U.S. Supreme Court. The Atkins Case The Supreme Court in Atkins determined that executing an intellectually disabled person is unconstitutional, in part because of the disproportionality between the ultimate punishment and the necessarily diminished culpability of an intellectually disabled defendant. In the years following Atkins, the Court had occasion, in Hall v. Florida, to flesh out the meaning of intellectual disability and to clarify that it includes more than a simple IQ score. Nonetheless, IQ scores remain an important component of intellectual disability assessment, both clinically and for Atkins purposes. An excellent article by Robert Sanger calls attention to a particular sort of challenge to IQ scores that has developed in the Atkins context. This challenge or critique provides that African Americans, Latinos, and Latinas are disserved by IQ tests, as life experiences of deprivation, for instance, produce artificially low scores on such tests, relative to the test-takers' true ability. In some contexts, this critique could help minorities applying for jobs and educational opportunities. Here, however, the proposal is to give minority defendants a "bump up" on their IQ scores so that they qualify to be executed. My 1st reaction, upon considering this phenomenon, was to imagine a story in The Onion (a satirical online magazine) titled "Ku Klux Klan Acknowledges Racial Bias in IQ Tests; Seeks to Remedy By Executing More Minorities." In the "What Do You Think?" section of The Onion, one African American's reaction could be, "Finally, the Klan recognizes that standardized IQ tests are unfair to us. And if I'm not good enough for Harvard, at least I might be good enough for death row; it's a 1st step." Jonathan Swift might have had fun with this very different kind of "modest proposal." These arguments, however, are not jokes and must therefore be taken seriously, notwithstanding their vulnerability to satire. According to Sanger, the highest courts of several states, including Alabama, have allowed the proposed racial IQ adjustments. So what is wrong with this practice? Race Discrimination The 1st thing wrong with racially adjusting minority IQ scores upward for execution purposes is that it constitutes blatant and invidious race discrimination against minority individuals. It basically says that a person with an IQ test score of X will live if he is white but (potentially) die if he is black. And this result is not simply a matter of observed disparate impact but of intentional practice in the courtroom. Sanger does an admirable job of arguing that racially adjusting IQ scores is a scientifically unsupported and invalid project. The correct comparison for an individual IQ, he contends, is the larger community's IQs. But even if there is some validity to discounting or elevating IQ test scores based on race, one needs to ask when such a move is constitutionally - not just scientifically - valid. And Sanger addresses this issue thoroughly as well, explaining that race-based adjustments are subject to - and handily fail - strict scrutiny, under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. For our limited purposes here, retaining a healthy skepticism toward the Supreme Court's stingy attitude toward race-based assistance to minorities, consider that upwardly adjusting minority test scores sounds like a form of state-sponsored affirmative action, something to which the Supreme Court has arguably been too hostile. Generally, affirmative action at its best is aimed at either rectifying specific racial injustices or at fostering a needed diversity in such venues as educational environments. Neither of these justifications has any purchase in the death penalty context. We do nothing to rectify past racial injustices by rendering more minority defendants eligible for execution. Indeed, we arguably do just the opposite, given the existing overrepresentation of minorities within the criminal justice system and the complex history of discrimination within the death penalty itself. On the diversity front, there is no need for racial diversity on death row that we would foster by permitting the execution of minority defendants who would otherwise qualify as intellectually disabled. It is indeed bizarre to suggest that we might "enrich" the environment of death row by adding racial diversity, and I cannot imagine anyone even articulating this argument with a straight face. The Supreme Court has made clear, in Atkins and Hall, that executing the intellectually disabled is constitutionally unacceptable and that care must be taken to avoid the risk of such executions, such as by attending to the imprecision of IQ tests and the standard error of measurement (SEM). If it were not truly happening, we could find funny the notion of admitting minority candidates to execution "under the wire" despite their disqualifying IQ scores. But because it is actually going on, the Supreme Court must step in and for once display a completely well-founded opposition to a benighted form of affirmative action, one that would give minority candidates with prima facie intellectual disability a "leg up" to a lethal injection. (source: Sherry F. ColbSherry F. Colb, a Justia columnist, is Professor of Law and Charles Evans Hughes Scholar at Cornell Law School----verdict.justia.com) *************** Ex-CIA director: Snowden should be 'hanged' for Paris A former CIA director says leaker Edward Snowden should be convicted of treason and given the death penalty in the wake of the terrorist attack on Paris. "It's still a capital crime, and I would give him the death sentence, and I would prefer to see him hanged by the neck until he's dead, rather than merely electrocuted," James Woolsey told CNN's Brooke Baldwin on Thursday. Woolsey said Snowden, who divulged classified in 2013, is partly responsible for the terrorist attack in France last week that left at least 120 dead and hundreds injured. "I think the blood of a lot of these French young people is on his hands," he said. Woolsey, who served as the head of the CIA from 1993 to 1995, said the Snowden leak was "substantial." "They turned loose not only material about some procedural aspects of something, they turned loose, for example, some substantial material about the Mexican intelligence service and law enforcement working together against human trafficking," he said. Woolsey wondered if Snowden were "pro-pimp." Current CIA Director John Brennan has recently echoed his predecessor's sentiments, arguing that Snowden's disclosures make it harder for intelligence officials to track terror plots. "I think any unauthorized disclosures made by individuals that have dishonored the oath of office, that they have raised their hand and attested to, undermines this nation's security," Brennan said about Snowden at the Overseas Security Advisory Council's annual meeting on Wednesday. Snowden fled the country after stealing classified information and disclosing the extent of U.S. surveillance programs. He currently resides in Russia, where he has been granted temporary asylum. (source: thehill.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Nov 20 11:55:45 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2015 11:55:45 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 20 BANGLADESH: Call For Bangladesh To Halt Imminent War Crimes Executions The Bangladeshi government should halt the imminent executions of 2 men convicted of war crimes, Human Rights Watch said Thursday. The authorities should immediately suspend the death sentences of Ali Ahsan Mohammed Mujahid of the Jamaat-e-Islam Party and Salahuddin Qader Chowdhury of the Bangladesh National Party pending an independent and impartial review of their cases. On November 18, 2015, the Bangladesh Supreme Court rejected review petitions by Mujahid and Chowdhury despite serious fair trial concerns surrounding their convictions. Both men were convicted of alleged war crimes during the 1971 Bangladesh war of independence in trials before the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT). "Justice and accountability for the terrible crimes committed during Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence are crucial, but trials need to meet international fair trial standards," said Brad Adams, Asia director. "Unfair trials can't provide real justice, especially when the death penalty is imposed." The death sentences against Mujahid and Chowdhury follow a disturbing pattern from previous ICT cases. In December 2013, Abdul Qader Mollah was hanged following hastily enacted retrospective legislation prohibited by international law. Another accused, Delwar Hossain Sayedee, was convicted despite credible allegations of the abduction by government forces of a key defense witness from the grounds of the courthouse, with the ICT refusing to order an independent investigation into the charge. Mohammed Kamaruzzaman was hanged in April 2015 even though witnesses and documents were arbitrarily limited by the courts and inconsistent prior and subsequent statements of prosecution witnesses were not allowed into evidence. The trials of both Mujahid and Chowdhury have been marred by similar complaints, with arbitrary limitations on witnesses and documents. Mujahid's lawyers submitted 1500 names of defense witnesses. The court acted reasonably in refusing to consider all 1500, but acted unreasonably by ordering that only 3 witnesses could testify for the defense. The court did not identify the most relevant witnesses; instead, it chose this number arbitrarily. Mujahid was sentenced to death for instigating his subordinates to commit abuses, although no subordinates testified or were identified. Shortly before the hearing on the review petition, one of his lawyers had to go into hiding following a raid on his house and the arrest of another defense counsel in a related case. In Chowdhury's case, the court refused to accept any testimony from his alibi witnesses while still demanding that Chowdhury prove that his alibi was valid beyond a reasonable doubt. Despite allowing the prosecution to call 41 witnesses, the ICT limited Chowdhury's defense to 4 witnesses.The authorities reportedly ordered international airlines flying into Dhaka to declare whether any of Chowdhury's defense witnesses were booked on their flights ahead of Chowdhury's review hearing, presumably with an eye to denying them entry on arrival. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Bangladesh is a party, affords the accused the right "to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on his or her behalf under the same conditions as witnesses against him or her." "Treating the prosecution and defense equally is a basic fair trial principle, but the ICT has routinely ignored that principle in its seeming eagerness to convict the accused," Adams said. "The accused in all these cases were allowed a minuscule fraction of witnesses, counsel were regularly harassed and persecuted, defense witnesses faced physical threats, and witnesses were denied visas to enter the country to testify." Government assurances that it would adopt recommendations from the US government, Human Rights Watch, and others to improve the proceedings and amend the law have yet to be fulfilled. Stephen Rapp, the former US ambassador for war crimes, who has long advised the government to make changes to ensure fair trials, spoke out this week on the miscarriage of justice in the cases of Mujahid and Chowdhury: "Throughout my engagement, my first interest has been to achieve justice for the victims and survivors through trials and appeals that would establish the undisputable truth and hold the major surviving perpetrators to account. For such a process to stand the test of time, I urged that the judicial proceedings of the International Crimes Tribunal respect the highest legal standards. It saddens me to say that I do not believe that was done in the cases of Salauddin Qader Chowdhury and Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid. Under the provisions of international law that Bangladesh has bound itself to uphold, the imposition of sentences of death in these cases is not justified ..." Trials before the ICT, including those of Mujahid and Chowdhury, have been replete with violations of the right to a fair trial. The ICT has fundamental flaws because of article 47(A) of the constitution, which states, "This Article further denies any accused under the ICT Act from moving the Supreme Court for any remedies under the Constitution, including any challenges as to the unconstitutionality of Article 47(A)." The article specifically strips people accused of war crimes of certain fundamental rights, including the right to an expeditious trial by an independent and impartial tribunal, and the right to move the courts to enforce their fundamental rights. This article has permitted the ICT overly broad discretion to deny those accused in this and prior cases the rights and procedures accorded to other defendants. Many of the trials before the ICT have been marred by evidence from intercepted communications between the prosecution and the judges that has revealed prohibited and biased communications. The ICT???s response on several occasions to those who have raised objections about the trials has been to file contempt charges against them in an apparent attempt to silence criticism rather than to answer substantively or to rectify any errors. Human Rights Watch, the journalist David Bergman, and staff members of The Economist magazine have all been tried for contempt for publishing articles critical of the trials. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances because of its inherent cruelty. Bangladesh should join with the many countries already committed to the United Nations General Assembly's December 18, 2007 resolution calling for a moratorium on executions and a move by UN member countries toward abolition of the death penalty. The UN Human Rights Committee, which interprets the ICCPR, has said that "in cases of trials leading to the imposition of the death penalty, scrupulous respect of the guarantees of fair trial is particularly important" and that any death penalty imposed after an unfair trial would be a violation of the right to a fair trial. "Bangladeshis are rightly demanding justice for the atrocities in the liberation war," Adams said. "But delivering justice requires fairness and adherence to the highest standards, particularly when a life is at stake." (source: Eurasia Review) PAKISTAN: Arrest warrants for PML-N MNA issued in Pakistan The PML-N MNA who had won from NA-107 Gujrat-4 during the May 2013 general election was awarded death penalty by an anti-terrorism court. The Supreme Court has issued arrest warrants for PML-N MNA Chaudhry Abid Raza for his alleged involvement in the murder of 6 people in Gujrat. The PML-N MNA who had won from NA-107 Gujrat-4 during the May 2013 general election was awarded death penalty by an anti-terrorism court (ATC) in 2003. However, Raza was acquitted after the families of the deceased forgave him after compromise. An apex court bench headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali took notice of his acquittal on terrorism charges. The bench stated that a compromise under Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 is not allowed. (source: Khaleej Times) ************* Death penalty: Govt not sharing data on executions, says JPP The government has executed at least 300 people over the past 11 months, according to an independent assessment undertaken by the Justice Project Pakistan (JPP). There is also confusion over the scale of Pakistan's death row, believed to be the largest in the world, says the JPP. "2 weeks ago, the Pakistani government said that some 6,000 people were facing execution in the country; however, this is incompatible with another government estimate, of 8,000, made by the Interior Ministry at the beginning of the year," it said in a statement. "Despite appeals by human rights organisations for clarity on the number of people executed and the number on death row, the government is refusing to share official information on either issue." The JPP said this indicated that there might be uncertainty over who was being executed. It said police torture and forced confessions were common in Pakistan. Rights organisations have voiced concerns that many of those on the death row were sentenced in unfair trials. "Since more than 73 % of births are unregistered in Pakistan, there are also fears that many of those who have been executed may have been juveniles when arrested," the JPP said. JPP Executive Director Sarah Belal said, "We know that Pakistan is executing people at a record rate. Worse still, there is overwhelming evidence that many of those hanged have been tortured into 'confessing,' or were sentenced as children. The government needs to put a stop to this chaotic killing spree." (source: The Express Tribune) MALAYSIA: Pardon For Foreigners Must Go Through Malaysian Legal System The pardon for foreigners who are given the death penalty in Malaysia must go through several procedures specified by the country's legal system, said Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. "In making the appeal for a decision made by the court, those people concerned can do so to the Court of Appeal or can take it straight away to the Federal Court subsequently," he told a media conference after receiving a courtesy call by the Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Luhut Binsar Panjaitan at his office, here Friday. He said the Indonesian government had submitted 36 appeals for its nationals who had been sentenced to death by hanging to the Pardons Board through the appointed lawyers. Ahmad Zahid, who is also the Home Minister, said just as the other convicts, Indonesian nationals who had been handed the death sentence had also gone through the legal process specified, and it was something that must be respected. The decision on the appeals had yet to be made and Luhut, who was informed about it, respected the legal process implemented in this country. Ahmad Zahid said 81 Indonesian nationals who were given the death sentence were among the 4,896 nationals of that country who were serving the jail sentence in several prisons in Malaysia. "Of the 81 convicts sentenced to death by hanging, 65 were involved in offences under the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, 13 murder cases, 2 kidnapping cases and 1 was involved in a firearms case," he said. Meanwhile, Ahmad Zahid said Luhut took the opportunity at the meeting to record his country's appreciation to Malaysia, particularly the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) which was directly involved in the mission to put out the fire in South Sumatera recently. He said Indonesia deeply appreciated the manpower mobilised by the agency, including the MMEA's willingness to send the Bombardier CL 415 aircraft, which was capable of carrying huge amounts of water to put out forest fires in several areas there. In addition, the meeting also discussed, among other things, the Agreement on the Prevention of Cross Border Crimes between Malaysia and Indonesia which was presented by Malaysia to Indonesia earlier, he said. (source: Bernama) NIGERIA: Lawyer advocates abolition of death sentence Female lawyersAn Abuja-based legal practitioner, Mr Victor Okwudiri, has advocated abolition of death sentence as penalty for any crime or offence in the nation's law books. Okwudiri, who spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Friday, argued that capital punishment was a waste of "human capital" and a double jeopardy for the nation. The legal practitioner said that there were 3 purposes to the administration of criminal justice - to secure justice for the victim, to protect the society and to rehabilitate the criminal. He stressed that "it is only a victim with a vendetta mentality" that would want to pursue justice to the point of termination of the life of a human being. According to him, taking life as a punishment will not bring back the life of the victim. "And in the long run society will suffer double jeopardy by losing 2 persons, the victim and the criminal, instead of one." Okwudili said, "each time a soul dies, the nation looses human capital because everyone has the potential to transform the world. "The transformation of a place like Saudi Arabia is tied to a man. "We have heard of great men like Nelson Mandela and Lee Kuan Yew. What if they were killed prematurely? "The national and global transformation that their nations and entire world witnessed would not have happened if they were prematurely aborted. "Similarly, if we keep taking lives in the name of punishment for crime, we will be robbing ourselves of great potential that will have been instrumental to the development we earnestly seek," he said. Okwudiri insisted that life imprisonment was a better option to death sentence. He, therefore, recommended that the Nigerian Prisons Service should be overhauled for maximum rehabilitation of criminals as obtainable in the western world. He added that the prison could re-orientate its inmates and positively change the psychology of criminals if they were well managed. "If re-orientation and indoctrination can make suicide bombers blow themselves up, they can as well be used positively to change murderers to better citizens," he argued. Okwudiri added that life is sacred and only God gives life, therefore, only God has the right to take life, not the government. (source: dailypost.ng) SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi court sentences Palestinian poet to death for apostasy-HRW A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a Palestinian poet to death for apostasy, abandoning his Muslim faith, according to trial documents seen by Human Rights Watch, its Middle East researcher Adam Coogle said on Friday. Ashraf Fayadh was detained by the country's religious police in 2013 in Abha, in southwest Saudi Arabia, and then rearrested and tried in early 2014. The verdict of that court sentenced him to 4 years in prison and 800 lashes but after appeal another judge passed a death sentence on Fayadh three days ago, said Coogle. "I have read the trial documents from the lower court verdict in 2014 and another one from 17 November. It is very clear he has been sentenced to death for apostasy," Coogle said. Saudi Arabia's justice system is based on Sharia Islamic law and its judges are clerics from the kingdom's ultra conservative Wahhabi school of Sunni Islam. In the Wahhabi interpretation of Sharia, religious crimes including blasphemy and apostasy incur the death penalty. In January liberal writer Raif Badawi was flogged 50 times after his sentencing to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for blasphemy last year, prompting an international outcry. Badawi remains in prison, but diplomats say he is unlikely to be flogged again. Saudi judges have extensive scope to impose sentences according to their own interpretation of Sharia law without reference to any previous cases. After a case has been heard by lower courts, appeals courts and the supreme court, a convicted defendant can be pardoned by King Salman. Fayadh's conviction was based on evidence from a prosecution witness who claimed to have heard him cursing God, Islam's Prophet Mohammad and Saudi Arabia, and the contents of a poetry book he had written years earlier. The case went to the Saudi appeals court and was then returned to the lower court, where a different judge on November 17 increased the sentence to death. The 2nd judge ruled defence witnesses who had challenged the prosecution witness' testimony ineligible. Saudi Arabia's Justice Ministry or other officials could not immediately be reached for comment. (source: Reuters) RUSSIA: Common Sense Needed if Reinstating Death Penalty in Russia - Kremlin The reinstatement of the death penalty in Russia would require common sense and not an emotional approach, Kremlin Chief of Staff Sergei Ivanov said Friday. Earlier today, the leader of the center-left A Just Russia party suggested reinstating the capital punishment for terrorists and their collaborators in the wake of terror attacks on a Russian airliner in Egypt and public venues across Paris. "Sometimes it's necessary to rely not on emotions, but on common sense and Russia's international obligations. In my personal opinion, to put it mildly, is that this [reinstating the death penalty] is premature and inappropriate," Ivanov said. Ivanov said that he did not believe this move would gain the support of over 90 percent of Russian citizens, should the country hold a referendum on the issue. Russia suspended the death penalty indefinitely in 1999, although it was retained in the Constitution. The capital punishment by firing squad is reserved for especially severe offenses, such as aggravated murder and genocide. (source: sputniknews.com) INDONESIA/AUSTRALIA: Ruddock welcomes Indon execution reprieve----Anti-death penalty advocate Philip Ruddock says Indonesia's decision to pause executions to focus on its economy is a move in the right direction. A veteran Liberal MP welcomes news that Indonesia has placed a moratorium on all executions, but says Australia won't stop pursuing an end to the punishment worldwide. Philip Ruddock, co-chair of the Australian Parliamentarians against the death penalty group, said a reprieve in Indonesia is a move in the "right direction". "I think if the United States were to change it would be quite powerful in relation to influencing other countries," he told ABC radio on Friday. Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, who was in Jakarta on Thursday, said the federal government's position on the death penalty was well known. "The Australian government welcomes the announcement from the Indonesian government," he told reporters in Brisbane on Friday. (source: sbs.com.au) ************ Indonesia's turnaround on death penalty means heartbreak for 2 Australian families There are 2 Australian families facing what's meant to be a happy time of year with heavy hearts. There are 2 Australian families that lost their sons to the firing squad in Indonesia after 10 years in prison. And there are 2 Australia families who will be sickened by the latest news from Indonesia: they have halted executions. According to the country's top security minister, the current death row inmates will not be facing the firing squad in the near future. Luhut Binsar Panjaitan told a news conference the government's priority was to address the economic slowdown, during bilateral meetings aimed at boosting trade with the Australian government. It's a step to patch up the damaged relationship fractured by the killing of 2 Australian citizens: Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan in April. "We haven't thought about executing a death penalty with the economic conditions like this," Mr Panjaitan told reporters in Jakarta. BBC reports Indonesian correspondents have said no executions are scheduled at this time, a stark contrast from the hurried nature of Chan and Sukumaran's last days. Indonesia's economic growth dropped below 5% in 2015, and executions cost not only government money, but tourism to the country as Western nations generally oppose their hard line on prisoners. This year Indonesia executed 14 people by firing squad, including citizens from Brazil, the Netherlands and Nigeria, as well as Australia, damaging relationships and losing ambassadors from the majority. Currently, there are dozens of people awaiting their fate, although none are Australians. It remains to be seen whether Chan and Sukumaran would still be alive today if executions were halted, but it's a question that their families will no doubt be thinking about. (source: startsatsixty.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Nov 20 16:23:42 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2015 16:23:42 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., MO. Message-ID: Nov. 20 PENNSYLVANIA: Lehigh DA seeks death penalty against gunman in Valley killing spree Lehigh County authorities will seek the death penalty for the alleged gunman in a double killing in Allentown, according to court records. Todd West, 23, is scheduled for a formal arraignment Tuesday, along with 2 alleged accomplices in the July 5 murders of 2 people at Sixth and Greenleaf streets. West and the men are also charged in a killing in Easton. West deserves to be put to death if convicted of 1st-degree murder because the crime placed others at the risk of death and he is charged with a killing that was either committed before or after the Allentown deaths, according to court records filed Wednesday. Under Pennsylvania's death penalty law, capital punishment can only be imposed in cases of premeditated murder where at least one of 18 aggravating circumstances is present. All 12 jurors must agree it is appropriate. Juries make the decision at a hearing held separately from the trial. In it, prosecutors present aggravating circumstances - for instance, multiple murders -- to justify the death penalty. Jurors weigh those against mitigating circumstances that the defense details, such as a defendant's age or ability to appreciate the criminality of the actions. West, of Elizabethtown, N.J., remains in Lehigh County Jail along with his alleged accomplices, Kareem Mitchell, 23, of Newark, N.J., and Robert A. Jourdain, 20, of Easton. The men are charged in the murders of 22-year-old Kory Ketrow on Lehigh Street in Easton and the killings of Francine E. Ramos, 32, and Trevor Gray, 21, in Allentown. The men also allegedly fired shots at 2 others in downtown Easton during the crime spree, authorities say. West told a detective he heard voices in his head during the killing spree and believed the devil was speaking to him. West and Jourdain are also charged with 3 knifepoint robberies in Allentown the morning after the slayings. And West is also charged in New Jersey with gunning down 4 men and wounding a 5th in May and June in his hometown of Elizabeth. Authorities have said there was no motive in the killings. (source: Morning Call) MISSOURI: 2 state senators to take a shot at Missouri's death penalty laws At least 2 Missouri senators will once again attempt to scrutinize or abolish the death penalty during the 2016 legislative session. Sen. Paul Wieland, R-Imperial, was elected to the Senate in 2014 and previously served in the Missouri House. He doesn't expect the bill to abolish the death penalty he's introducing in the upcoming session to pass, but he said he hopes it'll be heard be in committee. Weiland has filed similar legislation for at least the past 4 sessions, according to the Missouri House and Senate websites. None of the bills were taken up for committee discussion. "I file it every year and talk about the issue because I think it needs to be discussed," Wieland said. "The more we talk about it the more people become educated on the issue." Missouri has executed 18 inmates since November 2013, according to The Associated Press. Wieland is refiling a version of his 2015 bill, but he's significantly revamping the text. He's removing a provision that would have created the Death Penalty Costs Reinvestment Fund. With the fund, the state could have reallocated to violence prevention programs the money it uses to fund public defenders who represent death row inmates. "I just don't see how we could enforce it," Wieland said. For at least the past 4 sessions, Sen. Joe Keaveny, D-St. Louis, has filed bills to require the state auditor to compare the costs of death penalty cases and 1st-degree murder cases in which prosecutors don't seek the death penalty. 2 of the bills were passed out of a committee but were never discussed on the Senate floor. The other received a committee hearing but was not voted on. But Keaveny isn't giving up - he's filing the legislation again for the 2016 legislative session. Keaveny said the state auditor has never commissioned an investigation comparing the taxpayer cost of death penalty cases against the alternative, life without parole cases. The state auditor's office didn't respond to repeated requests to verify this information. "I am an opponent of the death penalty," Keaveny said. "Until we have some facts and figures, we're not going to get into a serious discussion about it." (source: The Missourian) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Nov 20 16:24:35 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2015 16:24:35 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 20 BELARUS: Statement by the Spokesperson on a death sentence in Belarus "A death sentence was handed down on 20 November to Ivan Kulesh by the Hrodna Regional Court of the Republic of Belarus. The European Union expects that Mr Kulesh's right to appeal will be fully guaranteed. Mr Kulesh was convicted for serious crimes and we extend our deepest sympathy to the family and friends of the victim of these crimes. Nevertheless, the European Union opposes capital punishment in all cases as it cannot be justified under any circumstances. The death penalty is a cruel and inhuman punishment, which fails to act as a deterrent and represents an unacceptable denial of human dignity and integrity. The European Union urges Belarus, the only country in Europe still applying capital punishment, to join a global moratorium on the death penalty as a first step towards its abolition." (source: europa.eu) INDIA: SC paves way for trial of 3 in Beant Singh's murder The Supreme Court today paved the way for trial of three accomplices of Babbar Khalsa militant Jagtar Singh Hawara, the mastermind in the killing of Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh in 1995, by asking its Registry to send judicial records to the trial court. A Bench comprising Justices TS Thakur and V Gopala Gowda, which has been hearing the appeal of the CBI seeking death penalty for Hawara, serving life term in the case, directed the apex court registry to send case records back to the Chandigarh Sessions Court concerned for initiation of trial against co-accused Jagtar Singh Tara, Paramjeet Singh Bheora and Devi Singh. Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, appearing for the CBI, told the court that the trial in the Beant Singh's murder has not concluded against Tara, who was arrested earlier this year after he had escaped from Burail jail at Chandigarh in 2004. He said the additional sessions judge has sought records of the case in order to proceed with the trial as they are presently with the apex court registry. Kumar requested the Bench to direct the registry to send the records to the trial court. Taking note of the submission, the court deferred the hearing on the plea of CBI, which had sought death penalty for Hawara saying the offence fell under the category of 'rarest of rare' cases. It is also hearing the appeal of Hawara, lodged in Tihar jail here, against the trial court decision awarding jail term for remainder of life. In 2004, Hawara had escaped from maximum security jail at Burail in Punjab along with Tara, Bheora and Devi Singh by digging a 90-feet tunnel with bare hands. Jagtar Singh Hawara and Bheora were re-arrested within the next 2 years. (source: tribuneindia.com) *********** HC acquits ''tantrik'' facing death penalty Setting aside death penalty awarded by a district court, the Orissa High Court acquitted a tantrik of Jajpur district who was charged with human sacrifice of an 8-year-old boy 5 years back. Justice Vinod Prasad and Justice Raghubir Dash yesterday quashed Jajpur the district session court s death sentence and upheld the appeal of the 'tantrik' Pitambar Goipoi of innocence setting him free of murder and other related charges. The bench annulled the lower court s verdict on the ground there was lack of clinching evidence in the case. District judge Jivan Ballav had in August this year convicted the tantrik of abduction and murder of infant Srikant Bag and sentenced him to death. Sukinda police had retrieved the beheaded body of Srikant from a deserted place in Damodarpur village on February 13, 2010, two days after he went missing. Police subsequently recovered the infant s head along with some puja materials from a deserted place near the tantrik s house. On a complaint from the boy s relative that the tantrik had sacrificed the boy to propitiate the local deity and public outrage, police arrested him. While the 'tantric' could not defend the case in the lower court by engaging a lawyer, the High Court had appointed an amicus curiae to conduct his case. (source: Press Trust of India) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Nov 21 10:35:50 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2015 10:35:50 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, S.C., FLA., CALIF. Message-ID: Nov. 21 TEXAS: Prosecutor will seek death penalty in Texas campsite mass murders Anderson County District Attorney Allyson Mitchell said she will seek the death penalty against the man accused of killing 6 members of 2 families at a campsite near this East Texas town. Mitchell announced the decision to the Palestine Herald-Press late Friday afternoon. She filed capital murder charges earlier this week against William Hudson, 33, whose property abutted the campsite. He is being held without bond at the county jail. The penalty for capital murder in Texas is death by lethal injection or life in prison with no chance for parole. A jury makes the decision if the prosecutor asks for the death penalty. Mitchell said the case will be presented first to a county grand jury. Attorney Stephen Evans of Palestine was appointed to represent Hudson. The district attorney said the massacre was the "single most horrific crime committed in Anderson County's modern history. Our hearts grieve for the Johnson and Kamp families. We will use all resources available to prosecute Hudson to the fullest extent of the law." She told a news conference 5 of the victims were shot to death, and the 6th died from blunt force trauma, a deadly blow to the body. The sole survivor of the carnage, Cynthia Johnson, 73, hid in the woods from Hudson on Saturday night when authorities said he carried out the carnage. She called 911 about 7 a.m. Sunday to report the killings. He was arrested at his mother's nearby home. The district attorney said Hannah Hudson, 40, an insurance adjustor from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, died of blunt force trauma. Shot to death were her son, Jade, 6, her father, Carl Johnson, 77, her fiance Thomas Kamp, 46, and Kamp's 2 adults sons - Austin, 21, and Nathan, 24 - from a previous marriage. Mitchell said intense publicity raises the question of transferring the case to another jurisdiction in Texas, but she will insist it be prosecuted and tried in Anderson County. Arrest affidavits said survivor Cynthia Johnson, husband of Carl, told investigators Hudson befriended the campers Saturday afternoon when he used his tractor to free a vehicle stuck in mud. She said he later socialized and drank with them before slaughtering the victims. Investigators found the bodies of the Kamps and the Johnson child in a pond behind Hudson???s home. Hannah Johnson and her father were found dead in a silver travel trailer at the campsite, where Mrs. Johnson said they ran for their lives from Hudson. (source: The Daily Item) SOUTH CAROLINA: Stories of murder and execution to be heard Saturday The Mother Emanuel AME tragedy is part of the reason a North Carolina advocacy group decided to hold their annual conference in the greater Charleston area. The stories of murder and execution will be heard Saturday in North Charleston at the Hilton Garden Inn off International Boulevard. The group, "Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation" (MVFR) focuses on giving hope and healing to families of murder victims' and the death penalty. "It wrecked my life," said Teresa Avent, a member of the group whose brother was murdered. Avent said her brother's death turned her life upside-down. After several years she finally got to a place where she could face the accused killer and find a level of forgiveness. "Forgiveness is not so much for the offender," Avent said. "It's so much for us as the victims. It releases us to move forward in a productive manner.: Back in June the word 'forgiveness' rang across the Lowcountry and the nation. Family members of the victims killed in the Mother Emanuel AME shooting spoke of forgiveness to the accused killer. It's part of the reason MVFR chose this location for their conference. "Also because there's a broader suffering community and we wanted to highlight, amplify community, build voices to those who have been adversely affected by homicide," said Jeremy Collins, a board member. "We invited people from the community and the nation to come together and share experiences and stories they have of losing loved ones to murder and execution," said Executive Director, Jack Sullivan, Jr. The group also focuses on the death penalty and finding a better way to deal with that issue from a family victims' standpoint. Sullivan's sister was murdered 18 years ago. Her killer was never found, but to this day he said he wouldn't ask for execution. "We want to talk to the person and find out what he or she was going through," Sullivan said. "Why did he or she have to pull the trigger on my sister, our sister, and what is the best way for this person to be held accountable for what took place." South Carolina leaders from the NAACP President, Black Lives Matter, and Reverend Dr. Nelson Rivers will be in attendance. The day-long workshop will begin at 9:00 a.m. Saturday at the Hilton Garden Inn. The group welcomes families in the community that have been affected. On Sunday members will attend the church service at Mother Emanuel AME as a way to show the victims' families their support. (source: WCSC news) FLORIDA: Fla. man guilty of killing daughter he kept in freezer A Polk County man was convicted Thursday of murdering his 3-year-old daughter and keeping her body in a freezer, then killing her mother and burying them both in an orange grove, WFTV reported. Lester Ross, 37, was found guilty Thursday by a Polk County jury of 1st-degree murder and aggravated manslaughter. In December 2010, police found the bodies of MaSarah Ross and Ronkeya Holmes buried at an orange grove in Winter Haven. Police said Ross allegedly killed his daughter, MaSarah, in 2009 and kept her in a freezer. When Holmes came to check on her daughter, Ross poisoned her, then buried the bodies together, according to police. Ross' ex-wife admitted in court that she drove Ross to bury the bodies "because she feared her husband would kill her if she talked to police," WFTV reported. Ross was arrested 2 years after the murders and will face life in prison or the death penalty. (source: Palm Beach Post) CALIFORNIA----new death sentence Jury gives death penalty to man convicted in Hawaiian Gardens triple homicide A jury recommended Friday that a Montebello man be sentenced to death for murdering a former girlfriend, along with her brother and father, during an early morning shooting rampage in Hawaiian Gardens 5 years ago. Joseph Mercado, who will turn 32 on Monday, is due back in a Norwalk courtroom Jan. 29 to be formally sentenced by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Raul A. Sahagun. Mercado was convicted last week of 1st-degree murder for the May 6, 2010, killings of his ex-girlfriend, Serena Tarin, 23, and her father, Alfredo Tarin, 53, and 19-year-old brother, Alfred "A.D." Tarin. He also was convicted of 3 counts of attempted murder and one count each of first-degree burglary with a person present, shooting at an inhabited dwelling, child abuse and arson of an inhabited structure, and jurors found true the special circumstance allegations of multiple murders, murder while lying in wait and arson during the commission of a murder. He was acquitted of 1 count of assault with a machine gun or assault rifle on a peace officer. At the start of the trial's penalty phase, in which jurors were asked to recommend whether he should be sentenced to death or life in prison without the possibility of parole, the panel heard recordings of frantic 911 calls made by Serena Tarin and her younger brother shortly before they were killed. "I need an officer here. My ex-boyfriend's here and he's not welcome here ... He has no business being here ... I think he's trying to get inside," she reported in the call made at 3:41 a.m. 'Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,' she said frantically after popping sounds can be heard in the background. "Please hurry. Oh my God, please hurry." The 911 operator asked, "What was that noise?' with the young woman responding, "I don't know" and later informing them of Mercado's name and age when asked his identity. She is later heard saying, "Joseph, don't do this, please don't do this ... the baby," referring to their child. As the recording was being played in court, Mercado sat with his hands covering his face and appeared to be crying after jurors heard the recording. The panel also heard a recording of a 911 call made by the woman's brother shortly before he was killed. "You'll hear A.D. take his last breath," Deputy District Attorney Robert Villa told jurors. 'Please hurry, please help, please!' the 19-year-old could be heard pleading in the recorded 911 call in which he reported gunshots. A 911 operator could later be heard repeatedly asking if he was OK as a woman screamed in the background. Authorities said shortly after the crime that Mercado was involved in a child custody dispute with his ex-girlfriend and tried to set the home on fire. Mercado then broke into the back of the home and opened fire with an assault rifle, killing the mother of his young son and the other 2 victims. 2 others, including Tarin's mother, were wounded. About a half-dozen other family members escaped, with some hiding on the roof. The couple's son was later adopted by Serena Tarin's sister and her husband. Mercado was shot by a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy as he emerged from the home that morning, and has remained jailed without bail since then. (source: Press-Telegram) *************** Man convicted of killing 4, including SCV resident A 34-year-old man has been convicted of 4 counts of 1st-degree murder for shooting and killing 4 people, 1 of them a Castaic resident, outside a Los Angeles boardinghouse 3 years ago. The district attorney's office says jurors found Ka Pasasouk guilty Thursday after deliberating for less than 2 hours. He could face the death penalty for the December 2012 killing of 49-year-old Castaic resident Teofilo Navales, along with 34-year-old Robert Calabia of Los Angeles, 24-year-old Amanda Ghossein of Monterey Park and 26-year-old Jennifer Kim of Montebello. Jurors will return Dec. 2 for the beginning of the trial's penalty phase. They will be asked to recommend whether Pasasouk should be sentenced to death or to life in prison without parole. Deputy District Attorney Dan Akemon said the crime began as a drug- and alcohol-fueled robbery and the killings continued for the purpose of eliminating witnesses. (source: signalscv.com) ****************** State's death penalty prospects mixed Is the death penalty viable in California? Until recently, opposing it usually meant political suicide at the state level. In 1986, Rose Bird, chief justice of the California Supreme Court and Gov. Jerry Brown???s appointee, was booted from office by voters after she overturned 64 straight death-penalty convictions. So were 2 like-minded associate justices. After that, even Democrats promised to execute the worst criminals. Democratic Gov. Gray Davis executed 5 men. His successor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, terminated three, the last being Clarence Ray Allen, convicted of organizing three murders. As the Los Angeles Times reported, "At the time of the killings, Allen was in prison, convicted of the 1974 murder of Mary Sue Kitts." In his 2010 bid to return to the governor's office, Gov. Brown said he would uphold the death penalty. In 2012, voters defeated Proposition 34, which would have repealed capital punishment in California. Ever enigmatic, after that election, the governor said, "Yeah, I voted yes, of course." In recent years, the death penalty has been suspended because of accusations the "drug cocktail" used in executions violated the Eighth Amendment's guarantee against "cruel and unusual punishments." However, there are 2 new developments the past month. Reuters reported California prison officials "filed proposed new guidelines for using lethal injection to kill condemned inmates, a step that could lead to a resumption of the death penalty." And AP reported "a federal appeals court reversed a lower court ruling that had found [the death penalty] was unconstitutional because of excessive delays." Voters again could get a say. One initiative advanced for the November 2016 ballot by actor Mike Farrell would repeal the death penalty. Given that Prop. 34 lost, 52 % to 48 %, it has a chance. The other proposed initiative is backed by county district attorneys across the state, including Riverside County's Michael Hestrin and San Bernardino County's Michael Ramos. According to Californians for Death Penalty Reform and Savings, the measure would streamline "the existing inefficient appeals process" by "providing prompt appointment of attorneys" and restricting "frivolous and unnecessary claims." Under state law, if 2 similar initiatives pass, the 1 with the most votes becomes law. However, California elects a new governor in 2018. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who already has announced his candidacy, in 2013 came out strongly against the death penalty. Other Democratic candidates likely will take the same stance. Republicans now are so weak a statewide electoral force, supporting the death penalty won't help much. Which means a death penalty opponent almost certainly will move into the Governor's Office in 2019. (source: Editorial, Press-Enterprise) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Nov 21 10:37:00 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2015 10:37:00 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 21 BELARUS----new death sentence Belarusian Man Sentenced To Death On Murder Charges Belarusian court has sentenced a man to death for 2 fatal robberies, the 2nd death sentence this year to be handed down in the only country in Europe that still uses it. Judges in the court in the western city of Hrodno found Ivan Kulish guilty on November 20 of killing 3 saleswomen during 2 robberies in 2013 and 2014. Kulish, 28, refused to testify during the trial and didn't make any remarks after the verdict. In March, a court in the southeastern city of Homel sentenced a man to death for the murder of a young woman. According to rights groups, more than 400 people have been sentenced to death in the ex-Soviet republic since the early 1990s. The European Union on November 20 urged Belarus to join a global moratorium on the death penalty as "a 1st step towards its abolition." "The death penalty is a cruel and inhuman punishment, which fails to act as a deterrent and represents an unacceptable denial of human dignity and integrity," the EU said in a statement. (source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) RUSSIA: Jewish community opposes death penalty in Russia The Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FJCR) believes there is no point in introducing the death penalty in the country, including for terrorists. "Terrorists are very often suicide bombers and it's stupid t scare them with death. In the course of a big part of human history, classical assassins of the past committed crimes when much lesser sins were punishable by death. Criminals who commit murder are not stopped by the threat of death," Boruch Gorin, the head of the public relations department at FJCR, told Interfax-Religion on Friday. He said it is important to society that a murderer should not walk free, that a dangerous organization or group of people should be isolated and the state has a duty to ensure this isolation. "In this sense, I believe that situations when people who were sentenced to the death penalty and are serving life in prison are suddenly amnesties and walk free are unacceptable. It's unacceptable and deeply criminal," he said. He said such precedents are more dangerous to international security in general and "support global terrorism to a much greater degree that the abolition or non-introduction of the death penalty, which in any case doesn't stop anything." People who have committed terrorist attacks should spend the rest of their life in deep isolation, Gorin said. "Theoretically, the death penalty has a right to exist. Virtually every human court not only potentially, but also practically cannot guarantee the punishment of the person who really deserves the death penalty," Gorin said. (source: interfax-religion.com) FRANCE: France's Jean Marie Le Pen Calls For Decapitating Terrorists The founder of France's far-right National Front (FN) Jean Marie Le Pen has urged France to reinstate the death penalty and commit convicted terrorists to the guillotine, French weekly news magazine Marianne reports. Speaking at a press conference held at his palatial home in the west Parisian suburb of Saint Cloud, the controversial politician outlined his proposals to stop Islamist attacks, such as the ones that claimed 130 lives last week in the French capital. "We must restore the death penalty for terrorists," Le Pen said, before adding "with decapitation." Some of his other proposals included deporting illegal immigrants and creating 100,000 more places in prison to deter further extremist attacks. According to French weekly news magazine Le Point, Le Pen also called for the removal of dual citizenship and instead "force dual citizens to make a choice," while also making military service of up to six months compulsory. Jean Marie Le Pen's statement mirrored those of his daughter in the wake of the Islamist attacks on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in January. At that time, Marine Le Pen, who now leads the National Front, vowed to hold a referendum on the death penalty should she be elected president in 2017. She has topped several presidential polls since she took leadership of the far-right nationalist party from her father, but the 2 are involved in a bitter dispute at present over Le Pen senior's reference to the Nazi Holocaust as a historical "detail." Marine Le Pen excluded her father from the party as a result, while he mounted a legal challenge against the decision. The death penalty has been outlawed in France for years, as the right to execute convicts was abolished by President Francois Mitterrand's government in 1981. The last execution took place only 4 years earlier and the standard method of delivering it was still the use of a guillotine. The last man to be executed in France was Tunisian Hamida Djandoubi who was convicted in 1977 of torturing and murdering a 21-year-old woman and was also accused of assaulting and raping a 15-year-old girl, French public radio RFI reports. It is also currently the policy of the European Union that no states can be accepted into the union without having abolished the death penalty. (source: Newsweek) PAKISTAN: Family says Pakistan to execute paraplegic man next week The mother of Pakistan's only paraplegic death-row inmate says jail officials have informed her that her 43-year-old son will be executed next week. Nusrat Perveen says jail officials Saturday asked her to have a final meeting with her son, Abdul Basit, on Tuesday before he is hanged the following morning. She appealed to the president and prime minister of Pakistan to pardon her son on medical and humanitarian grounds. 2 months ago, authorities halted Basit's execution at the 11th hour following appeals from the family. Basit has been paralyzed from the waist down since contracting meningitis in prison in 2010 and uses a wheelchair. He has been on death row since 2009, convicted of murdering a man in a financial dispute in Punjab province. (source: Associated Press) *************** see: ttps://reprieve.bsd.net/page/speakout/saveabdulbasit (source: reprieve.org) **************** Pakistan president rejects school attackers' mercy pleas----Massacre left more than 140 people dead, mostly children Pakistan's President Mamnoon Hussein rejected the mercy petitions of 4 militants found guilty of orchestrating a gun and bomb attack on an army-run school in Peshawar in December. The massacre left more than 140 people dead, mostly children. All four convicts were sentenced to death by a military court in August. "The brutal and merciless killing of our children convinced us that the perpetrators of such crimes do not deserve any mercy," Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said earlier this week. The government had lifted a six-year de facto ban on the death penalty after the Peshawar school massacre. Over 200 convicts have been hanged since then. (source: aa.com.tr) BANGLADESH: Bangladesh leaders on death row seek clemency----The Bangladeshi leaders who have received a death sentence have sought a presidential pardon. Human Rights Watch has urged for Bangladesh to suspend executions 2 top Bangladesh opposition leaders who are expected to be hanged within days sought clemency from the president Saturday in a last-ditch attempt to escape the gallows, the country's justice minister said. Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury, facing execution for their roles in Bangladesh's 1971 independence war with Pakistan have sent mercy pleas to the home ministry, Anisul Huq told AFP. "It won't be treated as a mercy petition by an ordinary condemned prisoner, which means it will be treated on an urgent basis," the minister said. The 2 leaders have exhausted all legal appeals to avoid execution and their fate now rests with President Abdul Hamid, who has the power to pardon or commute the death sentences of any convict. Mujahid, 67, is the second most senior member of Bangladesh's Jamaat-e-Islami, while Chowdhury, 66, is an ex-lawmaker and a top aide to Khaleda Zia, leader of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Bangladesh's Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed their final legal appeals, upholding the leaders' death sentences originally handed down by a controversial war crimes tribunal in 2013. The president will seek advice from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina before making a decision, Huq said, adding the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the sentences "reflected the desire of the country". They are among more than a dozen leaders of the opposition alliance convicted by the tribunal, which was set up by the secular government in 2010. The convictions triggered the country's deadliest violence since independence, with some 500 people killed, mainly in clashes between Jamaat activists and police. There are fears the latest verdicts could spark fresh unrest in the Muslim-majority nation, which is reeling from a string of killings of secular bloggers as well as the murders of 2 foreigners in recent months. Immediately after Wednesday's verdict, authorities shut down Facebook and messaging and voice call services Viber and WhatsApp in an attempt to stop Jamaat supporters from mobilising to protest against the rulings. Human Rights Watch urges halt to execution U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Friday urged the Bangladesh government to halt the executions of 2 opposition leaders convicted of war crimes. Bangladesh's Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the final appeals by 2 opposition leaders, Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury, against the death penalty for atrocities committed during the 1971 war of independence. "Justice and accountability for the terrible crimes committed during Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence are crucial, but trials need to meet international fair trial standards," said Brad Adams, HRW's Asia director. "Unfair trials can't provide real justice, especially when the death penalty is imposed," he said in a statement, adding the sentences should be suspended immediately. (source: worldbulletin.net) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Nov 22 13:39:01 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2015 13:39:01 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., CALIF., USA Message-ID: Nov. 22 PENNSYLVANIA: Court ruling ups the ante for double murderer facing the death penalty A midstate man who has been on and off the execution list for the April 1987 murder of a restaurant manager had his odds of returning to death row increased this week by a state court ruling. A state Superior Court panel decided that a jury which will consider whether David Allen Sattazahn should receive the death penalty can hear evidence about his conviction for another killing that occurred eight months after manager's murder. That decision overturns a Berks County judge's ruling that barred prosecutors from telling the jurors about the later killing. Sattazahn's case has taken a twisted course since the former Lebanon County man was arrested for the April 12, 1987 robbery/murder of 36-year-old Richard Boyer, who was shot while leaving his Heidelberg Township restaurant. Sattazahn was first convicted of 1st-degree murder in 1991 for Boyer's killing. The jury deadlocked on whether he should receive the death penalty, so he was sentenced to life in prison. After winning an appeal of that conviction, Sattazahn was retried for the Boyer slaying. The 2nd time, he was again convicted of 1st-degree murder and the jury ruled that he should be sentenced to death. That death sentence, imposed in 1999, was upheld by the Superior Court, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. Yet in 2006, Berks County Judge Scott D. Keller ruled that Sattazahn deserved a new hearing on whether he should receive the death penalty because his lawyer had been ineffective in arguing against execution. Keller let Sattazahn's murder conviction stand, but ordered that another jury be selected just to rule on the death penalty issue. Another legal snag cropped up as jury selection on the death penalty issue was about to begin in March 2014. The prosecution announced that it planned to tell the jurors about Sattazahn's third-degree murder conviction for a slaying that occurred in December 1987, more than eight months after Boyer was killed. Sattazahn's lawyers objected, arguing that the jury should hear only about crimes he committed before the Boyer murder. Another county judge, John A. Boccabella, agreed to bar prosecutors from mentioning the third-degree murder case. The district attorney's office appealed, and once again Sattazahn's case headed for the Superior Court. In that court's latest opinion, Judge Victor P. Stabile found that Boccabella was wrong to bar the DA from telling jurors about the 3rd-degree murder conviction, which resulted from Sattazahn's guilty plea for the killing of 26-year-old Michael Protivak of Schuylkill County. Interestingly, Stabile based his conclusion in part on a 2000 state Supreme Court ruling on one of the unsuccessful appeals Sattazahn's filed after his 2nd trial for the Boyer murder. In that decision, the Supreme Court rejected Sattazahn's argument that crimes he committed after the Boyer slaying shouldn't have been used against him during his 1999 retrial. "The fact that the offenses occurred after the (Boyer) murder is irrelevant under the law," the high court ruled in 2000. The new decision by Stabile's court ups the ante for Sattazahn because evidence of a "significant history" of felony convictions is an aggravating circumstance prosecutors can cite in pressing for the death penalty. (source: Pennlive.com) ************ Pennsylvania to seek death penalty against man accused in killing spree ---- Prosecutors say Todd West deserves to be put to death if convicted of 1st-degree murder in the deaths of 7 people in 2 states A New Jersey man who is accused of killing 7 people in 2 states over a 7-week span this summer could face the death penalty if he is convicted in Pennsylvania, prosecutors said. Todd West, 23, is charged in Pennsylvania with homicide and robbery counts in three deaths. Lehigh County prosecutors say he fatally shot a man in Easton and a man and a woman in Allentown on 5 July. Police have also alleged that West also killed his cousin in an apartment building in his home town of Elizabeth, New Jersey, on 18 May. He is also accused of killing 3 other victims in Elizabeth on 25 June. Authorities have agreed to try West in the Pennsylvania cases 1st. Prosecutors, who have said the victims were chosen at random, said in court documents filed last week that West deserved to be put to death if convicted of 1st-degree murder. West and 2 co-defendants are scheduled to be formally arraigned on Tuesday. If West is convicted of 1st-degree murder, however, he may not face execution. In February, Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf placed a hold on executions in a state which has executed only 3 prisoners since the reinstatement of the death penalty by the US supreme court in 1976. New Jersey abolished the death penalty in 2007. Investigators said West told them he spotted Kory Ketrow, 22, walking down an Easton street early on 5 July and directed a co-defendant to pull their SUV over, then emptied his 6-shot, .38-caliber revolver at the victim. A few minutes later, authorities allege, West opened fire on a motorist stopped at a red light - striking the vehicle but missing the occupants - and then headed to Allentown, less than 20 miles away, firing out of the SUV's window during the ride. Authorities allege that he shot 2 more people minutes after getting to Allentown. Police found Francine Ramos, 32, dead of gunshot wounds in the driver's seat of a car. Her passenger, Trevor Davante Hall-Gray, 21, was found leaning against a nearby parked car, with gunshot wounds. He died a short time later. Authorities said West told them he heard voices in his head and believed the devil was speaking to him. Defense attorney Robert Sletvold, who has said he will seek a mental health evaluation of his client, said he was not surprised by the decision to seek capital punishment. "From the beginning, this appeared to be the way the Commonwealth was going to take the case," Sletvold told the (Easton) Express-Times. (source: The Guardian) CALIFORNIA: State may vote again next November on death penalty ban Californians may be asked again to repeal the state's delay-plagued death penalty law next November, four years after narrowly retaining the law. State election officials on Friday cleared a new initiative for circulation that would ban executions in California and make life imprisonment without parole the mandatory sentence for all capital murderers, including the nearly 750 condemned inmates on the nation's largest death row. A similar measure got 48 % of the vote in 2012. The new initiative, like the previous one, would require convicted killers to work while in prison and would send 60 % of their prison wages to their victims' families. State finance officials say the repeal would save California up to $150 million a year by eliminating Death Row and the cost of litigating lengthy capital cases. The new initiative would send the savings to state coffers, unlike the 2012 m The lead sponsor is Mike Farrell, the former co-star of television's "MASH" series, who recently stepped down as executive director of the advocacy group Death Penalty Focus to run the campaign. Although the measure has now been approved for circulation, Farrell said Friday no decision will be made to start gathering signatures until backers have lined up the needed funding. The initiative will need 365,880 signatures of registered voters within 180 days to qualify for the ballot. It may wind up competing with an initiative by death penalty supporters to speed up executions in California. The rival measure, which is awaiting state clearance to begin circulation, would set strict deadlines for filing death sentence appeals and for rulings by the state Supreme Court. It would also seek to expand the pool of lawyers for death penalty cases to all attorneys who accept court appointments to represent impoverished defendants. Another provision would eliminate a requirement of a period of public comment before final state approval of a new single-drug execution method, proposed by state officials to replace 3-drug executions in settlement of a lawsuit by death penalty supporters. Executions in California have been on hold since 2006, when a federal judge ruled that defects in the state's lethal injection procedures created an unacceptable risk of a botched execution, but an appeals court overturned that ruling last month. 18 states have abolished the death penalty and voters in Nebraska will decide next November whether to uphold their legislature's decision to eliminate capital punishment. All the other repeals were by legislative action rather than at the ballot box. (source: San Francisco Chronicle) ********** Ex-con accused in execution of 3 Pinoys found guilty After 3 years, a verdict has arrived for the man believed to have shot and killed 4 people, including 3 Filipino Americans, at an illegal boarding house in Northridge, California. On Thursday, a jury at a San Fernando court has found Ka Pasasouk guilty of 1st degree murder for the shooting deaths of Teofilo Navales, Robert Calabia, Amanda Ghossein, and Jennifer Kim. According to the testimonies, Pasasouk had planned to kill Navales whom he imcyhad an altercation with several months before the Dec. 2, 2012 murder. He shot and killed the other three in an attempt to hide witnesses. Because of the nature of the execution style murders, Pasasouk faces a possible death sentence. The penalty phase of the hearing is scheduled for next week. Local authorities have been blamed for failing to protect the public from Pasasouk, who has had a history of violence and drug related cases. (source: ABS-CBN news) USA: Combat experience is factor in death penalty cases, experts say Over 22 days in October 2002, John Allen Muhammad and an accomplice terrorized residents of Washington, D.C., shooting 13 people while they shopped, dined, or stopped for gas. Known as the "D.C. Sniper," Muhammad was an Army veteran who had enlisted in the National Guard at age 18, transferred to the regular Army in 1985 and served three months as a combat engineer in the Persian Gulf War. By his ex-wife's account, Muhammad was once the "life of the party," and a good soldier. But he returned home from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait a changed man, "moody, confused, diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder," Mildred Muhammad said during a speech on domestic violence at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in 2012. Shortly after Muhammad left the Army in 1995, his life began to unravel. He began abusing and threatening his wife, kidnapped his children, and in 2002, systematically began killing people across the U.S. At his trial, Muhammad represented himself. He lost and was sentenced to death. In his final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court before he was executed in 2009, medical experts said he lacked rational understanding to represent himself, was delusional and actually had 3 lesions in his brain. Now a new report from the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center argues that Muhammad's military experience and mental health condition should have been considered as part of his defense and he should not have been allowed to represent himself. In a broader context, the report also charges that the veterans on death row in more than 35 states face a legal system that poorly understands the trauma of war and the significant impacts that combat can have on the human psyche. Few states keep tabs of the number of veterans on death row, but extrapolation of data from several states, including California and Florida, which have the highest known numbers, indicate that 275 to 300 of the nation's 3,057 death row inmates have served in the military. Richard Dieter, author of "Battle Scars: Military Veterans and the Death Penalty," said that in death penalty cases involving known veterans, most of the vets not only served in the military, but also deployed to combat zones. "The issue is that they have combat experience, often facing shocking traumatic experiences of war and it had an effect on them," Dieter said. "Often, this didn't come out in trial and this seems, to me, like mitigating evidence that's out of line with receiving the death penalty." In March, Vietnam veteran Andrew Brannan became the 1st person to be executed in the U.S. in 2015. Brannan, who had been rated 100-percent disabled for PTSD by the Veterans Affairs Department, murdered a sheriff's deputy after he was pulled over for traveling 98 mph on a country road. In a flurry of last-minute appeals, Brannan's attorneys argued that at the time of his trial, the medical community knew little about the psychiatric impact of combat. "The nation's understanding has evolved so much in the past 14 years," said Tom Lundin, one of Brannan's attorneys. "This case violates the Eighth Amendment. It is cruel and unusual punishment for a combat veteran suffering from documented PTSD and he should not be executed." Although the death penalty is being acted on with less frequency in the U.S., Iraq War veteran Courtney Lockhart may be one of the next to receive the punishment. The former Army private kidnapped and killed Auburn University freshman Lauren Burk, 18, as she was getting into her car on campus in March 2008. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court declined to consider his case. Lockhart spent more than 15 months in Ramadi, Iraq, during a time when 64 members of his brigade died in combat. A jury sentenced him to life without parole, but the judge overruled that and sentenced Lockhart to death. Dieter said Lockhart's trial attorneys "did little to investigate or portray his military background" and says many lawyers don't know how to handle such cases. "They are not trained to explore what may have happened in the war zone, what kind of effect having your life threatened may have on your mental stability," Dieter said. He added that while PTSD or combat-related trauma "is no excuse," it is a factor that should be considered by the prosecution and the defense. "There ought to be a check on a case if a veteran is involved," he said. "Not that they are different than teachers, firefighters, police officers or others who are in public service, but it should be delved into that veterans have experiences no one else has had." The unique needs of veterans who enter the legal system were the primary reason that specialized "veterans treatment courts" were developed starting in 2008. These courts remove veterans from the traditional court system and provide support, counseling and treatment by legal professionals familiar with veterans' issues. They handle only cases that can be adjudicated with probation, mental health treatment or community service. Still, the system has "raised awareness in communities of veterans in the justice system" and called attention to the mental health consequences of combat deployments, said Christopher Deutsch, communications director with Justice For Vets. "More than any other time in our history, the public has an understanding for how much issues like PTSD affect men and women who have been in combat," Deutsch said. "The justice system as a whole is moving toward a place where judges want to have as much information as possible about defendants." But, he added, national data on the number of veterans in the justice system is more than 10 years old, and the task of identifying vets and considering their unique needs still rests with individual courts. "The vast majority of veterans return from service and lead exemplary lives and are heroes in our community. But we also have to accept that issues like combat PTSD can lead to violent behavior," Deustch said. Michael Rushford, president and CEO of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a nonprofit that supports the death penalty, said a veteran's military record should be considered by a jury in sentencing, one of many mitigating factors that may draw sympathy in sentencing. But, he added, even in the cases of veterans sentenced to death, "the public has a right to have that sentence for the worse murderers. In some cases, we think it???s the only appropriate sentence." Dieter's organization stopped short of calling for an across-the-board exemption for veterans facing the death penalty, and said DPIC officials wrote "Battle Scars" to call attention to the "forgotten cases, the unexplored cases." "It's hard for a jury to put aside the multiple murders and cold-bloodedness of many of these crimes and say it's mental illness," he said. "But I don't think that should be off the table." (source: Military Times) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Nov 22 13:39:59 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2015 13:39:59 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 22 TRINIDAD: Religion is the problem What if a church group started murdering homosexuals, adulterers, and atheists? Nearly everyone would say that these church members were not true Christians. Yet the killers could readily cite Biblical authority to justify their executions: Leviticus chapter 20, verses 10 and 13, and 24:16. Confronted with such texts in their holy books, religious believers have 2 typical responses: (a) that the verses are being taken out of context; or (b) that these laws no longer apply. These are not intellectually honest rebuttals. In respect to the first claim, believers can never give a context which alters the natural meaning of these texts; in respect to the 2nd, this would logically mean that their god changes his mind and therefore no text can be taken as authoritative. Of course, Christians don't usually execute sinners nowadays. But apologists for Islam like to point out that Christianity of the Middle Ages committed many of the same atrocities that Muslim extremists are doing today. This is a curious defence, however, since it is an assertion that 2 wrongs make a right. But this just shows how religious belief retards moral reasoning. Consider, for example, this scenario: you are a ruler on a tropical island which is not technologically advanced enough to build prisons. Three men have robbed a fisherman, murdered him, and stolen his boat. When they are caught, you have 3 options for punishment: (1) banish them from the island; (2) execute them; (3) stake them to the hot sand on the beach, puncture their eyeballs with sharpened sticks, cut off their hands and feet, and let them bleed to death. Now whether you choose (1) or (2) will depend on whether you support the death penalty or not. But most people would not choose the third option, since execution by torture is a punishment disproportionate to the crime. Yet, in this scenario, all devout Muslims must choose Option#3: for this is exactly what the Prophet Muhammad is recorded in the Hadiths as doing and, according to Islamic doctrine, his actions are considered a perfect guide on all questions of morality and law. Now, clearly, when Muhammad ordered this punishment 1,400 years ago, that was considered justice. In the 21st century, however, the majority of religious believers would probably not view such acts as just or even civilised. But what has changed? Not the holy texts, obviously. Instead, believers twist and turn to avoid the clear meanings of such texts. Even when I cite Sura 4:34 of the Q'uran, which instructs men who fear being horned to beat their wives, Muslim apologists claim I am misquoting the text. But why are Muslim believers arguing against a verse in their own holy book which they say is God's absolute truth? Even if we accept the argument of different interpretations, this would mean that their God has failed in the most basic goal of clarity: which would make me a better writer than Allah. The fact is, Muslims are embarrassed by this text because wife-beating is considered reprehensible in modern society. And that shows that interpretations of religious texts are really shaped by secular values. Also, as the British philosopher A C Grayling notes in his book The God Argument, "Non-fundamentalist religion, by definition depends upon cherry-picking the given religion's doctrines, discarding the uncongenial teachings and reinterpreting others to make them more comfortable to live with." This is not to say that holy books are irrelevant. After all, Jainism has injunctions which specifically abjure violence, whereas Islam has many texts justifying it: that is why Jains generally do not commit suicide with bombs in crowded places. But the attitude of religious believers is mainly determined by their holy books as interpreted under specific socioeconomic and political conditions. So Muslims who are a minority group in any country are relatively more tolerant, at least in action, than their counterparts in Muslim majority nations. But theirs is not genuine tolerance - ie respect for different beliefs, philosophies and lifestyles. After all, not one Muslim leader in T&T has ever agreed that homosexuals should have the same rights as heterosexuals or that the marriage age for Muslim females should be raised from 12 years old. All this hinges on a core question of moral philosophy: Is an act good because God makes it so or because it is inherently so? If an act is only good because it is ordained by God, then God could make sex with babies morally right. If, however, we assert that such an act could never be moral, it means that we are applying a standard of morality without reference to God. I have found that believers have a hard time understanding the simple logic of this argument. Some of them even insist that "God would never make such acts good," without realising that this assertion also means that God is constrained by some antecedent moral standard which exists outside Himself. This is why people who base their morals on religion can always justify any atrocity, whereas persons whose morality is based on secular ethics never can. (source: Opinion, Kevin Baldeosingh----The Guardian) PHILIPPINES: Death penalty for foreign drug traffickers gets nod The House committee on dangerous drugs has passed and endorsed for plenary approval a bill imposing stiffer penalties, including death, on foreigners found guilty of engaging in drug-related activities in the country. The panel, chaired by Iligan City Rep. Vicente Belmonte Jr., recently approved House Bill 1213 principally authored by Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez and Abante Mindanao party-list Rep. Maximo Rodriguez Jr. "The measure allows the imposition of death penalty if prescribed under the national laws of the alien offender," the authors said. The bill is entitled "An Act Adopting the Higher Prescribed Penalty, Including Death, of the National Law of An Alien Found Guilty of Trafficking Dangerous Drugs and Other Similar Substances, Amending for the Purpose Republic Act 9165, Otherwise Known as the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002." "This means that the imposition of the penalty for drug offenses as prescribed under the national law of the foreigner or the penalty under Republic Act 9165, whichever is higher, is the rule to follow," the authors said. Rodriguez originally introduced the bill during the 15th Congress. He said the previous measure was approved on 2nd, 3rd and final reading by the House during the 15th Congress. But it was not acted upon by the Senate. The authors noted that in June 2006, RA 9346 was enacted into law prohibiting the imposition of death penalty in the Philippines. "While the rationale for passing the law was clear and noble, there are some sectors of society who believe that this law is not just and equitable because while foreigners may not be executed in the Philippines for drug trafficking, Filipinos who commit drug offenses are executed in other countries with death penalty," they said. Because of the ban on death penalty, an argument against the law states that many foreigners are emboldened to establish their drug factories in the country because once convicted, they only suffer life imprisonment as opposed to the penalties that they may suffer in their own countries which, in some cases, is death, like in China. (source: Philippine Star) CHINA/NEW ZEALAND: PM pleas for leniency over death penalty Prime Minister John Key has asked China's president to consider New Zealand's opposition to the death penalty in the case of a Kiwi man facing drug charges in China. Peter Gardner was arrested at Guangzhou airport in November last year, when he was found to be carrying nearly 30 kilograms of methamphetamine. If found guilty he could face the death penalty. New Zealand was opposed to the death penalty, and Mr Key said he asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to take that into consideration, when the pair met at the East Asia Summit in Malaysia yesterday. "I didn't ask for him to not be treated appropriately. In other words, if he has broken the law he needs to be held to account for what is potentially a very serious issue with drugs trafficking. "But what I did say to the Chinese president is New Zealand has a very strong view about the death penalty." Mr Gardner said at his hearing in May that he had been duped by an intermediary who headed a large Australian gang. He holds dual Australian and New Zealand nationality but entered China on his New Zealand passport, for what he said was intended to be a pick-up of athletic performance enhancing drugs, arranged by the Sydney intermediary. (source: Radio New Zealand) BANGLADESH----executions 2 top Bangladesh war criminals hanged The 2 top Bangladesh war criminals - Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed - were hanged tonight for committing crimes against humanity during the country's liberation war in 1971. The executions took place at around 12:45 am tonight at the Dhaka Central Jail after their appeals, the last resort, seeking Presidential mercy were turned down by the head of the state following completion of all legal procedures. Executed Mojaheed is the secretary general of Jamaat e Islami and was the commander of the Al Badr killing squad, an auxiliary force of the Pakistan army, which had annihilated scores of Bengali intellectuals in 1971. Chowdhury, currently the presidium member of Bangladesh Nationalist Party(BNP), was convicted by the apex court for crimes against humanity as the key collaborator of Pakistan army, some 44 years ago. Just before the execution, family members of the 2 convicts, who served as ministers and in various key positions during Gen H M Ershad and Khaleda Zia's tenures, were allowed to meet them amid tightened security around the high security prison in Dhaka . The authorities have also deployed, hundreds of police, paramilitary Border Guards Bangladesh and elite RAB in hundreds in all major towns across the country to prevent possible violence by the supporters of the 2 widely known war criminals . Earlier on Wednesday, a four member appellate division bench led by Chief Justice S K Sinha wrapped up the long judicial process which the Sheikh Hasina government had initiated in 2010, more then 3 decades after Bangladesh becomes an independent through a devastating war in 1971. In October 2013, a war crimes tribunal found Chowdhury, 66, guilty of 9 out of the 23 charges for crimes against humanity, including killing and torture of scores of pro-independence people in Chittagong, where he is known as a "terror". The apex court on June 16 this year upheld the death penalty of Mojaheed, 67, for planning and instigating the killing of secular intellectuals and professionals towards the end of the Bangladesh's Liberation War. The 2 death row convicts have sought presidential clemency on Saturday as the last resort to safe their lives. While the 2 were the 1st such convicts to seek presidential mercy, the other 2 - Abdul Quader Mollah and Kamaruzzaman -- executed earlier, had declined to do so. In seeking the Presidential clemency, they both have acknowledged the horrific crimes they perpetrated in 1971 to thwart Bangladesh???s independence as the cohorts of the Pakistan army. The execution took place in the backdrop of a strong defence by Chowdhury's party, BNP, led by Khaleda Zia, which claimed their leader was in Pakistan in 1971, hence did not get justice . Jamaat-e-Islami has claimed their leader did not seek presidential mercy. (source: The Hindu) *********************** War criminal Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid buried in Faridpur after execution The secretary general of the Jamaat-e-Islami and BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury were both hanged at Dhaka Central Jail for the crimes against humanity they committed in 1971. Prison authorities said the executions took place at 12:55am. An ambulance carrying Mujahid's body left the jail premises for Faridpur at 2:55am. It arrived at west Khabashpur in Faridpur district around 6:30am. He was buried at the premises of Ideal Cadet Madrasa - run by local Jamaat activists - around 7:25am following a funeral prayer attended by family members and Jamaat activists. Local residents and journalists were not allowed to enter the madrasa premises during the burial. Mujahid, a minister in Khaleda Zia's coalition Cabinet, planned and executed mass murders, including those of intellectuals, scientists, academics and journalists in 1971. On July 17, 2013, the ICT passed the death sentence on him after he was proven guilty of the mass killings and torture of Hindus during the Liberation War. He had appealed against the verdict, but the Supreme Court had upheld the death penalty. His petition to review the sentence was also rejected by the top court. The only hurdle for the execution was a possible presidential clemency, which he sought on Saturday. In the end, the clemency appeal was turned down. (source: bdnews24.com) ******************** The death of conscience ---- Oishee was responsible for murdering her parents, but a deeper disease plagues our society With the rendition of Nur Hossain from India, the media is abuzz with every minute detail, from his handover to his appearance before court in Narayanganj. It was expected, since he is the principal accused in the gruesome seven-murder case in the river port city. The close relatives of the slain and several people, mainly journalists and political commentators, who have been following events since that fatal day in April of last year, are raising many questions, and pertinent questions they are too. I guess the law will take its course. However, only a few days ago, another landmark judgment was made -- the death penalty for young Oishee, who confessed to killing her parents. With due respect to the courts, my personal opinion is that it may prove counter-productive in this case. This was not a run-of-the-mill case of cold-blooded murder -- it was the murder of progenitors by the progeny. Someone killing her parents is the rarest of events, especially someone as young as Oishee. There are instances of people murdering a parent or parents or a sibling from avarice -- their removal may ease the way to inherit a property of value. Such vile crimes do happen in our society. It definitely was not the motive behind the gruesome actions of Oishee. It seems very plausible that Oishee, a drug-addled spoiled kid, on the verge of adulthood, had deep-rooted psychological problems. She should have been given psychiatric help, an attempt at rehabilitation. She also needs better representation in the higher courts, since she had already complained of coercion and torture during the process of obtaining her confessional statement and the question of being still officially underage during questioning, persists. This case also leaves room for introspection into the state of our social conscience. It was reported that Oishee was provided unlimited pocket money by her police officer father, some reports put the figure as high as Tk50,000 a month. Now, how does a police officer afford such lavish spending? The corruption and hypocrisy that have seeped into every tier of the administration and a certain section of society are giving rise to monsters. The memory is still fresh of the rich drunken kid who ran over a number of rickshaws, grievously injuring some people in the process. We see an honorable MP shooting a village boy in the legs and then getting out on bail, garlands around his "honourable" neck. There are, and will be, many such instances. When a boy or a girl realises the wealth of his/her parents are ill-gotten or inconsistent with their professions, he/she will no longer remain under the circle of control that parents should have over their kids up to a certain age. How can corrupt parents give lessons in morality to their children? They can only help open the doors of arrogance, apathy, and wanton behaviour for their kids. Such reckless living has already given rise to a generation of young people who live a life of extremes, in their lifestyles as well as in their behaviour pattern, which is wholly devoid of any respect for the rights of others. This generation is quite often into drug and alcohol abuse at a massive scale, depravity is a cornerstone of the structure of it, and it naturally leads to disillusionment about life and ultimate ruination. Worse still, once adults, these spoilt brats will continue the cycle of immorality and eventually cause the death of conscience of the society, if that conscience is still breathing. Sending Oishee to the gallows means we are just sweeping the dirt under the carpet. Oishee is just a manifestation of the disease that plagues our society, and such harsh judgment in one case will not deter others from leading their lives unconcerned about the accepted civilised norms of social behaviour, and they will remain disrespectful to the law of the land -- a notion will persist that money and power can buy all. The judgment on Oishee is like giving strong medicine to subside a fever, no attempts are made at locating and attacking the disease that's causing the fever, the disease will go merrily along. In his satirical play The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Berthold Brecht, the playwright, tried to show the rise of Adolf Hitler, in allegory, by chronicling a Chicago mobster, Arturo Ui, trying to control the cauliflower racket by ruthlessly disposing of the opposition. At the fall of the monster, Brecht warned: "Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again." (source: Op-Ed, SM Shahrakh----Dhaka Tribune) ********************* Nizami's appeal hearing may end by Dec 15: AG Attorney General Mahbubey Alam today expressed hopes that the Supreme Court hearing on the appeal of war criminal Motiur Rahman Nizami against his death penalty will be completed by December 15. Otherwise, the court will have to finish it in January as the apex court will go to a 20-day vacation from December 16, the attorney general said while talking to reporters at his office this afternoon. Earlier on November 23 last year, Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami challenged the death penalty awarded to him by a war crimes tribunal for his crimes against humanity committed during the Liberation War in 1971. International Crimes Tribunal-1 on October 29, 2014 handed him the death penalty on 5charges of war crimes, including murdering intellectuals. The 71-year-old was also awarded life term imprisonment on the other 4 charges. In his appeal Nizami mentioned that the tribunal had failed to consider that he was never associated with any auxiliary force controlled by Pakistan army in 1971, Shishir Manir, a lawyer for Nizami, told The Daily Star last year. (source: The Daily Star) ************** 'Halt execution until disposal of 21 Aug case' The family of death-row convict Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed on Saturday demanded a halt in execution of his death penalty until the 21 August grenade attack case is disposed of. The family told the media that Mojaheed wanted to know the state of the case in which he has been implicated as an accused. Attorney general Mahbubey Alam termed the demand illogical. "If someone is convicted and executed in one case, proceedings in all other against him/her come to an end automatically," he said when newsmen drew his attention to the matter. Mojaheed's wife Tamanna-e-Jahan addressed a press conference at the Supreme Court Bar Association auditorium. "He (Mojaheed) will want to know in writing from the state about the state of the 21 grenade attack case," she said. Asked if Mojaheed would file mercy petition to the president, his son Ali Ahammad Mabrur said his father is "innocent, innocent and innocent (in case of crimes against humanity)". "So, he wants to talk to lawyers on grenade attack case." Mojaheed's wife said her husband wanted to fight legally to clear his name from the charges of 21 August grenade attack case as his name was included in the supplementary charge-sheet. "He wants to be free from being stigmatised as killer through legal battle," she said. (source: prothom-alo.com) *********** Man, wife get death for killing brother in Chittagong in 2005 A court has handed down the death penalty to a man and his wife for stabbing his elder brother to death in Chittagong a decade ago. The convicts - Nur Mohammad and Rahima Begum - are on the run. Chittagong's Public Safety Tribunal Judge Syeda Hosne Ara pronounced the verdict on Sunday. Public Prosecutor Jahangir Alam said the couple had been absconding since they secured bail. The victim is Abul Kalam of Mirsarai Upazila. Prosecutor Alam said Nur Mohammad had served a jail term in an arson case filed by his elder brother Kalam and that this had motivated him to kill Kalam. "Nur and his wife Rahima hacked Kalam with sharp weapons when he was returning home after visiting his sister Salma Khatun on Nov 11, 2005. "Salma saw the couple dump the body in a nearby pond," the public prosecutor added. Kalam's wife Anowara Begum filed a case with police the same day. Police pressed charges in court against the 2 on Jan 2, 2006. The court indicted the couple on May 18, 2010. (source: bdnews24.com) **************** TWO PRISONERS AT RISK OF IMMINENT EXECUTION Despite serious fair trial concerns, on 18 November the highest court in Bangladesh upheld the death sentences of Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury. This was the last judicial remedy available to them. They are now at risk of imminent execution unless the President commutes their death sentences to terms of imprisonment. Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format, including case information, addresses and sample messages. Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed, Secretary General of the Bangladeshi opposition party Jamaat-e-Islami and former Social Welfare Minister, and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, former MP and senior member of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, were sentenced to death by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) in 2013 on charges of crimes against humanity and genocide during the 1971 Independence War. The ICT, which is a Bangladeshi court set up in 2010, found them guilty after trials that did not meet international standards for fair trial. In contrast to death sentences imposed by other courts in Bangladesh ? which can be appealed twice to the High Court Division and once to the Appellate Division (the highest court) ? death sentences by the ICT can be appealed once to the Appellate Division only. The prisoners can ask the Appellate Division for a review of its own decision, and this review is done by the same bench that rules on the appeal. The two prisoners appealed against their death sentences to the Appellate Division, but their convictions were upheld. They then applied for a review, but the Appellate Division dismissed their review petition on 18 November. The review petition at the Appellate Division was effectively their last judicial opportunity to appeal their sentences. Salauddin Quader Chowdhury's defence team highlighted serious flaws in his appeal hearing. In one instance, the Supreme Court failed to dismiss the statement of a witness known as ?PW-6?. The witness testified that a person who could corroborate his statement was dead, when in fact the individual was alive and had even submitted a signed affidavit to the court to prove it. Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed?s appeal to the Supreme Court failed to dismiss the prosecution?s claim that he had instigated his subordinates to commit human rights abuses, when no subordinates had either been identified or testified on record. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Amnesty International reported that at least 141 men and one woman were sentenced to death in Bangladesh in 2014, with 1,235 people being under sentence of death at the end of 2014. Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format. Name: Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury Gender m/f: Male UA: 262/15 Index: ASA 13/2903/2015 Issue Date: 19 November 2015 Please let us know if you took action so that we can track our impact! EITHER send a short email to uan at aiusa.org with ?UA 262/15? in the subject line, and include in the body of the email the number of letters and/or emails you sent, OR fill out this short online form to let us know how you took action. Thank you for taking action! Please check with the AIUSA Urgent Action Office if taking action after the appeals date. If you receive a response from a government official, please forward it to us at uan at aiusa.org or to the Urgent Action Office address below. HOW YOU CAN HELP Please write immediately in Bangla, English or your own language: * Calling on the Bangladeshi Government to immediately halt the execution of Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury; * Urging them to commute the death sentence against Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury to terms of imprisonment; * Reminding them that Bangladesh is a state party to the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which requires states to adhere to the highest standards of fair trial. PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 31 DECEMBER 2015 TO: President Md. Abdul Hamid President's Office Bangabhaban, Dhaka, Bangladesh Fax: +880 2 9585502 Salutation: Honourable President Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Prime Minister?s Office Old Sangshad Bhaban, Tejgaon, Dhaka 1215, Bangladesh Fax: +880 2 9133722 Email: info at pmo.gov.bd Salutation: Dear Prime Minister State Minister Ministry of Home Affairs Bangladesh Secretariat, Building-8 (1st & 3rd Floor), Dhaka, Bangladesh Fax: +880 2 9573711 Email: stateminister at mha.gov.bd Salutation: Dear Minister Also send copies to: Ambassador Mohammad Ziauddin, Embassy of Bangladesh 3510 International Drive NW, Washington DC 20008 Fax: 202 244 2771 -OR- 202 244 7830 I Phone: 202 244 0183 I Email: bdoot_pwash at yahoo.com Please share widely with your networks:?http://bit.ly/1NFn1xY We encourage you to share Urgent Actions with your friends and colleagues! When you share with your networks, instead of forwarding the original email, please use the "Forward this email to a friend" link found at the very bottom of this email. Thank you for your activism! UA Network Office AIUSA ?600 Pennsylvania Ave SE, Washington DC 20003 T. 202.509.8193 ? F. 202.509.8193 ?E. uan at aiusa.org ?amnestyusa.org/urgent ************ LESOTHO: TWENTY-THREE RISK UNFAIR TRIAL AND DEATH PENALTY Twenty-three members of the Lesotho army face a court martial on mutiny charges. Twenty-one have been in custody since May and in solitary confinement for over a month. There are concerns that evidence against them was obtained through torture and that they will not receive a fair trial. If found guilty, they face the death penalty. Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format, including case information, addresses and sample messages. The head of the Lesotho Defence Force (LDF), Lieutenant-General Maaparankoe Mahao, was dismissed from the army in May after months of political instability. Shortly afterwards, approximately 50 soldiers perceived to be loyal to him were arrested. Lawyers representing their families brought legal applications demanding that the detainees be produced in court. During court proceedings, many of the soldiers alleged that they had been tortured and ill-treated. Over half of them were later released with 23 remaining in custody, charged with mutiny. Some of the released soldiers have become ?accomplice witnesses?, giving evidence against the 23 accused. It is believed that their testimonies were obtained through torture whilst they were in detention. The soldiers have been held at Maseru Maximum Security Prison since May. Two have been released on bail in the last three months. All 23 are charged with mutiny and face a court martial. If convicted, they could be sentenced to death. They appeared before a court martial on 5 October, but proceedings were suspended. Twenty-one remain detained and since mid-October have been in solitary confinement. Prolonged solitary confinement (in excess of 15 consecutive days) amounts to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. If they are permitted consultations with their lawyers, these meetings are only allowed for 20 minutes at a time and are not private. There is serious concern for their emotional and physical well-being. The soldiers challenged their detention and the composition of the court martial in the Maseru High Court. On 5 October, the High Court declared the manner of their continued detention unlawful and ordered their release on ?open arrest?, a form of bail. The LDF failed to comply with the court order. The lawyers representing the detainees have also been subjected to repeated intimidation and harassment, including death threats. The court martial is expected to resume its work on 1 December. Given the manner in which the panel was convened and the treatment of the detainees and their legal team to date, there are concerns that they will not receive a fair trial. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Former LDF head Lieutenant-General Maaparankoe Mahao was shot dead in Maseru on 25 June by soldiers who went to arrest him in relation to an alleged plot to lead a rebellion in the army. He was dismissed from the army on 21 May. He had challenged his dismissal in court in June, shortly before his killing, arguing that it was illegal. The government claimed that he had resisted arrest, but his family disputed this, insisting it was a carefully planned assassination by his former colleagues in the army. A 10-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) Commission of Inquiry led by Justice Mpaphi Phumaphi of Botswana was set up on 3 July to investigate security-related issues facing Lesotho, including the killing of Maapankoe Mahao. The commission was forced to conclude its work prematurely due to the refusal of the LDF to cooperate. It has submitted its report and the report will be discussed by SADC in late November. Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format. Name: Twenty-three soldiers Gender m/f: m UA: 263/15 Index: AFR 33/2912/2015 Issue Date: 20 November 2015 Please let us know if you took action so that we can track our impact! EITHER send a short email to uan at aiusa.org with ?UA 263/15? in the subject line, and include in the body of the email the number of letters and/or emails you sent, OR fill out this short online form to let us know how you took action. Thank you for taking action! Please check with the AIUSA Urgent Action Office if taking action after the appeals date. If you receive a response from a government official, please forward it to us at uan at aiusa.org or to the Urgent Action Office address below. HOW YOU CAN HELP Please write immediately in English or your own language: * Expressing your concern that the detainees have been subjected to prolonged solitary confinement in violation of the prohibition on torture and other ill-treatment, and calling on the Lesotho authorities to immediately end their solitary confinement and to ensure that the detainees are treated humanely at all times; * Urging them to ensure that the detainees are allowed adequate time and facilities to consult with their lawyers in private and that the lawyers are not subjected to intimidation or harassment; * Calling on them to ensure that trial proceedings conform to international law and standards on fair trial, in particular that no information obtained as a result of torture or other ill-treatment or coercion is used as evidence. PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 1 JANUARY 2016: Minister of Defence and National?Security Hon. T?eliso Mokhosi Ministry of Defence and National Security Along Kingsway, Opposite National Library P/Bag A166 Maseru 100 Email: pglerotholi at gmail.com Salutation: Dear Honourable Minister Minister of Justice, Human Rights?and Correctional Service Hon. Moeketse Vincent Malebo P.O. Box 527, Maseru 100, Lesotho Salutation: Dear Honourable Minister And copies to: Prime Minister Honourable Dr. Pakalitha B. Mosisili Phase I Government Complex P.O. Box 527, Maseru 100, Lesotho Fax: +266 22 310 102 Also send copies to: Ambassador Prof. Eliachim Molapi Sebatane, Embassy of the Kingdom of Lesotho 2511 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington DC 20008 Phone: 1 202 797 5533 I Fax: 1 202 234 6815 I Email: lesothoembassy at verizon.net Please share widely with your networks:?http://bit.ly/1O7ShdF We encourage you to share Urgent Actions with your friends and colleagues! When you share with your networks, instead of forwarding the original email, please use the "Forward this email to a friend" link found at the very bottom of this email. Thank you for your activism! UA Network Office AIUSA ?600 Pennsylvania Ave SE, Washington DC 20003 T. 202.509.8193 ? F. 202.509.8193 ?E. uan at aiusa.org ?amnestyusa.org/urgent From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Nov 23 09:38:13 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2015 09:38:13 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO Message-ID: Nov. 23 OHIO: Prosecutors seek death penalty in northeast Ohio killings Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against a man accused of fatally shooting 2 women this year in northeastern Ohio. A Stark County grand jury has indicted Leeroy Rogers Sr. on aggravated murder, kidnapping and weapons-related charges. The Canton Repository reports (http://bit.ly/1YmHBKY ) last week's indictment included factors that can lead to a death sentence if Rogers is convicted. A message seeking comment was left Monday at Rogers' attorney's office. The 58-year-old Rogers is accused of killing 47-year-old Kimberly Clupper, whose body was found April 11 in a Massillon park. He also is accused of killing 23-year-old Kendra Carnes. Her body was discovered Aug. 5 in a creek. Both women were shot in the head. Massillon police say a gun used to kill the women was found in Rogers' home. (soure: Associated Press) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Nov 23 09:38:54 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2015 09:38:54 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 23 SINGAPORE: Fate of Sarawakian on death row in limbo after Singapore court reserves judgment The Court of Appeal in Singapore today reserved judgment on whether it should review the death sentence meted out on Sarawakian Kho Jabing for murder 8 years ago. Lawyer Chandra Mohan K. Nair, in his 2-hour submission this evening, told the court that Jabing should be given a lighter sentence given that a lower court had earlier sentenced him to life imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane. Jabing was found guilty of killing a man in a botched robbery in 2007. "The lawyer today urged the judges to reconsider the death sentence," Kirsten Han, co-founder of Singapore's anti-death penalty group, We Believe in Second Chances, told The Malaysian Insider. In 2010, the Sarawakian was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Chinese national Cao Ruyin. His case, however, was remitted to the Singapore High Court in 2013 for re-sentencing after the island-state reviewed their mandatory death penalty laws in 2012. He was then sentenced to life imprisonment with caning. His family's relief was shortlived when the death penalty was reimposed by the Court of Appeal in a close 3-2 decision. Today's proceedings ended with the court reserving judgment to a date which has yet to be decided. Until then, Jabing's stay of execution remains. Han said that it was likely that judgement would only be announced after the court, which would be on vacation at the end of next week, resumed its session in the new year. Jabing, who is of Iban and Chinese descent, was scheduled for execution at dawn on November 6, but received a surprise stay of execution the day before after the Singapore Court of Appeal granted his lawyer time to file a criminal motion for a review of his case. Jumai, and their mother Lenduk with the help of civil society groups in Malaysia and Singapore, have since ramped up efforts to appeal for support from Malaysian lawmakers and the public in calling for the Singapore government to grant him clemency. Jumai, who was in Kuala Lumpur with her mother on November 11 to meet Sarawakian lawmakers and civil society groups, told The Malaysian Insider that her brother was "truly repentent". "He was so naive when he first went to Singapore, he had never worked or lived away from home. "He was easily influenced, and he knows he is wrong. He just wants a 2nd chance at life, even if it is behind bars," she said. (source: The Malaysian Insider) *************** Kovan double murder: Verdict on 4 December The verdict of the Kovan double murder trial will be delivered by Justice Tay Yong Kwang on 4 December. Iskandar Rahmat is standing trial for murdering Tan Boon Sin and his son Tan Chee Hong on 10 July 2013. The former police officer will be hanged if found guilty of the charges. The accused was in court on Monday morning for the final submissions by both defence and prosecution for his case. No intent by suspect Iskandar's lawyer, Shashi Nathan, appealed in his submission for Justice Tay to lower the original charge of murder with the intention to kill under Section 300 (a) of the Penal Code, which carries the mandatory death penalty, to that of Section 300 (c) of the Penal Code. Section 300 (c) of the Penal Code prescribes that an act is murder if it is done with the intention of causing bodily injury to any person and the bodily injury intended to be inflicted is sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death. The death penalty is not mandatory under Section 300 (c) of the Penal Code, but Iskandar faces life in prison and possibly caning. Shashi said that he is not asking for his client to be acquitted as Iskandar had already admitted to stabbing both his victims. "Yes he stabbed both of them but he had no intention to kill them," said Shashi. The lawyer added that his client is financially strapped and his only motive was to rob the elder Tan to pay off his debts. He pointed out that his client did not bring a change of clothes and had not parked his car anywhere near the vicinity of the crime scene to facilitate his escape. "He did not bring a knife and ultimately no knife was found," said Shashi, who added that his client panicked after murdering his victims and left empty handed. Iskandar wanted to silence victims The prosecution, led by Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Lau Wing Yum, maintained that Iskandar had planned to kill his victims in order to silence them. He urged Justice Tay to convict Iskandar under Section 300 (a), arguing that the accused intended to kill his victims and was not acting in self-defense during the incident. DPP Lau said that the total number of 40 stab wounds found on both victims showed that Iskandar was not defending himself during the incident and that he was determined to kill his victims. "The accused admitted that he had a knife in his hand when he was defending himself yet there were wounds to the head, neck and chest of both victims," said DPP Lau. (source: Yahoo News) KENYA: 7 On Trial Over Murder of Former Kabete MP George Muchai The State has lined up 4 key prosecution witnesses in a case in which 7 suspects face trial for the murder of former Kabete MP George Muchai. Mr Muchai, his 2 bodyguards and driver were killed aides in Nairobi early this year. The witnesses include 2 sisters who were carjacked shortly before the killings and who are "eyewitnesses" in the prosecution's list. Another witness is a taxi driver who was called after the fatal shooting and who was "warned not to disclose what he had seen or heard or else he would be killed in the next 2 days." The prosecution also has an "unnamed" witness" who was in contact with the accused persons and who revealed that while in their company, they warned him against mentioning what he had seen and heard and if he did so they would kill him." The suspects face 2 different capital offences before two courts in Nairobi arising out of the gangland style killing of the trade unionist-cum-politician. Eric Isabwa alias Chairman, Raphael Kimani alias Kim Butcheri, Mustapha Kimani alias Musto, Stephen Astiva alias Chokore, Jane Wanjiru alias Shiro, Margaret Njeri and Simon Wambugu have denied the four charges of murder at the High. ROBBERY CHARGES In a magistrate's court, they also face multiple robbery charges in which the 2 sisters are complainants, having been allegedly carjacked and are eye witnesses of the killing. If found guilty, the suspects could be sentenced to hang "twice" since each of the 2 separate capital offences attracts the death penalty. The 7 suspects were charged before Lady Justice Lessit with 4 counts of murder. The charges state that on the night of February 7, 2015 along Kenyatta Avenue in Nairobi, they murdered Mr Muchai, his 2 bodyguards Samuel Kimathi Kailikia and Samuel Lekakeny Matanta, and his driver Stephen Ituu Wambugu. At the magistrate's court, the suspects face ten counts of robbery with violence on the same night they allegedly killed the MP. A lone gunman shot Mr Muchai, who, prior to the incident, had said his life was in danger. The gunman reportedly stepped out of a car which had brushed Mr Muchai's at around 3am on February 7, 2015 at the Nyayo House round-about within the CBD as the MP was being driven home from a family gathering at Galileo's restaurant in Westlands, Nairobi. Police reports stated that the gunman motioned 2 other accomplices from their getaway car who then stole the bodyguards' pistols and a briefcase before speeding off. The getaway car had been robbed from Ms Glady's Waithera and her sister Irene Muthoni. The 2 have since testified in the robbery case. (source: Daily Nation) SOUTH KOREA: Experts Divided over Death Penalty Abolishment Scholars and experts were divided over retaining capital punishment on Monday in a public hearing held by the parliamentary legislation and judiciary committee. Lawyer Kim Hyung-tae claimed that abolishing the death penalty will eliminate the risks of wrongful executions, noting that murders decreased in Canada after it abolished the death penalty. Seoul National University law professor Han In-seop said that 140 of 200 countries effectively abolished the death penalty, adding capital punishment cannot be a resolution. Meanwhile, Sookmyung Women's University law professor Lee Young-ran said that the death penalty has a deterrent effect, warning against a hasty decision to abolish it. The parliamentary committee has been deliberating on a bill aimed at abolishing the death penalty, after 171 lawmakers made the proposal in August. (source: kbs.co.kr) SAUDI ARABIA: Poet Sentenced to Death for Apostasy----Reverses Earlier Ruling of 4 Years, 800 Lashes A Saudi court sentenced a Palestinian man to death for apostasy on November 17, 2015, for alleged blasphemous statements during a discussion group and in a book of his poetry. The accused, Ashraf Fayadh, 35, denies the charges and claims that another man made false accusations to the country's religious police following a personal dispute. Fayadh has 30 days to file his appeal. "Regardless of what Fayadh said or didn't say, Saudi Arabia should stop arresting people for their personal beliefs," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director. "The fact that Ashraf Fayadh is facing the prospect of being beheaded only adds to the outrageousness of this court ruling." The Guardian reported that Fayadh was born in Saudi Arabia and is a member of the British-Saudi art organization Edge of Arabia, and has curated art shows in Jeddah and Venice. The trial documents, which Human Rights Watch reviewed, indicate that members of Saudi Arabia's Committee on the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, or religious police, arrested Fayadh at a cafe in Abha, in southern Saudi Arabia, in August 2013. The religious police went to the cafe after a man reported that Fayadh had made obscene comments about God, the Prophet Muhammad, and the Saudi state. The man also alleged that Fayadh passed around a book he wrote that allegedly promoted atheism and unbelief. After Fayadh was arrested, the court documents indicate, the religious police discovered on his phone photos of Fayadh with several women, whom Fayadh said he met at an art gallery. The religious police held him for a day, then released him, but authorities re-arrested him on January 1, 2014. Prosecutors charged him with a host of blasphemy-related charges, including: blaspheming "the divine self" and the Prophet Muhammad; spreading atheism and promoting it among the youth in public places; mocking the verses of God and the prophets; refuting the Quran; denying the day of resurrection; objecting to fate and divine decree; and having an illicit relationship with women and storing their pictures in his phone. During the trial, which consisted of six hearings between February and May 2014, Fayadh denied the charges, and called three witnesses contesting the testimony of the man who reported him to the religious police. The defense witnesses said that the man reported Fayadh following a personal dispute, and that they had never heard blasphemous statements from Fayadh. Fayadh also said that his book, Instructions Within, published a decade before, consists of love poems and was not written with the intention of insulting religion. During the last session, Fayadh expressed repentance for anything in the book that religious authorities may have deemed insulting, stating, according to trial documents, "I am repentant to God most high and I am innocent of what appeared in my book mentioned in this case." On May 26, 2014, the General Court of Abha convicted Fayadh and sentenced him to 4 years in prison and 800 lashes. The court rejected a prosecution request for a death sentence for apostasy due to trial testimony indicating "hostility" between Fayadh and the man who reported him, as well as Fayadh's repentance. The prosecutor appealed the ruling. Human Rights Watch was not able obtain a copy of the appeals ruling on the initial verdict, but the case was eventually sent back to the lower court. On November 17, 2015, a new judge with the General Court of Abha reversed the previous sentence and sentenced Fayadh to death for apostasy. According to the judge's ruling, he dismissed the testimony of the defense witnesses in the initial trial and ruled that Fayadh's repentance was not enough to avoid the death sentence. "Repentance is a work of the heart relevant to matter of the judiciary of the hereafter; it is not the focus of the earthly judiciary," the ruling said. The case moves next to the appeals court. The sentence must be approved by the appeals court and the Supreme Court. Saudi Arabia has executed 152 people in 2015, which according to Amnesty International is the highest recordednumber since 1995. Most executions are carried out by beheading, sometimes in public. The vast majority are for murder and drug crimes, but Saudi courts occasionally hand down death sentences for other "crimes" such as apostasy and sorcery. In February 2015, a Saudi court sentenced a Saudi man to death for apostasy for allegedly posting a video to YouTube showing him tearing pages of the Quran. A local activist associated with the case told Human Rights Watch that the man suffered from a mental disorder. Human Rights Watch opposes capital punishment in all countries and under all circumstances. Capital punishment is unique in its cruelty and finality, and it is inevitably and universally plagued with arbitrariness, prejudice, and error. Saudi authorities regularly pursue charges against individuals based solely on their peaceful exercise of freedom of expression, in violation of international human rights obligations. The Arab Charter on Human Rights, which Saudi Arabia has ratified, guarantees the right to freedom of opinion and expression under article 32. "This death sentence against Fayadh is yet another indictment of Saudi Arabia's human rights record," Whitson said. "The Saudi authorities should immediately vacate this sentence and order Fayadh's release." (source: Human Righs Watch) BANGLADESH: Bangladesh on high alert after 2 opposition leaders executed Bangladesh was on high alert Monday after executing 2 opposition leaders for war crimes during the country's 1971 independence war, despite threats of violence by their supporters and international concerns that the legal proceedings were flawed. A reporter was shot and wounded Sunday after covering the funeral of 1 of the men, though it was not clear who was responsible. On Monday, paramilitary border guards and thousands of other security officials were patrolling cities including the capital, Dhaka, in an effort to prevent any violence as the South Asian country's main Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, called for a nationwide strike. The party is protesting the hanging Sunday of its general secretary, Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, and Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury. Mujahid had been found guilty on charges of genocide, conspiracy in killing intellectuals, torture and abduction during the South Asian nation's independence war against Pakistan, while Chowdhury was convicted on charges of torture, rape and genocide. Authorities did not expect many to follow the call to strike, given that Jamaat-e-Islami has only about 3 percent of the country's vote. Nevertheless, authorities were being cautious after a spate of killings claimed by Islamist extremists this year, including the murders of four secular bloggers, a publisher and two foreigners since February. While there has been concern over the legal process that led to the executions, most leading Bangladeshi newspapers and TV stations supported the hangings. The leading English-language Daily Star in one story detailed the atrocities for which Chowdhury was convicted. A 2nd story narrated how minority Hindus had been brutally attacked and killed and their homes torched under Chowdhury's leadership. 2 top Bangla-language dailies, Samakal and Prothom Alo, also published reports demonstrating support for the trials and executions. A few hours after the men were hanged at Dhaka Central Jail in the nation's capital, a security detail escorted ambulances carrying their bodies to their homes, where their families were to perform burial rituals. Rajib Sen, a reporter for the Mohona TV station, was on his way back from Chowdhury's funeral in Chittagong district when his car was sprayed with bullets, the station said. 3 other journalists in the car escaped unhurt, and Sen was rushed to a hospital in Chittagong. The TV station is owned by a member of the ruling Awami League party. Police would not provide any details on the shooting, and it was not immediately clear who attacked the car. Last Wednesday, Bangladesh's Supreme Court upheld the men's death sentences. President Mohammad Abdul Hamid rejected a clemency appeal on Saturday, clearing the way for the executions, according to both the justice minister and home minister. The families denied that the 2 men asked for mercy, according to a spokesman. Jamaat-e-Islami and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party say the trials were politically motivated - an allegation Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has denied. 2 other senior Jamaat-e-Islami party leaders have already been executed for war crimes, among 18 people convicted of war crimes since the tribunal was set up in 2010 - most of them leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami. The party had campaigned openly against independence for Bangladesh, which was part of Pakistan until the 1971 war. Bangladesh's government says that Pakistani soldiers, aided by local collaborators, killed 3 million people and raped 200,000 women during the war. Mujahid, 67, was the head of Islami Chhatra Sangha, then the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami . He was accused of being the mastermind behind the killing of intellectuals, including teachers and journalists, days before the Pakistani military surrendered to a joint force of freedom fighters and Indian army units on Dec. 16, 1971, after a bloody 9-month war. Chowdhury, 66, whose father was the speaker of Pakistan's National Assembly and, at times, the acting president of Pakistan, also actively opposed Bangladeshi independence. He was accused of carrying out war crimes, including killing more than 200 civilians, mostly minority Hindus, during the independence war, according to evidence presented at the tribunal. In a statement late Sunday, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said the men's trials had been flawed, and that "Pakistan is deeply disturbed" by the executions. U.S. lawmakers overseeing foreign policy also described the war crimes tribunal, set up in 2013, as "very flawed" and a means of political retribution. Leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a letter sent Tuesday to the top U.S. diplomat for South Asia, voiced concern that "democratic space is shrinking" in Bangladesh amid "a growing climate of violence, fear and self-censorship." Since February, 4 secular bloggers, a publisher, and 2 foreigners - an Italian aid worker and a Japanese agriculture researcher - have been killed in attacks linked to Islamic militants. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for some of the attacks, but authorities say the Sunni extremist group has no presence in the country. Instead, Hasina has blamed the attacks on the opposition, accusing them of trying to destabilize the country and halt the war crimes trials. Both opposition parties denied the allegation. Such extremist violence was once rare in Bangladesh, which is mostly Muslim but has a strong secular tradition. Meanwhile, at least a dozen Christian bishops or priests have received death threats by phone or SMS from suspected radical groups, according to a Christian association. (source: Associated Press) ************** Brotherhood condemns Bangladesh execution of opposition leaders . The Muslim Brotherhood has condemned the "unjust and unfair" execution of 2 opposition leaders in Bangladesh. On Saturday, the authorities in Dhaka carried out the death sentences passed on the Secretary General of the Islamic Group in the country, Ali Ahsan Mujahid, and an MP of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Salauddin Quader Chowdhury. "The fierce attack on the symbols of Islamic Action by imprisonment and the death penalty will not succeed in dissuading the Mujahideen fighters who walk the path of freedom and dignity," said a Brotherhood statement on its website. Bangladesh's highest court sentenced the 1 opposition leaders to death for crimes against humanity allegedly committed during the country's war of independence in 1971. (source: Middle East Monitor) *********** War Crimes Trial ---- 4 major appeals pending with SC; Hearing on Nizami's appeal may end next month Appeals of four top Jamaat-e-Islami leaders, among others, against death penalties handed down to them for war crimes are now pending with the Supreme Court and those would be dealt with 1 by 1. The convicts are: Jamaat Ameer Motiur Rahman Nizami, Mir Quasem Ali, ATM Azharul Islam, and Abdus Subhan. The Appellate Division of the SC is now hearing the appeal of Nizami. The SC might complete hearing Nizami's appeal by December 15, said Attorney General Mahbubey Alam while talking to reporters yesterday at his office. After disposing of the appeal of Nizami, the apex court might hold hearing on the appeal of death-row inmate Quasem, and then of Azharul's and Subhan's, he said. Besides, the appeals of condemned war criminals Mobarak Hossain, an expelled Awami League leader of Brahmanbaria, and Syed Mohammad Qaisar, former state minister of HM Ershad's government, were also pending with the SC, court sources said. So far, trials of five war criminals have been completed with the SC's latest verdicts on Jamaat leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed and BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury. Mojaheed and Salauddin were executed in the early hours of yesterday, as the apex court finally upheld their death penalty on November 18 for their crimes against humanity and war crimes in 1971. Earlier, the SC upheld the death penalties of Jamaat leaders Abdul Quader Mollah and Muhammad Kamaruzzaman for their wartime offences. Mollah was executed on December 12, 2013, and Kamaruzzaman on April 11 this year. The SC on September 17 last year commuted the death penalty of Jamaat leader Delawar Hossain Sayedee and sentenced him to imprisonment until death. Mahbubey said his office would move a review petition before the Appellate Division seeking to reinstate the death penalty for Sayedee after the SC releases the full text of the judgment that commuted his sentence. The SC verdicts on Mojaheed, Salauddin, Kamaruzzaman, and Quader Mollah had satisfied family members of the war crimes victims, justice seekers, war crimes trial campaigners, state counsels, and investigators, but the judgement on Sayedee has frustrated them. The convicts' families, defence counsels, and the party they belong to were dissatisfied with the trials and verdicts and pointed to controversies. Eminent jurist Shahdeen Malik told The Daily Star that in spite of some controversies and shortcomings, the war crimes tribunals have certainly worked well. The accused war criminals had received adequate opportunities to present their cases and the trials have been conducted and completed well, he said. "I strongly feel that most of the international criticisms are unfair." Khurshid Alam Khan, an SC lawyer and editor of Dhaka Law reports, told The Daily Star that the war crimes trials were fair despite controversies. War crimes were different from other crimes and there was no need for eyewitnesses, he said, adding that the documentary evidence was enough for holding such trials. After the International Crimes Tribunal-2 sentenced Sayedee to death in 2013, activists of Jamaat and pro-Jamaat student body Islami Chhatra Shibir resorted to violence that left 65 people dead and several hundred injured in just 1 week. International Crimes Tribunal-1 chairman Justice Md Nizamul Huq resigned on December 11, 2012, following the "leaked Skype conversation between him and expatriate legal expert Ahmed Ziauddin". Bangla daily Amar Desh also published "transcripts of the Skype conversation of Justice Huq with Ahmed Ziauddin". Kamaruzzaman on January 2, 2013, sought retrial of the war crimes case against him following the "scandal". Other accused, particularly Salauddin, filed several petitions with the tribunals and the SC to delay the proceedings. Salauddin and his men had used every means at their disposal to cause delays and create controversies. His family members and others allegedly leaked the draft tribunal verdict of his case and launched an online campaign to create a controversy. A controversy surfaced a few days before the SC verdict that upheld Salauddin's death penalty. Janakantha, a Bangla daily, published an article headlined "Saka Paribarer Totporota! Palabar Path Kome Gechhe" (Lobbying by Salauddin Quader's family! Escape route narrowed). Among other things, the opinion piece claimed that a member of the SC bench hearing the appeal of Salauddin met the convict's family members. Later, the SC found the newspaper editor and the writer of the article in contempt and punished them. Salauddin submitted a forged certificate from Punjab University of Pakistan before the SC to prove that he was not in Bangladesh during the country's Liberation War in 1971. However, the apex court saw through that and dismissed his review petition and upheld his death penalty. (source: The Daily Star) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Nov 23 09:40:40 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2015 09:40:40 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 23 INDIA: 5 get death penalty for rape and murder of Odisha minor A local court in Odisha's Keonjhar district today pronounced death sentence to 5 accused in the rape and murder of a minor girl in Beklundi village in the district in 2012. Pronouncing the quantum of sentence, Champua Additional District and Sessions Judge court today awarded death sentence to the 5 accused. On the day of the crime, the victim did not return home from morning tuition at Barbil basti. Following this, the family members launched a frantic search and found her body with injury marks on her body about 1 kilometer from the village. According to reports, the deceased, a Class VIII student of a high school in Barbil, was attacked by some persons earlier also but her family had not taken the matter seriously. While 5 of the accused were awarded death sentence, 2 others accused in the case are yet to be apprehended by the police. The convicted are Mata Munda, Mangal Prusty, Jiten Munda, Harjit Singh and Biswanath Munda. (source: Odisha Sun Times) IRAN----executions Iranian Authorities Hang 5 Prisoners Including Afghan Citizen According to confirmed sources, Iranian authorities have executed at least 5 prisoners in the span of 4 days. Close sources and the human rights group HRANA report that 3 prisoners were hanged by Iranian authorities on Wednesday November 18 at Zahedan Central Prison (Sistan & Baluchestan) for alleged drug related offenses. The names of the prisoners have been reported as Hassan Doroiee Moghaddam, Morteza Lakzaie, and Nazir Ahmad Reigi. A confirmed source who asked to be anonymous tells IHR: "Nazir Ahmad Reigi is an Afghan citizen who was held in prison for 6 years prior to his execution." According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, two prisoners were hanged at Miandoab Prison (West Azerbaijan). One of the prisoners has been identified as Ali Latini, a man who was sentenced to death for an alleged drug related offense. No confirmed information is available about the other prisoner. Official Iranian sources have been silent on these 5 executions. (source: Iran Human Rights) INDONESIA: Moratorium or not, Indonesia could be abandoning the death penalty A number of news outlets reported last week that Indonesia had placed a moratorium on the death penalty. Indonesian's co-ordinating security minister, Luhut Panjaitan, was said to announce this by saying: We haven't thought about executing a death penalty with the economic conditions like this. However, Panjaitan later denied this meant an end to capital punishment in Indonesia: No, I told them we will not carry out executions for the time being because we are now focusing on the economy. What is a moratorium? A moratorium means the suspension of executions. It may be official and announced, or simply practised. Therefore, on the face of it, Indonesia has entered a moratorium of an indeterminate period. The dozens on death row in Indonesia may eventually see their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. The last - unofficial - moratorium in Indonesia ran from 2008 to 2013 under the presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY). SBY is reported to have deeply disliked capital punishment. But his replacement, Joko Widodo, embraced executions as part of a hardline stance against drug offending. Capital punishment globally 140 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. 58 retain the death penalty. Many jurisdictions have abandoned capital punishment in recent years. A moratorium is a well-established step along the path to full abolition. However, capital punishment remains a global human rights concern. In 2014, at least 22 countries carried out 607 or more executions. At least 2,466 people were sentenced to death around the world. The 5 countries responsible for the most executions, according to confirmed data, were Iran (289), Saudi Arabia (90), Iraq (61), the US (35) and Sudan (23). These statistics do not include the suspected thousands of executions in China, which does not report statistics. Are the reasons for a moratorium important? There are many persuasive arguments against capital punishment. The death penalty violates the right to life, inflicts torture and is especially wrong where it is carried out in discriminatory ways or for crimes that are not really serious. Further, the death penalty risks the lives of innocent people wrongly convicted. It has no proven special deterrent value. Where a country introduces a moratorium or abolishes the death penalty, it might seem reasonable to assume that public and political opinion has identified the practice as wrong. However, capital punishment has often been abandoned for reasons that have little or nothing to do with the ethics of the practice. 31 American states retain capital punishment in law but only about 8 states currently practise it. The number of executions has dropped significantly in recent years. Oklahoma introduced a moratorium in 2014, following the botched and torturous execution of Clayton Lockett. Similar incidents have led doctors to refuse to participate in executions, and pharmaceutical companies to refuse supply of the most-tested lethal injection drugs. In the US, as in Indonesia, moratoriums have come in response to the high costs of death-penalty prosecutions and executions. A win for death penalty opponents? This is not Indonesia's 1st moratorium on capital punishment. And the practice could easily be reinstated. This may depend on whether the current moratorium is purely motivated by the economy, or whether it is also an indirect response to international condemnation of the most recent executions. The 2 factors are possibly related. Foreign investors are more cautious about Indonesia due to the controversy caused by its recent executions of foreign nationals. Whether Indonesia's new moratorium is genuine or temporary, this is an advocacy moment for Australia to seize. Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs responded to the executions of Australian drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran in Indonesia in April with a call for abolitionist lobbying across Asia and the Pacific. Triggs noted that the death penalty has been abandoned in New Zealand, Cambodia, Timor Leste, the Philippines, Bhutan and Nepal. De facto moratoriums are operating in Fiji, Thailand and Laos. Philip Ruddock is chairing a federal parliamentary inquiry into Australia's advocacy for the abolition of the death penalty. Asked whether Indonesia's economic justification for the moratorium might be a strategy to mask its desire to respond to international pressure, he said: My view is that any change is desirable ... There are a very large number of Indonesians on death row in other countries that [the Indonesians] work hard to have released, so they have an interest in seeing a more just outcome in relation to dealing with these issues around the world. During his recent visit to Indonesia, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull refrained from raising capital punishment. But in line with the parliamentary inquiry's objectives, Turnbull could capitalise on the moratorium by renewing dialogue with Indonesia on the issue. (source:Amy Maguire, Lecturer in International Law, University of Newcastle----The Conversation) PAKISTAN: Hanging of wheelchair-bound Pakistan prisoner to go ahead despite no new guidelines----Abdul Basit due to be hanged on Wednesday despite fears that execution of disabled prisoner could mean prolonged and cruel death Abdul Basit, 43, who is paralysed from the waist down, had received a last-minute reprieve in September after the duty magistrate said the execution was impossible under prison rules as he was unable to stand on the gallows. But a fresh death warrant for Basit was issued by the Faisalabad district court on Friday after the provincial government insisted the execution can proceed without waiting for new guidelines. Campaigners fear that any attempt to hang Basit could see him either facing decapitation or prolonged strangulation as the procedures set out in prison rules for assessing the length of rope only cover prisoners able to stand. A prison official told the Telegraph that a letter requesting new instructions for carrying out executions for disabled prisoners had been sent to the interior ministry in September, but that none had been received. "In our report from jail authorities, we clearly mention that Abdual Basit is paralysed," said the official, under condition of anonymity. The duty magistrate will now decide if the execution goes ahead on Wednesday. Basit's mother Nusrat Perveen said she had been asked to pay her son a final visit on Tuesday before his execution the following morning. "I was shocked when jail officials asked me to have a final meeting with my son," she said. "He is still paralysed and unable to move himself, he is unable to stand on the gallows-board." "I sent a mercy petition to the president weeks ago to pardon my son but received no reply. I appeal to the president and prime minister of Pakistan to pardon my son on humanitarian grounds." Sara Belal of Justice Project Pakistan, a non-profit law firm representing Basit, said: "Nothing has changed since Basit's execution was halted earlier this year, on the grounds that his disability could mean that he might suffer from a prolonged, needlessly cruel execution." International human rights groups reacted with outrage to the decision, which they claim violates Pakistani and international laws. Reprieve, the international human rights group, described the decision as "bewildering". The group says Basit's paraplegic condition is the result of mismanagement of a tubercular meningitis infection he contracted in prison in 2010. Basit, a former administrator at a medical college, was convicted in May 2009 of the murder of the uncle of a woman with whom he was allegedly in a relationship. He has always maintained his innocence. (source: The Telegraph) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Nov 23 21:52:16 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2015 21:52:16 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., OHIO, KY., USA Message-ID: Nov. 23 GEORGIA----new execution date Execution date set for Georgia man convicted in 1992 slaying A Georgia death row inmate convicted of stealing checks from and then killing a friend os his mother is set to be put to death next month. Brian Keith Terrell, 47, has been given an execution date for Dec. 8; it should be considered serious. (sources: Atlanta Journal Constitution & Rick Halperin) OHIO: Prosecutors seek death penalty in Massillon murders----He is accused of killing 47-year-old Kimberly Clupper and 23-year-old Kendra Carnes. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against a man accused of fatally shooting 2 women this year in northeastern Ohio. A Stark County grand jury has indicted Leeroy Rogers Sr. on aggravated murder, kidnapping and weapons-related charges. The Canton Repository reports (http://bit.ly/1YmHBKY ) last week's indictment included factors that can lead to a death sentence if Rogers is convicted. A message seeking comment was left Monday at Rogers' attorney's office. The 58-year-old Rogers is accused of killing 47-year-old Kimberly Clupper, whose body was found April 11 in a Massillon park. He also is accused of killing 23-year-old Kendra Carnes. Her body was discovered Aug. 5 in a creek. Both women were shot in the head. Massillon police say a gun used to kill the women was found in Rogers' home. KENTUCKY: Prosecutors plan to seek death penalty in case of murdered Richmond, Ky. police officer Prosecutors in Madison County, Ky. say they will seek the death penalty for the man accused of killing Richmond Police Officer Daniel Ellis, according to the Madison County Circuit Clerk's Office. The death penalty will also be sought for the person accused of leading Officer Ellis into an ambush. A total of 4 defendants went before a judge in Madison Circuit Court on Monday morning, according to WDRB partner WKYT. The Commonwealth's Attorney informed the court it would seek the death penalty against Raleigh Sizemore, who authorities say shot Officer Ellis in the head on Nov. 4, as well as Gregory Ratliff. Authorities say Ratliff led Officer Ellis into his apartment and was aware Sizemore was waiting. Ratliff has been charged with complicity to murder, 2 counts of attempted murder and complicity of unlawful imprisonment. Rita Creech and Carl Banks each face robbery charges. (source: WDRB news) USA: Are Last-Minute Death Penalty Delays Cruel And Unusual Punishment? America's death penalty is under scrutiny after a series of botched executions, drug mix-ups and difficulty acquiring lethal injection drugs. Just last month, President Obama called certain parts of capital punishment "deeply troubling." Some say long waits and repeated last-minute delays are tantamount to torture. Friends and family of Richard Glossip gather around a cell phone outside the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, straining to listen to the death row inmate's voice over a tinny speaker. Glossip was convicted for hiring another man to kill his boss in 1997. He was scheduled to die by lethal injection in September - but at the last minute, Glossip received a stay of execution. Glossip didn't know why he wasn't dead yet until a TV reporter told him over the phone - the governor stopped the execution because the state had the wrong drug. "That's just crazy," Glossip said. His friends and family listening around the phone agree. Twice in September, Richard Glossip ate his last meal and prepared himself for the execution chamber. Both times, his execution was stopped hours before he was supposed to die. The U.S. Supreme Court stopped a previous execution in January. California's death row at San Quentin State Prison. The 2-Way Federal Appeals Court Upholds California's Deliberative Death Penalty Process Last year, a federal judge ruled California's death penalty as unconstitutional, partially because of excessive delays. An appeals court overruled that decision recently on a technicality. Other states are struggling to acquire execution drugs because pharmaceutical companies are refusing to supply them. Oklahoma, Montana, Arkansas and Ohio have all put executions on hold in the last month. Standing outside the prison, Glossip's attorney Don Knight says repeatedly pulling his client back from the cusp of death at the last minute is cruel and unusual punishment. "When you see torture, is it torture? It looks like torture. I would wish that they would stop torturing Mr. Glossip. I wish they would stop trying to kill Mr. Glossip," Knight says. "Going through this repeatedly definitely has a tremendous emotional, psychological toll on an individual," John Blume, a Cornell law professor, says. Blume used to represent death row inmates. He's seen them go through the process of preparing to die and says that eleventh hour delays aren't always welcome. "Sometimes it's a relief, and sometimes the people almost feel like, well, I don't want to go through this again because it was so hard. And then the process begins again," Blume says. Capital punishment advocates blame the lengthy delays on defense attorneys, who inundate the court system with appeals. And Blume says the long wait times can also be tough on relatives of the victim. "It's very hard, I think, on the surviving victim's family members who may or may not necessarily support the execution but believe the case is finally drawing to a close," he says. Robert Dunham with the Death Penalty Information Center thinks repeated last-minute stays are torture. Still, he doesn't think the courts will ever do anything about it. "When a stay of execution is the product of court proceedings, those are necessary proceedings. So yes, it is cruel but it's not unnecessarily cruel in the eyes of the courts," Dunham says. Richard Glossip, the Oklahoma death row inmate, continues to maintain his innocence. Now he has several more months to make his case while the state investigates the drug mix-up that inadvertently spared his life. (source: npr.org) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Nov 23 21:53:02 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2015 21:53:02 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 23 PHILIPPINES: Manila seeks death for foreign 'drug lords' A powerful committee in the House of Representatives has approved a bill imposing the death penalty on foreign "drug lords" arrested in the country to stem the alarming increase in the number of illegal drug users especially the youth. The House Committee on Dangerous Drugs passed and endorsed the bill to the chamber for plenary debate and approval as it pointed out the urgent need for its enactment into law, citing the major role that foreign-based syndicates have played in spreading the use of illegal drugs in the Philippines and elsewhere. A law passed by Congress in 2006 abolished the death penalty and replaced it with life imprisonment for those convicted by the courts for "heinous" crimes like illegal drugs, murder, kidnap-for-ransom and plunder. The law was supported by then president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who reportedly wanted it as a "gift" for the Pope when she visited the Vatican in 2006 in line with the Catholic Church's firm stand against the death penalty. But the bill's principal sponsors, Congressman Rufus Rodriguez of Cagayan de Oro City in Manila and his brother Congressman Maximo Rodriguez Junior of the party list Abante Mindanao (Advance Mindanao) argued the death penalty should be imposed on foreign drug lords arrested and charged in court for operating in the country. The Rodriguezes cited the examples of China and Indonesia that imposed the death penalty on "drug mules" including Filipinos caught smuggling illegal drugs like cocaine, marijuana as well as methamphetamine hydrochloride, more popularly known as "shabu," into their territories. The 2 brothers pointed out the intention of the law banning the death penalty was "clear and noble" but they also stressed: "There are some sectors in society who believe that this law is not just and equitable because while foreigners may not be executed in the Philippines for drug trafficking, Filipinos who commit drug offences are executed in other countries with the death penalty." As a result, they emphasised this emboldened foreigners to establish illegal drug factories in the Philippines because once convicted, they would suffer only the maximum penalty of life imprisonment. (source: The Gulf Today) INDIA: Delhi assembly passes bill proposing amendments in CrPC Delhi Assembly today passed a Bill proposing amendments in the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), setting up another flashpoint with the Centre, as it seeks to broaden the scope of magisterial probes into cases of kidnapping, rape and disappearances. The Opposition BJP accused the AAP government of "challenging" the authority of Parliament by empowering itself through the move. CrPC is a subject in the Concurrent list. Till now, magisterial probe is ordered only in cases of custodial death, homicide, suicide of a woman or death of a woman. Through the amendment to section 176(1) of CrPC the government wants to widen its scope to cover any other cases of suspicious disappearance, rapes in police custody, suspicious death, Delhi Home Minister Satyender Jain, who tabled the Bill, said. Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said that except three issues - police, land and law and order, the city government has the power bring amendments in laws governing other areas. "No question should be raised over the power of Delhi Assembly," he said. Sisodia said that the bill will now be sent to President through the Lt Governor. "It is up to President whether he pass or reject this bill on the advise of Centre," Sisodia added. Leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta lodged his protest against the Bill saying only Parliament has powers to amend the CrPC. "By introducing this Bill the Delhi government is challenging the authority of parliament. It is disrespect of Parliament," he said. Significantly, he assured the government of assistance provided it approaches through the "proper channel." "In that case we will approach the Centre as well for the amendments," he said. The government also tabled the Delhi (Right of Citizen to Time Bound Delivery of Services) Amendment Bill under which officials are liable to pay penalty for delay in providing services included in the citizens' charter. It also seeks to ensure "automatic and mandatory" compensation for people doing away with the need to separately apply for it. The Bill envisages entrusting a Competent Officer with the purpose of effecting payment of compensation to an individual and recovery of the compensation from the officer or person responsible. (source: Press Trust of India) SAUDI ARABIA: Palestinian poet to appeal Saudi death sentence----Defense attorneys have until mid-December to appeal penalty for apostasy handed down to Ashraf Fayadh A relative of the Palestinian artist sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for apostasy says his defense lawyers plan to appeal. Saudi Arabia's Al-Watan news website quoted Ashraf Fayadh's brother-in-law, Osama Abu Raya, as saying the verdict announced last Tuesday is an initial sentence. Defense lawyers have until mid-December to file the appeal. Fayadh was arrested in January 2014. Al-Watan reported that he was charged with blasphemy, spreading atheism and having long hair, along with other charges. New York-based Human Rights Watch said Monday that Fayadh has denied the charges, which stem from a published book of his poetry and from a complaint lodged by a man who accused Fayadh of making blasphemous statements during a heated discussion at a cafe. Last week's decision, apparently after an appeal, overturned another lower court's ruling in 2014 sentencing Fayadh to 4 years' prison and 800 lashes. As the verdict is a lower court ruling, it can still be reviewed by an appeals court and the supreme court. All executions also have to be ultimately approved by King Salman. Under Saudi Arabia's strict Islamic legal code, murder, drug trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy are all punishable by death. London-based Amnesty International said earlier this month that 151 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia this year, the highest figure since 192 people were put to death in 1995. (source: Tiomes of Israel) IRAN: Authorities must stop execution of young man convicted of murder in unfair trial The execution of a 25-year-old man who has been sentenced to death after an unfair trial lacking basic safeguards would be both cruel and an aberration of justice, said Amnesty International today following an announcement that he will be hanged at Raja'i Shahr Prison in Karaj, near Tehran at dawn tomorrow. Alireza Shahi was sentenced to death in June 2012 under the Islamic legal principle of qesas (retribution-in-kind) for involvement in a fatal stabbing which took place during a fight among several young men in December 2008 when he was 18 years old. After his arrest he was placed in detention for two weeks where he says he was tortured and otherwise ill-treated to confess. He was also denied access to both a lawyer and his family. "It is always cruel and inhumane to take away an individual's life by hanging but the cruelty is compounded when the execution follows an unfair trial which has relied on coerced confessions, and ignored allegations of torture and other ill-treatment," said Said Boumedouha, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme. Alireza Shahi had only 1 hearing, before Branch 71 of the Criminal Court in Tehran. According to court documents, during primary investigations which were conducted without a lawyer present, Alireza Shahi admitted to stabbing the victim. However, he later retracted his confession alleging that he had been tortured and accused another man who was also involved in the fight of inflicting the fatal stab wound. His death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court in May 2013. "The rate of executions in Iran is deplorable which, if they continue at the current rate, could reach more than 1,000 this year. In case after case we hear allegations of torture, fundamentally flawed trials, all in breach of international law and standards. The Iranian authorities must immediately stop the execution of Alireza Shahi, commute his death sentence and investigate the allegations that he was tortured or otherwise ill-treated." Amnesty International is also calling on the authorities to stop the hanging of a juvenile offender, Salar Shadizadi, which is feared to have been scheduled for Saturday 28 November. He has been sentenced to death for killing a friend when he was 15 years old, in breach of international law's prohibition on the use of the death penalty against people who were under 18 years old at the time of the crime. Iran is the 2nd most prolific executioner in the world after China, according to Amnesty International's latest global death penalty report. (source: Amnesty International USA) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Nov 24 09:49:25 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2015 09:49:25 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., LA., OHIO, IND., MONT., CALIF. Message-ID: Nov. 24 ALABAMA----new executiondate Alabama Supreme Court sets execution date for man in 1992 Homewood rape and murder The Alabama Supreme Court today set Jan. 21 as the execution date for death row inmate Christopher Brooks, who was convicted in the 1992 rape and murder of a Homewood woman. Brooks had exhausted his direct appeals and the Alabama Attorney General's Office on Sept. 24 asked the Alabama Supreme Court. The execution is to take place at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore where the majority of death row inmates are housed. But John Palombi, assistant federal defender with the Federal Defenders for the Middle District of Alabama, said the execution date is too early because Brooks, along with other inmates, should be given a chance to continue their legal fight against the state's lethal injection method to its conclusion. "This action is premature," Palombi wrote Monday in an email to Al.com. "Mr. Brooks has moved to intervene in an action challenging Alabama's method of execution." Palombi wrote that the Alabama Attorney General's Office has not opposed Brooks' motion to intervene. U.S. District Court Judge Keith Watkins approved the motion to intervene today. A final evidentiary hearing for the other 5 death row inmates is set for April 19, 2016, Palombi stated. "To execute him (Brooks) before then using the present method would subject him to a substantial risk of serious harm, as the current protocol uses an inadequate anesthetic, a paralytic that causes suffocation and a third drug that causes the sensation of being burned alive from the inside," he wrote. If Brooks were to be executed, it would be the 1st in Alabama in more than 2 years. Brooks' attorneys have said that Brooks' conventional appeals ended in March 2014 when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review his case. Brooks was convicted in 1993 of murder during the course of a rape, robbery, and burglary for killing Jo Deann Campbell. A jury recommended Brooks receive the death penalty and a judge sentenced him to death. According to the appeal court records Campbell and Brooks had met while working as counselors at a camp in New York state. On Dec. 31, 1992, her body was found under the bed in the bedroom of her Homewood apartment. She had been bludgeoned to death, and was naked from the waist down. DNA taken from semen found in the victim's body, a palm print on one of Campbell's ankles, and bloody fingerprints on her bedroom door were all linked to Brooks. A friend of Brooks, who also was at the apartment, was not indicted on charges. Brooks and other death row inmates this spring had executions stayed pending the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the case of Oklahoma inmate Richard Glossip, who along with other inmates, challenged the constitutionality of the use of the sedative midazolam in Oklahoma's 3-drug execution protocol. Alabama was among 13 states to file briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Oklahoma's execution method, which is similar to their own methods. An injection of 500 milligrams of midazolam hydrochloride is part of Alabama's new 3-drug combination used for lethal injections. The other drugs are 600 milligrams of rocuronium bromide to stop breathing, and 240 "milliequivalents" of potassium chloride to stop the heart. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, did not believe the arguments that the drug combination including midazolam was cruel and unusual punishment. The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling is based on facts in the Oklahoma case, not on Alabama's 3-drug lethal injection protocol, Brooks' attorneys' argue in their response. (source: al.com) ********** Capital Murder Possible for Alleged Killer of Pregnant Woman in Mobile News 5 has learned capital murder charges are possible for Nicholas James. Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Wright confirms to News 5 that the filing of capital murder charges against Jones is "under review". Capital murder would carry the possibility of the death penalty under Alabama law. New information revealed in court on Monday involving a young woman from Mobile, who police say, was shot and killed by her boyfriend. The crime happened Friday morning at the Ashford Place Apartments on Grelot Road. Mobile Police investigators say Kelwanna Bruno was shot 5 times with a .45 caliber handgun inside her apartment. The victim was 22-years-old. Police arrested Nicholas Jones the same day. Investigators say Jones called police after the shooting and stated he had a cocaine addiction. During his bond hearing on Monday, it was revealed the victim was 3 months pregnant with the suspect's child. A judge set bond at $150,000, and $50,000 of it has to be in cash. A quick search of Mobile Metro Jail records shows only one prior arrest for Jones. He was charged with shoplifting. (source: WKRG news) LOUISIANA: Caddo Parish Elects First Black District Attorney As Spotlight Shines on Death Penalty and Jury Selection Controversies Caddo Parish, Louisiana, known nationally for its aggressive pursuit of the death penalty, has elected its 1st black District Attorney. In a November 21 runoff election conducted against the backdrop of controversial remarks about the death penalty by the current DA and a threatened civil rights lawsuit over systemic racial discrimination by Caddo Parish prosecutors in jury selection, former judge James E. Stewart, Sr. defeated current Caddo Parish prosecutor Dhu Thompson, 55% to 45%. 10 days before the election, the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center announced that it intends to sue Caddo Parish over the District Attorney's office's practice of striking black citizens from juries at 3 times the rate of other jurors. James Craig, co-director of the New Orleans-based non-profit law center, called the racially-biased jury strikes "a blight on our criminal justice system." A recent study by the human rights group Reprieve Australia had revealed that Caddo prosecutors used peremptory strikes against 46% of black jurors but only 15% of other jurors. The study showed that Thompson's exercise of juror challenges was even more racially disproportionate, striking more than 1/2 of all prospective black jurors but fewer than 1 in 6 of all other jurors. Craig said that the announcement of the suit was not intended to influence the election: "This is not a problem of 1 person. This is a culture that needs to be acknowledged and changed...In the absence of concrete, specific changes in the office's culture and approach to jury selection, this practice will continue under the administration of either of the 2 final candidates for district attorney. For this reason, no matter who prevails in the special election this month, the MacArthur Justice Center will proceed with the federal civil rights lawsuit that we are preparing to file." The suit is seeking an injunction to block practices that result in under-representation of blacks on juries. In his election-night victory remarks, Stewart pledged "to bring professionalism and ethics back to the district attorney's office." (source: Death Penatly Information Center) OHIO: Prosecutors seek death penalty in Massillon murders----He is accused of killing 47-year-old Kimberly Clupper and 23-year-old Kendra Carnes. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against a man accused of fatally shooting two women this year in northeastern Ohio. A Stark County grand jury has indicted Leeroy Rogers Sr. on aggravated murder, kidnapping and weapons-related charges. The Canton Repository reports (http://bit.ly/1YmHBKY ) last week's indictment included factors that can lead to a death sentence if Rogers is convicted. A message seeking comment was left Monday at Rogers' attorney's office. The 58-year-old Rogers is accused of killing 47-year-old Kimberly Clupper, whose body was found April 11 in a Massillon park. He also is accused of killing 23-year-old Kendra Carnes. Her body was discovered Aug. 5 in a creek. Both women were shot in the head. Massillon police say a gun used to kill the women was found in Rogers' home. (source: WKYC news) INDIANA: Details released in shooting death of Amanda Blackburn, officials say----2nd man charged in Amanda Blackburn's death Police in Indianapolis announced Monday the arrest of a second man in connection with the death of a former Upstate youth pastor's wife. The pregnant wife of an Indianapolis pastor was shot and killed this week in what police are calling a home invasion. The victim was 12 weeks pregnant, according to CNN affiliate WXIN. Jalen Watson, 21, has been charged with murder, felony murder and other charges related to the burglary, police said. A decision hasn't yet been made whether the death penalty will be sought against the 2 men facing murder charges in the death Amanda Blackburn. Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry said Monday his office will review evidence in the coming weeks and meet with the family before making a death penalty decision. Sunday night, police said Larry Taylor, 18, of Indianapolis, was arrested in connection with the death of Amanda Blackburn. WTHR said Taylor is facing 13 charges including 3 for murder, 3 related to burglary (with serious bodily injury), theft, criminal confinement while armed with a deadly weapon and auto theft. Investigators said a 3rd man was involved in 2 other burglaries that Watson and Taylor committed before they broke into the Blackburn home. Officers from the department's gang and violent crime units arrested Taylor with help from U.S. Marshals. Investigators said they believe Taylor killed Amanda Blackburn. Investigators said they believe the Blackburn burglary and the homicide are random crimes and there is no connection between the couple and the suspects. Taylor is 1 of 4 people questioned in connection with the case. Watson remains behind bars on an unrelated charge. Watson has not been charged in the Blackburn case. Police Chief Rick Hite said in the release "We are thankful to our federal, state and local partnerships that aided in the apprehension of the suspect in this terrible and senseless crime. All victims of criminal homicides deserve closure, and as a community we must send a collective message that violence is not an option." The Blackburn family has connections to the Upstate. Davey was a former youth pastor at New Spring. Background on shooting, investigation --Nov. 10: Davey found Amanda shot in the head. He had returned home from the gym when he found his wife, officials said. --Nov. 13: Authorities hold news conference about the investigation. To watch the news conference, click here. Homicide detectives say they have surveillance video from 2 houses in the neighborhood. Detectives say they believe the person caught on camera could be the same burglar who broke into the Blackburns' neighbor's house the same morning. --Nov. 18: Investigators release surveillance image of a person of interest. --WTHR sources confirmed that Amanda Grace Blackburn was sexually assaulted and police said they have DNA evidence. (source: WYFF news) MONTANA: July deadline sought for death penalty decision in murders Federal prosecutors want until July 1 to decide if they will seek the death penalty for an 18-year-old Wyoming man accused of killing a husband and wife on Montana's Crow Indian Reservation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Lori Suek said in a court filing that a decision will not be made before defendant Jesus Deniz Mendoza has a chance to offer the government any relevant evidence. A status conference in the case is scheduled for Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Susan Watters. Mendoza, of Worland, has pleaded not guilty in the July 29 killings of Jason and Tana Shane near Pryor. Authorities say the couple was shot after stopping to help the defendant along a rural roadway on the southeastern Montana reservation. (source: nbcmontana.com) CALIFORNIA: Death penalty possible in Downey cop killing; charges filed 2 men were charged with capital murder Monday, bringing to 3 the number of defendants accused in the shooting death of a Downey police officer killed during an apparent botched robbery as he sat in plain clothes in his personal vehicle in a parking lot near the police station. Steven Knott, 18, and Jeremy Anthony Alvarez, 21, were both being held without bail. They appeared in court in Downey along with along with a 16-year- old Bellflower boy who was previously charged as an adult with the murder of Officer Ricardo Galvez. Abel Diaz, who will turn 17 at the end of this week, is being held in lieu of $1 million bail. Arraignments for the 3 were postponed to Dec. 17. If convicted of the murder charge, Diaz could face up to life in state prison, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. The amended complaint includes the special circumstance allegation that the murder occurred during an attempted robbery. Each of the 3 defendants is also facing 1 count of attempted 2nd-degree robbery and gang and gun allegations. Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to seek the death penalty against Knott and Alvarez. Diaz is not eligible for the death penalty because of his age. Galvez, 29, was fatally shot about 11 p.m. Wednesday while sitting in his BMW 335, clad in street clothes, in a public civic center parking lot adjacent to the Downey police station in the 11000 block of Brookshire Avenue. The 5-year department veteran died at the scene. Alvarez, the alleged getaway driver, was taken into custody following a police pursuit that ended in the 1000 block of Carob Way in Montebello soon after the shooting. He was caught by officers as he tried to run through the backyards of some homes. Authorities said the other 2 suspects were seen fleeing into a nearby home and taken into custody by members of a sheriff's special weapons team after warrants were obtained. Outside the Downey courthouse last Friday, Diaz's sister said her brother told her he did not shoot Galvez. Maricela Alvarado showed reporters a text message Diaz sent her at 11:18 p.m. Wednesday, about 20 minutes after the shooting. "Mari I love all y'all," the message read. "My homie (expletive) up n did something." Investigators believe the suspects were out to rob someone and were unaware that Galvez was a police officer or that they were in a rear parking lot of the police station, sheriff's Lt. John Corina told reporters Thursday at police headquarters. A handgun allegedly discarded by one of the suspects was recovered. Investigators believe it was used to kill Galvez, according to the sheriff's department. Downey police said Galvez was on duty and returning to the police station from a training program during which he acted as a K-9 agitator. Corina said a Downey police officer in his patrol vehicle heard the shooting and chased the suspect vehicle into Montebello, where the suspects bailed out. At the same time, another Downey officer came outside and found the fatally wounded officer. Referring to Galvez as "Ricky,' Downey police Chief Carl Charles described the officer as "a tremendous young man, who loved serving the residents of Downey." Downey police spokesman Lt. Mark McDaniel said Galvez is survived by his mother, a brother and 2 sisters. Galvez was in the U.S. Marine Corps prior to becoming a police officer, serving 2 tours of duty, 1 in Iraq, 1 in Afghanistan. (source: mynewsla.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Nov 24 09:50:13 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2015 09:50:13 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 24 GUYANA: EU team to lobby gov't, judiciary on abolishing death penalty A team from the European Union (EU) Delegation in Guyana will tomorrow be meeting with government and the judiciary to discuss Guyana's need to join with other countries worldwide in abolishing the death penalty. Derek Lambe, Head of Political, Press and Infor-mation Section of the EU Delegation, told Stabroek News that dialogue will be held with Minister State Joseph Harmon at the Ministry of Presidency and also with the acting Chancellor of the Judiciary Justice Carl Singh. According to Lambe, this will present an opportunity to lobby the government and get a sense of how it views the issue. (source: Stabroek News) KENYA: Absence of Lawyer Grounds Trial of 7 Suspects Over MP's Killing The trial of 7 suspects held for the murder of Kabete MP George Muchai hit a snag at the High Court on Monday when one of their lawyers failed to turn up in court. The prosecution was ready to proceed, with 5 witnesses who included a newspaper vendor, 2 women allegedly carjacked and were on board a getaway vehicle as the MP and his aides were gunned down, a taxi driver and an anonymous witness said to have been in contact with the suspects, lined up. However, the court declined to take their evidence in the absence of the lawyer, and instead adjourned the matter. It is mandatory that murder suspects are tried in the presence of their lawyers. The 6th suspect, Ms Margaret Njeri's State -appointed lawyer has never made an appearance in the case since his appointment, the trial court heard. This has raised a new dimension in the case over the legality of the murder plea as the suspect answered to the charge in his absence. On Monday, parties agreed to return to court on December 2 for a mention and to find out whether a substitute lawyer has been appointed to represent the suspect. "We have no objection to the request for adjournment," Prosecutor Catherine Mwaniki said. She also asked the trial judge to record that she was ready with witnesses in court. The suspects face 2 different capital offences before 2 courts in Nairobi, arising out of the killing of the trade unionist-cum-politician. Eric Isabwa alias Chairman, Raphael Kimani alias Kim Butcheri, Mustapha Kimani alias Musto, Stephen Astiva alias Chokore, Jane Wanjiru alias Shiro, Margaret Njeri and Simon Wambugu have denied the 4 charges of murder at the High Court implicating them in the February 6 killing of the MP and his aides. In the magistrate's court, the suspects face 10 counts of robbery with violence, in which they were alleged to have robbed different people on the same night they allegedly killed the MP. Isabwa and Njeri faced 2 other charges of being in possession of a firearm and ammunition without a certificate, and for handling stolen property. If found guilty, the suspects could be sentenced to hang "twice" since each of the 2 separate capital offences attracts the death penalty. They have denied they murdered Mr Muchai, his 2 bodyguards Samuel Kimathi Kailikia and Samuel Lekakeny Matanta, and his driver Stephen Ituu Wambugu. (source: Daily Nation) INDIA: 5 get death penalty for raping minor A local court in Odisha's Keonjhar district has awarded death penalty to 5 persons on charges of raping and murdering a minor girl. Describing the crime as heinous, Additional Sessions Judge, Champua, Jadumani Mishra, sentenced 5 persons, identified as Mata Munda, Jiten Munda, Biswanath Gopa, Mangal Purty and Harjeet Singh, to death. On August 1, 2012, the 13-year-old girl was returning from tuition class when she was accosted by the accused. They took her to a jungle area near Belkundi village near Barbil in Keonjhar district. They sexually assaulted her and later killed her apprehending that she might disclose their identity. The gang-rape had evoked public anger across the State. A bandh was observed in the industrial township of Barbil subsequently. Social activists and people from different walks of life had submitted a memorandum to the Keonjhar District Collector seeking justice for the victim. (soruce: The Hindu) PAKISTAN: Pakistan PM urged to suspend execution of paraplegic convict Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was urged to suspend the execution of a paraplegic death-row convict scheduled to be hanged on Wednesday, the media reported on Tuesday. Abdul Basit, 43, who is paralysed from the waist down, a former administrator at a medical college, was convicted in May 2009 of the murder of the uncle of a woman with whom he was allegedly in a relationship. He has denied the charges. In a letter addressed to Sharif, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) chairperson Zohra Yusuf said that the prison authorities were still awaiting a response after writing to the federal government for guidance on how to proceed in the case, Dawn online reported. "It is shocking that orders for Basit's execution have been issued for a third time, despite the fact that concerns about the legality of his hanging remain as unsatisfied as ever and because he is simply not fit to be hanged," she wrote. This was the third time that execution warrants have been issued for Basit. He was first scheduled to be hanged on July 29, but the execution was stayed by the Lahore High Court, when the legality of his execution was challenged. On September 1, that petition was dismissed. A new warrant scheduling the execution for September 22 was issued, but it was again put on hold after the Supreme Court issued an order that the execution could not proceed. Pakistan has executed more than 200 people since reintroducing the death penalty in December 2014. At the time the government said it was a measure to combat terrorism after the Taliban massacred more than 150 people, most of them children, in a Peshawar school. Pakistan's jail manual gives no instructions on how to execute disabled prisoners. (source: business-standard.com) ************** Pakistan set to execute paraplegic man as it nears 300 hangings in a year ---- Hanging of Abdul Basit, who was convicted of murder, will make Islamabad one of the world's worst executioners, says Amnesty Pakistan plans to execute a disabled man this week, as Amnesty International said the country was nearing 300 hangings in less than a year. The execution of Abdul Basit, a paraplegic man who was convicted of murder in 2009, has been postponed several times after rights groups raised concerns about how a man in a wheelchair would mount the scaffold. Amnesty said the hanging had been scheduled for Wednesday and accused the country of "shamefully sealing its place among the world's worst executioners". Pakistan's human rights commission said it had written to the prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, seeking to delay the execution, and that prison authorities were awaiting an answer from the government on how to proceed with the hanging. The rights group Reprieve said the number of executions in Pakistan had exceeded 300, while other local activists said the figure was less than 260. No official figures are available. David Griffiths, Reprieve's south Asia research director, said: "Pakistan's ongoing zeal for executions is an affront to human rights and the global trend against the death penalty. Even if the authorities stay the execution of Abdul Basit, a man with paraplegia, Pakistan is still executing people at a rate of almost 1 a day." There was no evidence that the "relentless" executions had done anything to counter extremism in the country, he added. The rights group also alleged that many of the executions had come after court proceedings that "do not meet international fair trial standards". Pakistan ended a 6-year moratorium on the death penalty last year as part of a crackdown after militants gunned down more than 150 people, most of them children, at an army-run school in the restive north-west. Hangings were initially reinstated only for those convicted of terrorism, but they were extended in March to all capital offences. Supporters argue that executions are the only effective way to deal with the scourge of militancy in the country. But critics say the legal system is unjust, with rampant police torture and poor representation for victims, while the majority of those who are hanged are not convicted of terror charges. The human rights activist and lawyer Asma Jahangir said: "The state is hanging petty criminals while known terrorists are still in prisons." The Amnesty figures suggest Pakistan is on track to become one of the world's top executioners this year. In 2014, 607 people were put to death in 22 countries, according to Amnesty, though that figure does not include China, where the number of executions is believed to be in the hundreds, but is considered by authorities to be a state secret. (source: The Guardian) ************* Double standard over hangings alleged Rights activist Asma Jahangir has criticised the government for demonstrating "disproportionately high passion" against the execution of 2 opposition politicians in Bangladesh through unfair trials over those being hanged by military courts or Pakistanis executed in Saudi Arabia. The response sent a message that the government of Pakistan had extraordinary love and affection for the opposition members in Bangladesh than its citizens, Ms Jahangir told reporters at the Supreme Court on Monday. She was reacting to the response by the Foreign Office and Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan expressing anguish and concern over the execution of Bangladesh National Party leader Salahuddin Quader Chowdhry and Ali Ahsan Mujahid of Jamaat-i-Islami. "Equal passion, we hope, will be shown by the government" for the people on death row in Pakistan than being hanged elsewhere in the world by denying due process, she said. She was of the opinion that the hangings in Bangladesh would further deepen the divide and haunt its politics in future. She said that all human rights activists who monitored these trials agreed that due process had not been given to the two accused. "We have condemned the unfortunate developments and even given out urgent appeals to the Amnesty International and other international human rights organisations in this regard," she added. But, Ms Jahangir said, Pakistan should first take up the issue of capital punishment through unfair trials here and of those Pakistanis who were being consistently executed in Saudi Arabia and then show disproportionately high passion for the politicians of Bangladesh. She said the government was only confirming the fact that two men were political agents and working for the cause of Pakistan. Are these 2 Bangladeshi more important than the people living in Pakistan, she asked. If the answer is in the affirmative, the government should also explain why and what for. Ms Jahangir admitted that the 2 politicians had been executed without affording due process, but regretted that the same right was being denied to the people facing trial in military courts on terrorism charges. "We are against the death penalty and unfair trials whether in Pakistan, Bangladesh or elsewhere," she said, adding that everybody knew that the trial of the 2 Bangladeshi politicians was flawed, but the role of Pakistan was something which was not understandable. "If they (Pakistan government) are against the death penalty or the undue process, they should look into the trials being conducted by the military courts," she said. (source: dawn.com) BANGLADESH: UN calls on Dhaka to abolish death penalty The United Nations has renewed its call on the Bangladesh government to immediately institute a moratorium on the death penalty and abolish this inhuman practice altogether. The call was made by Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, in a statement issued in Geneva today following Sunday's execution of 2 war criminals. "We have long warned that, given the doubts that have been raised about the fairness of trials conducted before the Tribunal, the Government of Bangladesh should not implement death penalty sentences," she said. "Similar concerns were expressed by UN human rights experts who, on several occasions, called on the government to halt the executions, as the trials did not meet international standards of fair trial and due process as stipulated in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Bangladesh is a party," Ravina Shamdasani. She said the UN opposes the use of the death penalty in all circumstances, even for the most serious international crimes. "We renew our call on the Government of Bangladesh to immediately institute a moratorium on the death penalty and abolish this inhuman practice altogether." The UN statement said the execution in Bangladesh on Sunday of Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed brings to four the number of people hanged following convictions by the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal. Mojaheed, leader of Jamaat-e-Islami and Chowdhury, of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, were sentenced to death by the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal on charges of war crimes and genocide. The Supreme Court rejected their appeals on 18 November 2015. Since its inception in 2010, the Tribunal has delivered 17 verdicts, of which 15 have resulted in the imposition of the death penalty against members of the Jamaat-e-Islami and Bangladesh National Party. All those who were convicted were accused of committing crimes against humanity, genocide and other international crimes in 1971. (source: The Daily Star) ************** Mujib killer Noor Chowdhury extradition effort gets Tk1.6 crore The government has allocated Tk1.6 crore to have Noor Chowdhury, one of Bangabandhu's killers, extradited to Bangladesh to serve his death sentence. Canadian authorities, citing Canadian legal limitations, have repeatedly declined to extradite Noor, official sources said. In 2009, the Supreme Court upheld a High Court verdict that handed down the death sentence to 12 people, including Noor Chowdhury, for the murder of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family on August 15, 1975. Last April the government appointed US-based law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom LLP - Skadden in short - to help repatriate fugitive murderers of Banglabandhu resident in North America. The extradition of Noor is bound to be a difficult process. Bangladesh and Canada do not have an extradition agreement. Moreover, Canadian does not allow the deportation of any person who might face the death penalty in their home country. Law Minister Anisul Huq told the Dhaka Tribune: "Negotiations between Bangladesh and Canada are now in progress to bring back Bangabandhu killer Noor Chowdhury from Canada." But he did not elaborate further. "We are trying to bring back Bangabandhu's other killers from several countries. This is a political pledge of the Awami League government," he added. The Finance Division's Budget Wing 1 advised the Foreign Ministry that the allocation could come from a sub-head of the current fiscal year budget titled Law Expenses which contains Tk6 crore. More funds may be allocated if needed in the revised budget, according to a Budget Wing letter issued by Finance Division Deputy Secretary Humaira Begum yesterday. 5 of Bangabandhu's convicted killers - Syed Farooq Rahman, Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Bazlul Huda, AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed and Mohiuddin Ahmed - were executed in January 2010. (source: Dhaka Tribune) MALAYSIA: Abolish the mandatory death penalty and restore judicial discretion in sentencing - Bar associations of Malaysia The Malaysian Bar, Advocates' Association of Sarawak and Sabah Law Association are heartened by the reported remarks of the Attorney General, Tan Sri Dato' Sri Haji Mohamed Apandi, that he will propose to the Cabinet that the mandatory death penalty for drug-related offences be abolished. The 3 Bar associations of Malaysia also welcome Minister in the Prime Minister's Department YB Puan Hajah Nancy Shukri's reported statement that she hopes to table legislative amendments next year for such abolition. There is great wisdom in leaving the decision on punishment for such offences to the discretion of the Judiciary. With the abolition of the mandatory death penalty, the Judiciary will have the discretion to sentence a convicted person to either death or imprisonment. However, concrete action on this issue is long overdue. At the recent meeting held in conjunction with the Tripartite Bar Games in Miri from November 19 to 21, 2015, the Malaysian Bar, Advocates' Association of Sarawak and Sabah Law Association resolved to jointly urge the Government to give real meaning to the statements it has made, on at least 4 other occasions over the last 5 years, regarding its willingness to review the mandatory death penalty. It has been 2 years since the Government and the Attorney General's Chambers informed those present at a dialogue, with Members of Parliament, on discretionary sentencing for capital punishment on November 14, 2013, that they were in the midst of such a review. Sentencing is part of the cardinal principle of judicial independence, and should always be left to our Judges. Judges use their experience in hearing cases, take into account the peculiar facts and circumstances of each case, and consider the case comprehensively before meting out punishment. Apart from serious questions relating to the efficacy and effectiveness of mandatory death sentences as a means of deterrence, the resort to mandatory sentences is an unnecessary fetter on judicial discretion, and an unwarranted impediment to the administration of justice. The mandatory death penalty, including for drug-related offences, has no place in a society that values human life, justice and mercy. The abolition of this extreme, degrading and inhumane form of punishment is consonant with the belief that every individual has an inherent right to life. This right is absolute, universal and inalienable, irrespective of any crimes that may have been committed. Moreover, there appears to be no significant reduction in the crimes for which the death penalty is currently mandatory. Further, a major survey on the mandatory death penalty in Malaysia in July 2013, found that there is very little public support in Malaysia for the mandatory death penalty for drug-related offences. In light of the impending review of the mandatory death penalty for drug-related offences, the Government should, in the interest of justice, declare and implement an immediate official moratorium on any and all executions in such cases. All of these sentences should be stayed pending the results of the review. It is unfair and unjust to carry out the death sentence when there is currently a possibility of reform which, if effected, should apply retrospectively. The Malaysian Bar, Advocates' Association of Sarawak and Sabah Law Association are also extremely concerned over the case of Kho Jabing, a Sarawakian currently on death row in Singapore. The Singapore courts had initially imposed the mandatory death penalty on him, for murder. However, pursuant to amendments to the law in Singapore that abolished the mandatory death penalty for murder (with retrospective effect), he was resentenced by the High Court to life imprisonment and whipping (24 strokes). The prosecution appealed, and the Court of Appeal, by a slim 3-2 majority, reinstated the death penalty. Kho Jabing was scheduled to be executed on November 6, 2015, after his petition to the President of Singapore for clemency failed. However, the execution has been temporarily stayed pending the hearing and disposal of his application to review and set aside the sentence. In the event the application fails and the death sentence on Kho Jabing is maintained, the Malaysian Bar, Advocates' Association of Sarawak and Sabah Law Association call on the Malaysian Government to support any further application for clemency, and urge it to do its utmost to intercede with the Singaporean authorities to commute Kho Jabing's death sentence to one of life imprisonment. The Malaysian Bar, Advocates' Association of Sarawak and Sabah Law Association support all efforts by the Malaysian Government towards abolishing the mandatory death penalty. In this regard, the immortal words of the late Justice Ishmael Mohamed, the former Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, should not be forgotten: Death is different. The dignity of all of us, in a caring civilisation, must not be compromised by the act of repeating, albeit for a wholly different objective, what we find to be so repugnant in the conduct of the offender in the first place. (source: * Issued on behalf of the respective Bar associations of Malaysia by Steven Thiru, President, Malaysian Bar; Leonard Shim, President, Advocates' Association of Sarawak; and Brenndon Soh,President, Sabah Law Association. ** This is the personal opinion of the writers and/or the organisations in whose name they represent and does not necessarily represent the view of Malay Mail Online.) ************ Lawyers: Freeze all executions while mandatory death sentence under review The government should stop all executions of convicted drug offenders ahead of the expected review of Malaysia???s mandatory death sentence for drug-related crimes, lawyers nationwide said today. The 3 professional bodies representing the country's lawyers - Malaysian Bar, Advocates' Association of Sarawak (AAS) and the Sabah Law Association (SLA) - said no one should be executed while the government has yet to decide on the death penalty. "In light of the impending review of the mandatory death penalty for drug-related offences, the Government should, in the interest of justice, declare and implement an immediate official moratorium on any and all executions in such cases," the 3 bodies said in a rare joint statement. "All of these sentences should be stayed pending the results of the review. It is unfair and unjust to carry out the death sentence when there is currently a possibility of reform which, if effected, should apply retrospectively," said the statement signed by the Bar president Steven Thiru, AAS president Leonard Shim, SLA president Brenndon Soh. The 3 bodies said concrete action on the frequently-discussed abolition of the mandatory death penalty is "long overdue", noting that the government had in the last 5 years on at least 4 instances made remarks on its willingness to review this punishment. "It has been 2 years since the government and the Attorney General's Chambers informed those present at a dialogue, with Members of Parliament on discretionary sentencing for capital punishment on 14 November 2013, that they were in the midst of such a review," the 3 bodies pointed out. Backing the government's efforts to scrap the mandatory death penalty, which they said was "extreme, degrading and inhumane", the 3 bodies agreed that such a move would be consistent with the right to life that should be absolute, universal and inalienable regardless of the crime committed. "Moreover, there appears to be no significant reduction in the crimes for which the death penalty is currently mandatory. "Further, a major survey on the mandatory death penalty in Malaysia in July 2013, found that there is very little public support in Malaysia for the mandatory death penalty for drug-related offences," they said. They also said the removal of the mandatory death penalty will give judges the discretion to sentence a convicted person to either death or imprisonment. In a recent interview with The Malaysian Insider, Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali said that he wished the courts had discretion on sending convicts to the gallows or otherwise. On November 17, de facto law minister Nancy Shukri said she hopes to take her proposal to amend the Penal Code and abolish the mandatory death sentence to the Dewan Rakyat as early as March next year. Under Malaysia's current law, the death sentence is a must for firearms, drugs, treason and murder related offences. In a written reply to Ipoh Barat MP M. Kulasegaran dated November 3, Nancy cited statistics from the Prisons Department and said there are currently 1,022 convicted inmates awaiting execution, but these sentences could not be carried out as the inmates are still appealing the court's decision. In her reply on behalf of the prime minister, the minister in the Prime Minister's Department said 33 prisoners were executed between 1998 to October 6 this year, while 127 inmates received lighter sentences or clemency in the same period after their pleas and petitions were considered. (source: themalaymailonline.com) RUSSIA: Top Russian human rights body opposes attempts to bring back death penalty Members of Russia's Presidential Human Rights Council have unanimously rejected calls to re-introduce the death penalty for terrorist crimes, saying that the measure would be both inhumane and ineffective. The council will soon issue an official statement drawing public attention to the unacceptability of restoring the death penalty in Russia, the body's chairman Mikhail Fedotov told Izvestia daily. Fedotov reminded reporters that in 2009 the Constitutional Court prolonged the moratorium on the death penalty, with President Vladimir Putin voicing his strong support of the decision. In their message, which will be released later in the week, the activists write that the death penalty is an inhumane measure which is against the latest rulings of the Russian Constitutional Court. They also claim it has proved an ineffective measure in the war on global terrorism. The council members also note that using the death penalty in Russia is extremely undesirable because of the imperfections of the current justice system, where the conviction of an innocent person is still a possible, if unlikely, scenario. The activists also claim that society's fear of terrorism could be used by politicians as an excuse to curb civil freedoms and citizens' rights. One of the council members, Yelena Topoleva-Soldunova, noted in press comments that the "death penalty only leads to the adoption of harsher morals in society, despite activists' efforts to introduce some humane values." She also said that the cancellation of the moratorium, as well as restrictions on general freedoms, could be exactly what terrorists are trying to achieve, and therefore must be avoided. Russia introduced a moratorium on the death penalty in 1999 when it was seeking membership of the Council of Europe. The Russian Constitution still allows capital punishment for particularly grave crimes, but only after a guilty verdict has been handed down by a jury court. Since the moratorium was introduced, various Russian politicians and law enforcement officials have repeatedly raised the issue of reintroducing capital punishment, especially after large-scale terrorist attacks or other crimes that have made big news in the mass media. This was the case after the deadly crash of the Russian A321 passenger jet in Egypt, which has been labeled a terrorist bombing. Earlier this month, members of the nationalist opposition party LDPR, together with the head of the center-left party Fair Russia, called for the Russian authorities to abolish the moratorium, saying the death penalty should still be reserved for convicted terrorists and their accomplices. President Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov commented on the proposals, saying that that the question was complex, but for the moment the moratorium remains in place. (source: rt.com) MALDIVES: Minor's death sentence goes for automatic appeal A death sentence issued to a minor has become the 1st such verdict to be automatically appealed under new regulations issued by the country's top court. An official from the Juvenile Court said on Tuesday that the death sentence issued early this month over the murder of Noor Adam Hassanfulhu in March had been automatically appealed after the defendant did not file for appeal within the 10-day appeal window. The case file was forwarded to the Department of Judicial Administration (DJA) as per the new regulations, the official added. Juvenile Court had on November 2 handed a death sentence to one of the over the murder of Noor. The other defendant in the case was acquitted. Noor, 29 was attacked on March 29 at around 1.35am in Buruzumagu near Indhira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH). He had died while receiving treatment at the hospital at around 3.25am. The resident from capital Male was knifed on his neck and sides. Noor, who had been accompanied by a group of his friends, was attacked directly outside the emergency entrance of IGMH by an individual on the backseat of a motorcycle. The murder came amid a wave of stabbings in the capital Male. A Bangladeshi expatriate worker Shaheen Mia was stabbed to death in the place of his work - Lhiyanu Cafe just a week before, after which there were more reports of stabbings targeting expatriates. The death sentence issued over Noor's murder was automatically appealed under new regulations issued by the Supreme Court early this week. The court issued new guidelines Sunday allowing death sentences and public lashing rulings issued by lower courts to be appealed automatically at the High Court. In a circular, the Supreme Court said if the defendant fails to appeal death sentences and public lashing verdicts within 10 days, the court that had initially issued the verdict should forward the relevant documents to the High Court. The appellate court would have seven days to notify both the defendant and the prosecution of the appeal and during that period should take the necessary steps to begin appeal proceedings, it added. The new rules follow similar guidelines issued by the apex court early this month. The Supreme Court issued new guidelines on November 8 giving a month-long window for the last chance to appeal death sentences and public lashings backed by High Court. According to the guidelines, if a defendant fails to appeal a High Court verdict in favour of death sentences and public lashing rulings within a 30-day period, the appeal can then only be filed at the Supreme Court by the prosecution. The guidelines, included in a circular signed by Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed, did not specifically mention sentences of death and public lashing. However, it says that High Court rulings that need to be reconfirmed by the Supreme Court had to be appealed within 30 days, including public holidays. Under local laws, the only sentences that need to be reconfirmed by the Supreme Court are death sentences and public lashing verdicts. Judicature Act earlier granted a 90-day period, excluding public holidays, to appeal rulings by any court. However, the Supreme Court had in January annulled that clause and issued new guidelines under which rulings issued by lower courts had to be appealed at the High Court within 10 days and appeal over High Court verdicts needed to be filed at the Supreme Court within 60 days. Meanwhile, government has included funds in the proposed state budget for next year to establish an execution chamber at the country's main prison to carry out the death penalty. The state budget for next year, which was approved by the parliament on Monday, includes MVR4 million to build an execution chamber. However, the correctional service was not immediately available for comment. Maldives adopted a new regulation last year under which lethal injection would be used to implement the death penalty. However, over mounting pressure from human rights bodies, companies have been refusing to supply the fatal dose to countries still carrying out capital punishment. Home minister Umar Naseer had earlier said the correctional service would be ready to implement the death penalty by the time a death sentence is upheld by the Supreme Court. There are around 10 people on death row at present, but none of whom has exhausted the appeal process thus far. (source: haveeru.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Nov 24 10:56:22 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2015 10:56:22 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: SAUDI ARABIA: POET FACES DEATH FOR APOSTASY IN SAUDI ARABIA Ashraf Fayadh, a Palestinian poet and artist, has been sentenced by a court in Saudi Arabia to death for the ?crime? of apostasy. He was denied access to a lawyer throughout his detention and trial. He is a prisoner of conscience. Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format, including case information, addresses and sample messages. Ashraf Fayadh, a 35 year-old Palestinian poet and artist born and residing in Saudi Arabia, was sentenced to death on 17 November. The General Court in Abha, southwest Saudi Arabia, found him guilty of apostasy after an appeal court overturned the original sentence of four years in prison and 800 lashes for violating Article 6 of Saudi Arabia?s Anti-Cyber Crime Law. Ashraf Fayadh was first arrested on 6 August 2013 following a complaint by a Saudi Arabian citizen alleging that the poet was promoting atheism and spreading blasphemous ideas among young people. He was released the next day, but was rearrested on 1 January 2014 and charged with apostasy because of his supposed questioning of religion and spreading atheist thought through his poetry. He was also charged with violating Article 6 of the country?s Anti-Cyber Crime Law by taking and storing photos of women on his phone. On 30 April 2014, the court sentenced Ashraf Fayadh to four years in prison and 800 lashes for the charges relating to images of women on his phone. It found the poet?s repentance in relation to the charge of apostasy to be satisfactory. The court of appeal, however, recommended that he should nevertheless be sentenced for apostasy and sent the case back to the General Court, which in turn sentenced him to death for apostasy. Ashraf Fayadh was denied access to a lawyer throughout his detention and trial, in clear violation of international and national law. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Saudi Arabia is one of the most prolific executioners in the world, putting more than 2,200 people to death between 1985 and 2015. Between 1 January and 9 November 2015, it executed at least 151 people, almost half of them for offences that did not meet the threshold of ?most serious crimes? for which the death penalty can be imposed under international law. Saudi Arabia also continues to impose the death penalty on those convicted of ?offences? that are not recognizably criminal offences under international human rights law. These include apostasy, adultery, witchcraft and sorcery. Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format. Name: Ashraf Fayadh Gender m/f: m UA: 265/15 Index: MDE 23/2925/2015 Issue Date: 24 November 2015 Please let us know if you took action so that we can track our impact! EITHER send a short email to uan at aiusa.org with ?UA 265/15? in the subject line, and include in the body of the email the number of letters and/or emails you sent, OR fill out this short online form to let us know how you took action. Thank you for taking action! Please check with the AIUSA Urgent Action Office if taking action after the appeals date. If you receive a response from a government official, please forward it to us at uan at aiusa.org or to the Urgent Action Office address below. HOW YOU CAN HELP Please write immediately in Arabic, English or your own language: * Calling on the authorities to release Ashraf Fayadh immediately and unconditionally, as he is a prisoner of conscience, held solely for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression; * Urging them to ensure that Ashraf Fayadh?s conviction and sentence are quashed; * Urging them to ensure that the death penalty is not used for offences which do not meet the threshold of ?most serious crimes?, including for apostasy which, in addition, is not a recognisably criminal offence under international law. PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 5 JANUARY 2015 TO: King and Prime Minister His Majesty Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud The Custodian of the two Holy Mosques Office of His Majesty the King Royal Court, Riyadh Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Fax: (via Ministry of the Interior) +966 11 403 3125 (please keep trying) Twitter: @KingSalman Salutation: Your Majesty Minister of Justice His Excellency Dr Walid bin Mohammed bin Saleh Al-Samaani Ministry of Justice University Street, PO Box 7775, Riyadh 11137 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Fax: +966 11 401 1741 / 402 031 Salutation: Your Excellency And copies to: President, Human Rights Commission Bandar Mohammed ?Abdullah al-Aiban Human Rights Commission PO Box 58889, Riyadh 11515 King Fahd Road Building No. 3, Riyadh Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Fax: +966 11 418 5101 Email: info at hrc.gov.sa Also send copies to: Ambassador Adel A. Al-Jubeir, Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia 601 New Hampshire Ave. NW, Washington DC 20037 Fax: 1 202 944 5983 ?I ?Phone: 1 202 342 3800 ?I ?Email: info at saudiembassy.net Please share widely with your networks:?http://bit.ly/1Oed2UR We encourage you to share Urgent Actions with your friends and colleagues! When you share with your networks, instead of forwarding the original email, please use the "Forward this email to a friend" link found at the very bottom of this email. Thank you for your activism! UA Network Office AIUSA ?600 Pennsylvania Ave SE, Washington DC 20003 T. 202.509.8193 ? F. 202.509.8193 ?E. uan at aiusa.org ?amnestyusa.org/urgent From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Nov 24 14:57:23 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2015 14:57:23 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----KY., MO., CALIF. Message-ID: Nov. 24 KENTUCKY: Death Penalty to Be Sought After Kentucky Officer's Death Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for 2 men accused of involvement in the fatal shooting of a central Kentucky police officer earlier this month. Multiple media outlets report that prosecutors said during arraignments Monday that 34-year-old Raleigh Sizemore Jr. and 25-year-old Gregory Ratliff should be eligible for capital punishment if found guilty in the slaying of 33-year-old Richmond Police Officer Daniel Ellis. Investigators say Sizemore was the gunman and Ratliff failed to warn Ellis that he was in danger while the officer was investigating a robbery. Sizemore and Ratliff both pleaded not guilty Monday to numerous charges, including Sizemore to murder and Ratliff to complicity to murder. Kentucky law allows the death penalty in murder cases where there is an "aggravating circumstance" such as robbery, rape or the death of a police officer. (source: Associated Press) MISSOURI: Missouri Supreme Court throws out Reginald Clemons murder conviction The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out the 1st-degree murder convictions for Reginald Clemons, who had been sentenced to death for a 1991 double-murder on the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge. Clemons had been fighting his conviction and death sentence in the 1991 rape and killing of sisters Julie and Robin Kerry. In a 4-3 decision written by Chief Justice Patricia Breckenridge, the Court threw out the convictions and sentences for 1st-degree murder and sent the case back to circuit court. The state has 60 days to retry Clemons. If it does not, the case will be dismissed, and Clemons will remain in prison on a 15-year sentence in different case. Reached on the phone, Richard Kerry, father of the victims, said, "I'm not going to express any opinion at this point in time." Michael Manners, a retired judge appointed as by the state's highest court as "special master" to review Clemons' case, concluded that St. Louis prosecutors wrongly suppressed evidence and that detectives beat Clemons into confessing to the crimes. The judge said those factors were unlikely to change the verdict but were not harmless mistakes as the state claimed. The Supreme Court had the power to do anything with Clemons' case, from leaving him on death row to tossing out his conviction. Clemons was among 4 men convicted of raping and murdering sisters Julie Kerry, 20, and Robin Kerry, 19, on the old Chain of Rocks Bridge in April 1991. A jury convicted Clemons without physical evidence of rape. He was sentenced to death in 1993. In testimony during a rare, special hearing on his case more than 2 years ago, Clemons asserted his Fifth Amendment right against incriminating himself more than 30 times. In the past, he has acknowledged being on the bridge the night of the killings but claims police beat a confession out of him and was railroaded by an overzealous prosecutor. Manners also concluded that Clemons' death sentence "was not disproportionate," considering that Clemons' co-defendant, Marlin Gray, was executed for the crime in 2005, Manners concluded. In Gray's case, the state's high court ruled the death penalty was appropriate punishment. The Kerry sisters led a visiting cousin, Thomas Cummins, then 19, to the unused bridge span on the night of April 5, 1991, to show him a poem they had scrawled there, but they ended up encountering a group of men. The women were raped, and they and Cummins were forced into the Mississippi River. Only Cummins survived. Police identified the suspects as Clemons, Gray, Antonio Richardson and Daniel Winfrey. Winfrey testified in exchange for a 30-year term and has been paroled. The others were sentenced to death. Gray was executed; Richardson's penalty was later changed to life without parole. Clemons was weeks from being executed in June 2009 when the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals blocked it. The Missouri Supreme Court then agreed to consider the case. Judges Laura Denvir Stith and Richard B. Teitelman concurred with Breckenridge, as did Lisa White Hardwick, a special judge assigned to rule in the Clemons case. Judges Paul C. Wilson, Zel M. Fischer and Mary R. Russell voted against granting Clemons' petition. (source: stlouistoday.com) CALIFORNIA: KSBY Investigates: Death row debate California has 746 convicted murderers, rapists, and torturers on death row, the highest number in the nation by more than 300 inmates. Since the death penalty was reestablished in 1973, only 13 people have actually been put to death, leaving many victims' families waiting for justice to be served and asking, 'why have a death penalty if sentences are not carried out?' On the 2012 ballot, a measure to abolish the death penalty was narrowly defeated. Looking toward 2016, 2 measures have been sent to the state's attorney general for consideration: One again asks voters to abolish the death penalty, the other would reform it to bring swifter justice for victims' families. This is fueling the flames of an already heated debate. "I would reverse the question and ask you, 'why would someone who deliberately murdered in a very painful, horrible way, should not receive the death penalty,'" questioned Richard Riggins, whose son was murdered in 1980. "What redeeming grace could you expect from this individual and why would you want this individual back in society, maybe living next door to you?" It was a foggy December morning in 1980 in Davis, California. John Riggins and Sabrina Gonzalves, both freshman at University of California Davis, were on their way to a family birthday party. The young couple never made it. 3 days later, their bodies were found in a ditch. It took until 2013 for Richard Hirschfield to finally be tried and convicted for the so-called "Sweetheart Murders" and given a sentence of death. "I was convinced that should someone be held responsible for their murder that they certainly should receive the death penalty. That has never been a question in my mind," said Kate Riggins as she recalled the trial of her son's murderer. Kate and Richard Riggins make up just one of thousands of families who have lived through the terror of losing a loved one to murder. "They have deliberately and cruelly destroyed another human being. They just don't accidentally kill. They are the most part very aware of what they are doing," said Kate Riggins. Their son, John, has been dead for 35 years and the Riggins still wait for justice. "I think that the fact that there are very evil people out there and they do need to have, some way, an ultimate punishment to take place," said Kate Riggins. San Quentin State Prison is located in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is home to all of California's male death row inmates. The inmates live in single cells with a cot and get three meals a day. Of the 746 convicted, 3 cases are out of San Luis Obispo County and 10 are out of Santa Barbara County. They include Rex Krebs, Richard Benson and Ryan Hoyt. The upcoming 2016 election could shake things up. Two capital punishment initiatives have been submitted to the State Attorney General for review. The Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act of 2016 would keep and speed up executions. The Justice that Works Act of 2016 would replace execution with life without parole. According to the Justice that Works Act, California has spent $4 billion on the death penalty system. "The fiscal in dollars and cents reasons to deal with this is (it's) vastly cheaper to eliminate the death penalty," said San Luis Obispo Criminal Defense Attorney Jeff Stein. Backers of the Justice that Works Act claim it would save the state $1 billion in 5 years without ever releasing a prisoner into society. "We, with China and the Saudi Arabians, are the only place where the death penalties are common events," explained Stein. "It doesn't have any positive effect for making society safer." San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow is one of many district attorneys in California standing behind the Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act. "It's all about justice and justice for victims," said Dow. Currently, it takes 5 or more years for capital defendants to be appointed an appellate lawyer. This act would create a prompt appeals process. "But when the facts warrant a verdict of death, then we need to make sure we go ahead and implement that once a proper appellate process is preceded," said Dow. "We need to make sure we are not delayed by loopholes, or really, a broken system." "I sort of smile when I think about, 'oh it is so inhumane,'" said Richard Riggins. "I have often thought, 'well, if you think it is inhumane, why don't you dispatch them with the same method that they dispatched their victims?' They certainly thought that was good for them, so, good enough for themselves and the perpetrator. And if you really hear how, I am sure, by injection, I don't really know how many people have been put to sleep, but that is exactly what it would be like, except that you wouldn't wake up and I am all in favor of that." Both initiatives are active and pending review. Enough funding and signatures are needed for both measures before they can be put on the 2016 ballot. (source: KSBY news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Nov 24 14:58:05 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2015 14:58:05 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 24 SOUTH AFRICA: MPLs debate death penalty referendum KwaZulu-Natal Transport, Community Safety and Liaison MEC Willies Mchunu on Tuesday dismissed calls for the death penalty to be reinstated. Mchunu, who was responding to demands in the provincial legislature by the National Freedom Party (NFP) that a referendum on the death penalty was needed, said: "We cannot return to the primitive era where the state was killing people. There is no evidence to back the claim that a death penalty results to a reduction on crime, so the call is a false hope." The debate over the death penalty went ahead in the legislature despite Democratic Alliance (DA) caucus leader caucus leader Sizwe Mchunu pointing out that such a debate needed to take place in the national assembly and not the provincial legislature. The NFP said it was time to revisit the matter in light of the province's high crime statistics. "Seeing that it is 21 years that you (the ANC) have been in power, let us (go) to the people and get their response," said NFP provincial deputy chairman Erickson Zungu as he directed his gaze to ANC members. He cited statistics which showed that violent crime was on the rise and that the spate of attacks on police was proof of the need to take a tough stance against crime. Sizwe Mchunu said the uncontrollable levels of crime was an evidence of failed leadership, naming both MEC Mchunu and KZN police commissioner Lieutenant General Mmamonnye Ngobeni. "What can you expect from an MEC who does not attend committee meetings where crime issues can be discussed? The fact of the matter is you cannot expect a lot when leadership is failing," Mchunu said. The Economic Freedom Front's Vusi Khoza said attacks on police were an end result of anger from community members. "When people are complaining about service delivery they are shot at like Andries Tatane, when they want better salaries they are shot at like in Marikana and when students call for a freeze on fee increase they are shot at by police. What attitude do you expect from members of the public?" quizzed Khoza. Nhlanhla Msimang from the Inkatha Freedom Party and Shameen Thakur-Rajbansi from the Minority Front said they supported the call for a referendum on the death penalty. (source: IOL Mobile News) PAKISTAN----execution stayed Execution of disabled Pakistani man delayed for 4th time A disabled Pakistani murder convict was given a fourth stay of execution late Tuesday just hours before he was due to be hanged, as rights activists slammed Islamabad for a executions spree on track to see 300 deaths in under a year. Abdul Basit, a paraplegic who was convicted of murder in 2009, was scheduled to be hung early Wednesday. His execution has already been harrowingly postponed several times after rights groups raised concerns about how a wheelchair-bound man would mount the scaffold. The presidency issued a statement late Tuesday saying the execution had been delayed for two months while President Mamnoon Hussain ordered an inquiry into Basit's medical condition. The statement said the president had vowed that "human rights will be upheld". "We are very happy to hear the TV news that (the) president of Pakistan has stayed the execution," Basit's mother Nusrat Parveen told AFP in response to the last minute delay. "We also got confirmation from a jail staff," she said, adding that the family hoped the stay would be extended beyond 2 months. Earlier, Basit's sister Asma Mazhar had issued a plea to the president to spare her brother. She told AFP she had gone with her mother to see him on Tuesday for what they had believed was the last time, and found him "helpless and quiet". She said he told them that authorities had come to measure his body and that it was an "awful moment". Pakistan has executed 299 people since the death penalty was controversially reinstated following a Taliban mass killing at a school in Peshawar last December, according to Amnesty International. "Pakistan will imminently have executed 300 people since it lifted a moratorium on executions, shamefully sealing its place among the world's worst executioners," it said in a statement. 45 people were executed in October alone, Amnesty said, making it the deadliest month since the moratorium was lifted. No official figures are available. The rights group Reprieve told AFP Tuesday that by its tally the number of executions has just passed 300, while other local activists said the figure was below 260. "Pakistan's ongoing zeal for executions is an affront to human rights and the global trend against the death penalty," David Griffiths, Amnesty's South Asia research director, said in a statement. "Even if the authorities stay the execution of Abdul Basit, a man with paraplegia, Pakistan is still executing people at a rate of almost one a day." Pakistan ended a 6-year moratorium on the death penalty last year as part of a terror crackdown after Taliban militants gunned down more than 150 people, most of them children, at an army-run school in the restive northwest. The massacre shocked and outraged a country already scarred by nearly a decade of extremist attacks. Hangings were initially reinstated only for those convicted of terrorism, but in March they were extended to all capital offences. Supporters argue that executions are the only effective way to deal with the scourge of militancy in the country. But critics say the legal system is unjust, with rampant police torture and poor representation for victims during unfair trials, while the majority of those who are hanged are not convicted of terror charges. There is no evidence the "relentless" executions have done anything to counter extremism in the country, Griffiths said in the Amnesty statement. Recent research by the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies also suggests that death is no deterrent for militants who are "committed to dying for their cause". The Amnesty figures suggest Pakistan is on track to become one of the world's top executioners in 2015. In 2014 607 people were put to death in 22 countries, according to Amnesty, though that figure does not include China, where the number of executions is believed to be in the hundreds but is considered by authorities to be a state secret. (source: Yahoo News) BELARUS: SECOND KNOWN DEATH SENTENCE IN BELARUS IN 2015 A 28-year-old man, Ivan Kulesh, was sentenced to death in Belarus on 20 November. He is at least the second person to receive the death sentence in 2015. Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format, including case information, addresses and sample messages. On 20 November the Hrodna Regional Court, in western Belarus, sentenced Ivan Kulesh to death for ?committing murder with particular cruelty?, theft and robbery under articles 139, 205, 207 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus. Ivan Kulesh was found guilty of murdering three female sales assistants, two in September 2013 and one in November 2014, and of stealing goods and money from the shops where these women worked. He was also found guilty of the attempted murder of the son of a saleswoman, who caught him in the shop in November 2014. Ivan Kulesh had been under the influence of alcohol when committing these crimes. According to the forensic medical examination Ivan Kulesh was diagnosed with an antisocial personality disorder, but was found ?sane? (?vmenyaemyi?). Ivan Kulesh was raised in an orphanage and has a two-year old daughter. Ivan Kulesh was detained in November 2014 and has been held in the Hrodna regional pre-trial detention facility. He will now be transferred to a pre-trial detention facility in Minsk, where executions take place. He has until 30 November to appeal the decision. His lawyer asked the court to sentence Ivan Kulesh to 25 years' imprisonment, taking into account that Ivan Kulesh signed a confession and cooperated with the investigation. Ivan Kulesh previously was convicted for theft, robbery and providing misleading information to the investigation. Belarus is the last country in Europe and Central Asia still applying the death penalty. Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception. It violates the right to life, as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION On 18 March 2015, Siarhei Ivanou was sentenced to death by the Homel Regional Court for the murder of a 19-year-old woman in August 2013. Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format. Name: Ivan Kulesh Gender m/f: M UA: 266/15 Index: EUR 49/2926/2015 Issue Date: 24 November 2015 Please let us know if you took action so that we can track our impact! EITHER send a short email to uan at aiusa.org with ?UA 266/15? in the subject line, and include in the body of the email the number of letters and/or emails you sent, OR fill out this short online form to let us know how you took action. Thank you for taking action! Please check with the AIUSA Urgent Action Office if taking action after the appeals date. If you receive a response from a government official, please forward it to us at uan at aiusa.org or to the Urgent Action Office address below. HOW YOU CAN HELP Please write immediately in Belarusian, Russian, English or your own language: * Urging President Lukashenka to halt any planned executions and immediately commute the death sentence handed down to Ivan Kulesh and all others sentenced to death in Belarus; * Calling on him to establish an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty with a view to abolishing it; * Stress that whilst we are not seeking to downplay the seriousness of the crime of which Ivan Kulesh has been convicted, research shows that death penalty does not deter crime whilst it is also the ultimate denial of human rights. PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 5 JANUARY 2016 TO: President Alyaksandr Lukashenka Vul. Karla Marksa 38 220016 Minsk, Belarus Fax: +375 17 226 06 10 +375 17 222 38 72 Email: contact at president.gov.by Salutation: Dear President Lukashenka And copies to: Prosecutor General Alyaksandr Kaniuk Vul. Internatsianalnaya 22 220050 Minsk, Belarus Fax: +375 17 226 42 52 (Say "fax" clearly if voice answers) Email: info at prokuratura.gov.by Also send copies to: Charge d'Affaires Mr. Pavel Shidlovsky, Embassy of Belarus 1619 New Hampshire Ave NW, Washington DC 20009 Fax: 1 202 986 1805 I Phone: 1 202 986 1606 I Email: usa at mfa.gov.by Please share widely with your networks:?http://bit.ly/1T0Plii We encourage you to share Urgent Actions with your friends and colleagues! When you share with your networks, instead of forwarding the original email, please use the "Forward this email to a friend" link found at the very bottom of this email. Thank you for your activism! UA Network Office AIUSA ?600 Pennsylvania Ave SE, Washington DC 20003 T. 202.509.8193 ? F. 202.509.8193 ?E. uan at aiusa.org ?amnestyusa.org/urgent From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Nov 25 11:29:26 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2015 11:29:26 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, VA., FLA., OHIO, IND. Message-ID: Nov. 25 TEXAS: Texas court gags news coverage of mass murders The district court in this East Texas town (Palestine) has approved a defense attorney's gag order to restrict news coverage of the recent campsite murders of six victims, including evidence and testimony presented in pretrial proceedings. The prior-restraint order forbids the news media from reporting "in detail" evidence presented to the court by police, prosecutors or witnesses "other than reporting that certain persons testified" at pretrial hearings. It also prohibits participants in the case - the parties, lawyers, law enforcement officials, and witnesses - from talking to the news media on the grounds such a restriction is necessary to protect defendant William Hudson's right to a fair trial. The gag order was approved Friday without comment by a judge, the same day it was submitted by Hudson's court-appointed attorney, Stephen Evans of Palestine. Surprisingly, news outlets received no advance notice of the motion or the court's quickie decision to approve it. Normally, before a court restricts the news media from publishing information, a hearing is conducted before a judge to allow objection to whether a gag order is necessary or even constitutional under the First Amendment right to publish news. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a landmark 1976 decision in a widely-publicized Nebraska murder case, overturned a judge's gag order, declaring the government has a heavy burden to prove it is necessary to gag the news media from reporting lawfully obtained news no matter what. That ruling characterized a gag order as a last resort, not a first option. The 6 victims of the campsite carnage at Tennessee Colony just northwest of Palestine were murdered only 10 days ago. Capital murder charges were filed promptly against Hudson, 33, who lived adjacent to the murder scene, and was identified by the lone survivor. Hudson is being held without bail in the Anderson County Jail, awaiting the outcome of a grand jury hearing on the case. He faces the death penalty or life in prison without chance of parole if convicted. The court gag order strictly bans the media from taking photographs or video of defendant William Mitchell Hudson while he is being transported to court, and rules out any photography, televising or radio broadcasting from inside the courthouse. The motion further directs the case judge to hold all pretrial hearings in the judge's private chambers, "outside the presence and hearing of the public and the press." Defense attorney Evans said in the gag order motion his client "intends to produce evidence during pretrial hearings which might impair the possibility of a fair and unprejudiced jury." (source: Dalton Daily Citizen) VIRGINIA: Harvey family killer to remain on death row after judges deny latest appeal The man who killed the Harvey family in their South Richmond home nearly 10 years ago will remain on Virginia???s death row. The Federal 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has denied killer Ricky Gray???s most recent appeal of his conviction and death sentence. Gray filed the appeal before a a 3-judge panel in September. In explaining the appeal's denial, Judge Diaz wrote: Ricky Jovan Gray appeals the district court's denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. His appeal presents 2 questions. First, whether the Supreme Court of Virginia, in resolving factual disputes regarding an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim without an evidentiary hearing, made an "unreasonable determination of the facts" under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), 28 U.S.C. # 2254(d)(2). Because we find that the state court did not ignore Gray???s evidence or otherwise reversibly err in resolving factual disputes on the record, we reject this 1st challenge. The 2nd question is whether Gray may belatedly raise in the district court a claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel under the Supreme Court's decision in Martinez v. Ryan, 132 S. Ct. 1309 (2012). We find that the claim Gray seeks to raise was presented to, and decided by, the state court. Therefore, it is not subject to de novo review in the district court under Martinez. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court. Senior Circuit Judge Davis disagreed, in part, with the decision to deny Gray's appeal: I agree with my friends in the majority that Ricky Jovan Gray exhausted his claim that trial counsel were constitutionally ineffective in failing to present evidence during the penalty phase of his trial that he was voluntarily intoxicated during the commission of the crimes. Furthermore, because a "reasonable fact-finder . . . could have found the facts necessary to support [Gray's] claim from the evidence presented to the state court[]," Winston v. Kelly, 592 F.3d 535, 551 (4th Cir. 2010), I agree with the majority that the district court properly dismissed Gray's Martinez claim. But I disagree, respectfully, with the majority's determination that the Supreme Court of Virginia's resolution of disputed issues of fact, based on conflicting and partially unaddressed sworn affidavits, without an evidentiary hearing, did not amount to an unreasonable determination of the facts under 28 U.S.C. # 2254(d)(2). I therefore concur in part and dissent in part. In his habeas petition to the Supreme Court of Virginia, Gray presented several claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. He grounded one such claim in his trial counsel's alleged failure to undertake a reasonable investigation into the circumstances surrounding his confession. Gray alleged that, during the course of his January 7, 2006 police interrogation, he had repeatedly requested an attorney and a phone call, but the police denied both requests, continued the interrogation, and ultimately obtained his written confession. Gray also asserted that he had told the police that he could not remember many details of the crimes because of his drug use during the day in question. Gray claimed that the police had responded by showing him the statement of one of his accomplices, Ray Dandridge, and by helping Gray fashion his own confession in reliance on many of the details included in Dandridge's statement. Importantly, Gray alleged in his habeas petition that he had expressly informed his trial counsel of the details surrounding his interrogation and confession during a February 10, 2006 meeting. Even though Gray had relayed this information, his trial counsel allegedly failed to conduct a reasonable investigation into these matters. Had his trial counsel adequately investigated the circumstances surrounding Gray's interrogation and confession, Gray asserted, his trial counsel could have moved to suppress his confession or used the results of the investigation to impeach the testimony of Detective Howard Peterman during trial. Gray supported his ineffective assistance of counsel claim and his recollection of the January 7, 2006 police interrogation and confession with the affidavit of Melvin B. Knight. Knight was an investigator with the Office of the Capital Defender of the Central Region of Virginia and was tasked with assisting Gray's trial counsel in preparing Gray's defense. Prior to his employment with the Office of the Capital Defender, Knight was a law enforcement officer with the City of Richmond Police Department for more than 25 years. In his affidavit, Knight recounted his February 10, 2006 interview with Gray and explained that Gray had expressly stated that he had asked for an attorney and a phone call during his questioning by police. Knight also remembered Gray mentioning that he could not remember many details of the crimes because he had been high on a combination of marijuana, ecstasy, and PCP at the time the crimes were committed. Gray also indicated, according to Knight, that he had shared this information with the police. Gray then told Knight that, because he had been unable to remember many details of the crimes during his interrogation, the police had assisted Gray in crafting a written statement based upon the statement prepared by Dandridge. In short, a plausibly credible witness offered sworn facts more than trivially corroborative of Gray's allegations supporting a claim of ineffective assistance. The crime On New Year's Day 2006, Bryan and Kathryn Harvey and their 2 young daughters were bound, beaten and stabbed inside the basement of their South Richmond home. The home was also set on fire. Gray confessed his role in murders to police. A jury later convicted Gray and sentenced him to death. An execution date could not be set until Gray exhausted all his appeal possibilities. (source: WTVR news) FLORIDA: Could student accused of killing parents face death penalty? There are only 5 women on Florida's death row. Could 21-year-old Nicole Nachtman be next? Nachtman, a student at Florida State University, is charged with killing her parents in August. Before Nachtman goes to trial, prosecutors must decide whether they will seek the death penalty. It's not a simple decision. Defense Attorney Rick Terrana has handled 30 death penalty cases in his legal career. The most notorious was the case of Adam Davis, who killed his girlfriend's mother by injecting her with bleach and stabbing her. He says the decision to seek the death penalty in any case isn't left up to 1 person. The decision is made by a committee. The committee includes Hillsborough State Attorney Mark Ober, his chief assistant and the felony chiefs of each division. Terrana said it's a life and death decision that needs a lot of voices. "You want nothing less than a committee deciding this. You certainly don't want 1 person making this decision unilaterally on whether someone lives or dies. Imagine if that person had a bad day at home or in the office," said Terrana. Investigators said Nachtman killed her step dad first, and then waited until her mother returned home the next day and killed her too. Terrana said the committee will weigh whether the murders were "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel" and whether they were calculated or premeditated. The Public Defender's Office represents Nachtman. They will weigh in on the decision as well. "I'm sure they are diving into the mental state of this defendant as deep as anyone could ever look into that," said Terrana. The committee doesn't vote, but rather comes to a consensus on whether the case is death-penalty worthy. It's a decision that Terrana said should never be rushed. Nachtman is due back in court on December 10th. Prosecutors are expected to announce their decision then. (source: Fox News) OHIO: Eluding death: Ohio prosecutors charge far fewer capital murder cases Prosecutors across Ohio are changing the way they charge suspected killers. They are indicting far fewer with the death penalty and pushing more sentences of life in prison without parole. The number of capital murder indictments filed across the state since 2010 has plummeted by 77 %, as just 19 have been brought this year. During the same time period, the number of inmates sentenced to life without parole has spiked 92 %, according to a Plain Dealer examination of state prison records and other public documents. The Ohio numbers mirror a national trend involving the death penalty. Legal experts cited the high costs of taking a capital case to trial. They also said decades of appeals make the death penalty extremely burdensome on the criminal justice system and traumatic for victims' families. Many inmates who will spend their lives behind bars are like Robert Clark, 30, who robbed and killed an elderly couple outside their rural Ohio home in January. Others are like Julian Whitaker, 35, who killed a 5-year-old boy by slashing his throat in the child's Cleveland home in June 2011. As the death penalty in Ohio sits stalled in a moratorium over the drugs used in executions, the emerging trends of how prosecutors handle aggravated murder cases offer insight into the way justice is meted out in Ohio courtrooms. "We simply are not charging people with the death penalty like we once did,'' said Michael Benza, a senior instructor of law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law. Ohio has 141 inmates on death row, with the most, 25, from Hamilton County, in Southwest Ohio and home to Cincinnati. Cuyahoga County has 22, and records show it has sent far fewer inmates to death row in recent years. Since late 2012, when Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty took office, 5 men have been indicted on death-penalty charges. But there were 75 cases that met the criteria for the penalty, according to prosecutors' records. That means McGinty's office pushed the death penalty in less than 7 % of the possible cases. The 5 indicted are: * Hernandez Warren, 60, who was sentenced in May 2014 to life in prison for raping and killing 14-year-old Gloria Pointer in 1984. He pleaded guilty in a deal with prosecutors and will get his 1st chance of parole in 30 years. * Michael Madison, 38, who is accused of killing 3 women in 2013 in East Cleveland. His trial is pending. * Ronald Hillman, 47, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the August 2014 rape and slaying of Michaela Diemer. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced in August. * James McAlpine, 32, who was sentenced to life in prison in May 2014 for killing 2 people years earlier. His 1st chance of parole is in 34 years. * Douglas Shine, 20, who is accused of killing 3 men at a Warrensville Heights' barbershop in February. His case is pending. Compare McGinty's record to his predecessor, Bill Mason: From 2009 through much of 2012, Mason's office indicted 89 death-penalty cases out of a possible 114 that met the requirements for the charge, or 78 %, according to prosecutors' records. McGinty told The Plain Dealer that he believes in the death penalty when going after the worst of the worst. "The death penalty used in the correct case - a case that leaves no doubt - is, I believe, a strong deterrent to crime,'' McGinty said. "But the endless appeals process has undermined the death penalty. "In every case, I have to ask, 'Are we going to survive this?' We have to take a case to a judge and jury and then face 25 years of appeals. Is it fair to families of victims? Is it fair putting them through a quarter century of appeals?'' Since taking office, McGinty has used an internal office review committee to examine whether the death penalty is justified in each case brought to his office. Specifically, the panel looks at whether the crime fits the letter and spirit of the law, whether a reasonable jury would return a guilty verdict and whether it would be worth the resources to spend decades fighting the appeals. Based on the panel's recommendation and the family's wishes, McGinty makes the decision. Several attempts to reach Mason were unsuccessful. But in 2008, his then-office spokesman summed up Mason's policy in an interview with the Associated Press: "If a defendant is eligible for the death penalty, the defendant is charged with the death penalty.'' Under state law, crimes that can qualify for death-penalty charges include killing a person while committing another crime, such as rape, robbery or burglary and if the slaying involves a police officer. Emerging trends Life in prison without parole became an option to jurors in death-penalty cases in 1995. Ten years later, state lawmakers made it possible for prosecutors to seek the life-without-parole sentence in other murder cases. Years later, the trends have become quite clear. * Death-penalty indictments dropped 77 %, going from 81 in 2010 to 19 this year, according to records from the Ohio Public Defender's Office. * The number of felons convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole has jumped 92 %, going from 283 in January 2010 to 544 in October, according to state prison records. The inmates make up about 1 % of the 50,370 inmates in the system. * It costs $22,836 a year to house an inmate in Ohio. Since there are 544 serving sentences of life without parole, that means the total dollar amount for the group is $12.4 million a year. Because many are under the age of 35, the costs will grow for years to come. "Most prosecutors have become much more circumspect about death-penalty cases.'' But counties and the state also bear major costs in death-penalty trials. The trials can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars prosecuting and defending complex cases at trial - and much more during the appeals process. Ohioans to Stop Executions cited a study by WHIO-TV in Dayton that found it costs $3 million to execute a person in Ohio - from arrest to death. By comparison, the television station found, it costs $1 million to keep an inmate in prison for the rest of his or her life. A study of the death-sentence costs in Maryland found similar dollar amounts, according to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, prosecutors across the country have filed far fewer indictments seeking the death penalty in recent years, said Robert Dunham, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. He cited costs, the strain on victims' families and the waning public sentiment of the death sentence. "Most prosecutors have become much more circumspect about death-penalty cases,'' Dunham said. "The single most likely outcome of a capital case after a defendant has been sentenced to death is not that he will be executed but that the conviction or sentence will be overturned.'' The Death Penalty Information Center's statistics show that the number of inmates sentenced to death nationally has dropped 35 percent since 2010, when judges ordered 114 to be executed. Last year, the number fell to 73. Also, the number of inmates executed has dropped by nearly 50 % since 2010, when 52 were put to death. So far this year, 27 have died, according to the center's statistics. 'A good thing' For years, Ohio Public Defender Tim Young has pushed the sentence of life without parole. "It is a good thing as an alternative to the death penalty for a myriad of reasons,'' Young said. "There's closure for the family, and it is cheaper to put a person in prison for life than litigating the case for 15 to 20 years. "At the end of the day, it's a good thing for our society.'' Others disagree. "Yes, life without parole is the lesser of 2 evils, but we have to be careful of applauding these sentences,'' said Ashley Nellis, the senior researcher at the Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C., group that seeks criminal justice reform. "It would be wrong to simply toss them away and forget about them.'' Nellis said she is not opposed to sending the most violent convicts to prison for life. But she believes that their cases should be reviewed. "These people should not be kicked to the curb,'' she said. "Life in prison is a death sentence, without the execution.'' If there is enough evidence that shows the inmates have grown and matured behind bars, Nellis said, then they should receive consideration before the parole board or judge. Stephen JohnsonGrove, the deputy director of the Ohio Justice and Policy Center, agreed. "After a certain point, we're not gaining any safety or moral vindication by keeping people in prison,'' said JohnsonGrove, whose agency is a nonprofit law office in Cincinnati that focuses on criminal justice reform. "By and large, life without parole is over-used.'' A severe sentence Some critics, however, believe the death penalty is the best punishment for a heinous killer. Others say life in prison without parole is even more severe. "It is true that they get three hots, a cot and cable television,'' McGinty said. "But prison is a godawful place. There's an argument that life without parole is a far greater punishment than the death penalty. Death is the easy way out.'' Robert Clark avoided the death penalty. Prosecutors in rural Coshocton County, which is about 2 hours south of Cleveland, indicted Clark, 30, on death-penalty charges for the brutal attack on Doyle and Lillian Chumney of Strasburg in January. Doyle Chumney was 88; his wife was 79. Clark broke into their home, robbed the couple, shot them and then torched their car with them inside. As the case was set to go to trial in August, Clark entered a plea agreement that spared him the death house. Julian Whitaker also was spared. He admitted in court that he slashed the neck of 5-year-old Larvelle Smith in June 2011 in what Whitaker said was a drug-fueled rage. After Whitaker took a plea deal, a judge sentenced him to life in prison without parole. "We have to be extremely selective because of the ever-changing realities of the situation,'' McGinty said. "We can only go after the worst of the worst cases that have the highest degree of evidence.'' (source: cleveland.com) INDIANA: Prosecutors not ruling out death penalty for defendants in Blackburn murder The 2 men facing murder charges in the slaying of an Indianapolis pastor's wife have said little upon facing a judge for the 1st time since their arrest. A Marion County judge entered not guilty pleas for 18-year-old Larry Taylor Jr. and 21-year-old Jalen Watson during a hearing on Tuesday morning. A decision is yet to be made whether the death penalty will be sought against the 2 men. On Monday, Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry said his office will review evidence in the coming weeks and meet with the family of Amanda Blackburn before making a death penalty decision. The Associated Press reports that, the two men quietly answered the judge's questions about whether they understood the charges, but didn't say anything about the accusations that they broke into the home of 28-year-old Blackburn. Indianapolis police announced Monday the arrest of Mr. Taylor on murder charges in Blackburn's killing. Later that day, police announced they had taken 2 additional men into custody in relation to a string of robberies in the area where Ms. Blackburn was killed. According to court records, Taylor was charged with 3 counts of murder as well as burglary, theft, auto theft, and carrying a handgun without a license. Mr. Watson was charged with 2 counts of murder as well as burglary, theft, robbery resulting in serious bodily injury, and auto theft. The arrests came nearly 2 weeks after Blackburn's husband, Pastor Davey Blackburn, found his wife critically injured after being shot in the head inside her house on Nov. 10 and died the following day. She was 13 weeks pregnant and the baby did not survive. Mr. Curry says he hasn't determined yet whether to pursue charges related to the death of the unborn child. The Blackburns, moved to Indianapolis from South Carolina in 2012 and founded Resonate Church, an independent Christian church. Mr. Blackburn released a statement Monday after receiving news of the arrests via the church Facebook page: "Though it does not undo the pain we are feeling, I was extremely relieved toget the news of the arrest made last night of Amanda's killer. The investigators have assured me they have a solidly-built case to ensurejustice is levied and the process is expedited. The family and I couldn't be more thankful for the level of compassion and professionalism the IMPD and investigators have shown us through the last couple of weeks. My hopeis for 3 things in the weeks and months to come: (1) That the court system would have wisdom on how to prosecute thisman, so that no one else endures the pain Amanda and our family havehad to endure because of his actions. (2) That through all of this and although there will be great consequences for his actions, he would become truly sorry for what he has done and would even begin to experience the life-transforming power of the Graceand Mercy of Jesus Christ. (3) That Jesus would give me and our family a heart of forgiveness. Though everything inside of me wants to hate, be angry, and slip into despair I choose the route of forgiveness, grace and hope. If there is one thing I've learned from Amanda in the 10 years we were together, it's this: Choosing to let my emotions drive my decisions is recipe for a hopeless and fruitless life. Today I am deciding to love, not hate. Today I am deciding to extend forgiveness, not bitterness. Today I am deciding to hope, not despair. By Jesus' power at work within us, the best is STILL yet to come. Even when I don't see it, I believe it to be true. (source: Christian Science Monitor) ************** No, Amanda Blackburn's accused killers aren't 'animals' The legal analyst for FOX News grew more agitated the longer she spoke Tuesday night about a murder case that has horrified Indy for more than 2 weeks. "They got rid of the electric chair in Indiana in 1995," Katie Phang, a Miami-based trial lawyer and regular guest on Greta Van Susteren's talk show, said. "And I think frankly they should bring it back for these 3 animals that were involved in the murder of Amanda Blackburn." Let's think about that comment, echoed by others in our city. Not to debate the ethics of the death penalty, or to argue over whether a particular means of execution is more appropriate than another (Indiana uses lethal injection). And not about whether an officer of the court should have publicly convicted suspects immediately after their arrest. (For the record, only 2 men, not 3, have been charged in Blackburn's murder thus far). No, I want to focus on the use of the word "animals" to describe Amanda's accused killers. It's the wrong word, and, more important, it's one that sends the wrong message. Hear me out, please. I am in no way defending those accused of this barbaric crime. If convicted, these men should never taste another day of freedom again. And if Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry does decide to pursue the death penalty, I won't object. But I do object to using words such as "animal" to dehumanize the accused - not for their sake. But for our own. The fact is these young men are products of our community. They grew in our midst from the innocent children we all are at birth to become the dangerous predators they appear to be today. They attended our schools, lived in our neighborhoods, mingled with the rest of us on our streets. As ugly as it is think about: Our city, parts of our culture, helped to mold them into criminals so wanton that they invaded homes, terrorized the innocent, and, in a last despicable act, apparently murdered a young woman and her unborn child. Those facts should prompt us to ask why this happened in our city? Why has Indy suffered through another year marred by rampant violence? Why are we losing so many of our children to criminal depravity? Why have we failed as a community to successfully intervene in so many wasted lives? An earlier conversation about such questions lingers in my mind. Jay Height, who for 20 years has poured himself into trying to rescue thousands of young men and women from paths to destruction on Indy' Eastside, reminded me of another crime that shocked Indy at the time. "Remember the 4th of July shooting in Downtown a couple of years ago? The shooter was nicknamed "Monster," Height said this spring. "These are our children. Monster is our kid. We need to understand that every kid is going to be mentored by somebody. The question is by who?" Compare the idea of "Monster is our kid" to that of execute "these 3 animals." One approach speaks to collective ownership - not of the crime, of course, but of the opportunity and the obligation to work together to prevent future horrific acts. To step in as neighbors, coaches, tutors and mentors when families fail; to invest generously in organizations like Height's Shepherd Community Center; to insist as citizens and voters that elected leaders reform the justice system. The other approach speaks of distancing ourselves from the sicknesses that give rise to the violence that plagues our city day after day, year after year. Ownership is hard and messy; distancing is easier and cleaner. But we can't distance ourselves. This is our home, our beloved city. And we must fight for it together. So, by all means, if convicted, let's punish Amanda Blackburn's killers severely. They deserve it, and we must demand it. But our work doesn't come close to stopping there. (source: Commentary, Tim Swarens, Indianapolis Star) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Nov 25 11:30:50 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2015 11:30:50 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO., WASH., USA Message-ID: Nov. 25 MISSOURI: Amnesty International USA Statement on Reggie Clemons The Missouri Supreme Court yesterday threw out the 1st-degree murder conviction and death sentence of Reggie Clemons, who was sentenced to death in St. Louis as an accomplice to a 1991 murder of 2 young women. Steven W. Hawkins, executive director of Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), issued the following statement in response: "Reggie Clemons' case has long highlighted many of the flaws in the U.S. death penalty system. The decision by the Missouri Supreme Court is an acknowledgement of the deeply flawed process that led to his death sentence. >From the police investigation to the appeals process, his case was dogged by serious problems, allegedly including police brutality, racial bias, a stacked jury and prosecutorial misconduct. "Clemons says he confessed as the result of a violent police interrogation. The arraigning judge even sent him to the emergency room because of his injured appearance. Clemons later retracted his confession and has maintained his innocence throughout. "4 federal judges found the conduct of the prosecutor in the case to be 'abusive and boorish,' and Clemons' legal representation was inadequate. His lead attorney was later suspended from practicing law following numerous complaints. "The question of race overshadowed the investigation and trial as well. Clemons was 1 of 3 black defendants convicted of killing the 2 white victims, and both key witnesses were white. Blacks were disproportionately dismissed during jury selection. "AIUSA activists have worked for years to draw attention to this case. Yesterday's ruling removes the threat of death that has been hanging over Clemons for the past 2 decades. His future is uncertain, but we will work to ensure that he never again faces the death penalty." Amnesty International USA opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception as the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. As of today, 140 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Last year, executions in the United States were at a 20-year low, and death sentences were at their lowest level since 1976. Nineteen states plus the District of Columbia have banned capital punishment, and seven other states have not carried out an execution in 10 years. Missouri executed 10 prisoners last year, more than any other state and tied with Texas, making it one of just a handful of states that continue to aggressively pursue executions. (source: Amnesty International USA) WASHINGTON: Scot jailed in US for killing could be freed or sentenced to death in landmark case A Scottish man jailed in the US for 3 decades is awaiting a decision that could set him free or see him retried and sentenced to death in a landmark case that may result in the erosion of protections afforded by the 6th and 14th amendments of the Constitution. Tom Richey was jailed in 1987 aged 18 for shooting 2 people and killing 1 while on the psychoactive drug LSD The Herald reports. He was spared the death penalty and instead handed a 65 year prison sentence, but could now end up on death row. In 2008 Mr Richey's older brother Kenny was freed from death row after he served 21 years in prison in Ohio for starting a fire that killed a 2-year-old baby girl. At the age of 17, Mr Richey's flew to the US to enlist in the US Special Forcesnear Tacoma in Washington State. His court-appointed lawyer, Larry Nichols, said: "The day following the shootings, Tom turned himself in and confessed, which left me few cards to play with. "65 years is 3 times higher than the standard sentence for murder, but it's a great deal better than the death penalty." In a telephone interview from Washington State Penitentiary Mr Richey told The Herald: "Since entering prison, I've focused on educating myself and being a better person. "People always judge you by your worst moment, but we're a sum of many parts. "That's not to say I'm marginalising what I did. I senselessly took a life and there's no undoing that, ever." In 2004, the US Supreme Court announced that the procedure used to sentence defendants like Mr Richey was unlawful - but the ruling did not have retrospective effect. He said: "It disappointed me, but I'm in no position to complain. Whether the length of my sentence is unlawful doesn't mean it wasn't the right price I deserve to pay. "But I am human, so I still feel human desires, like the desire to be free." The Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held last November that he was entitled to a federal review, with a decision due from the Western District Court in Washington in the coming weeks. Peter Aveno, a lawyer assigned to the Northwest Federal Public Defende's Office in Seattle explained the importance of the case. He said: "Richey's case is the first on record in the history of American jurisprudence, where a court has arbitrarily entered a judgment of conviction without satisfying the necessities of due process, such as the right to a trial by a jury of one's peers. "If the district court doesn't order the state court to vacate the conviction, then they'll effectively open the door to states to abolish the due process protections guaranteed by the 6th and 14th Amendments of the US Constitution." While Mr Richey expects to be freed, Mr Nichols did not think the case would be clear cut. He said: "In the event Tom's conviction is vacated, he'll return to square one. "He'll face the remaining original murder charge, a capital offence, and be subject to the death penalty again. "Of course, it would be difficult to try such an old case, where evidence has been destroyed and witnesses have passed away and dispersed." (source: Scottish Legal News) USA: Deadline set for death penalty decision in Montana killings Prosecutors will have until next summer to decide whether to seek the death penalty against a Wyoming teenager charged with a double slaying on Montana's Crow Indian Reservation, after defense attorneys on Tuesday requested more time to argue against making it a capital case. "The goal here is to stop this now," said Donald Knight, a Colorado attorney specializing in the death penalty and member of the defense team. "We are looking to get all the information we can get in that time frame." Authorities accuse Jesus Deniz Mendoza, 18, of fatally shooting Jason and Tana Shane and wounding their daughter on July 29. The family had stopped to help Mendoza along a rural roadway near Pryor. U.S. District Judge Susan Watters gave the defense team until early May to present their arguments against the death penalty to prosecutors. Another of Mendoza's attorneys, David Merchant, said during a court hearing in Billings that interviews need to be conducted with relatives of the defendant, who was born in Mexico and still has family there. He had been living in Worland, Wyoming at the time of the shootings. Mendoza faces 12 criminal charges including 2 counts of 1st-degree murder, carjacking, attempted murder and multiple assault and firearms charges. He's pleaded not guilty. The U.S. Attorney's Office now has until July 1 to say whether it intends to seek Mendoza's death if he were convicted. That decision will be up to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch or her successor, following a review by a panel known as the Capital Review Committee. The case landed in federal court because the U.S. Justice Department has jurisdiction over major crimes in Indian country. Watters set a tentative Sept. 6 trial date. That date would be canceled and likely pushed back if the U.S. Attorney's Office pursues a death sentence. A recommendation on the death penalty already has been submitted by prosecutors, but it could be amended if the defense provides additional information, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lori Suek said. Suek did not disclose the recommendation. About a dozen relatives of the victims attended Tuesday's hearing. Some expressed frustration with the months-long wait for a trial, but declined to comment further. In a separate ruling, Watters turned down a request from prosecutors seeking a court order for the release of Mendoza's substance-abuse treatment records. The records sought covered past treatment, not ongoing treatment, and prosecutors said they were of "paramount interest" as they decide on the appropriate punishment to seek against Mendoza. Mendoza's attorneys objected, saying the information was protected under federal law and should be kept confidential. Watters agreed. "The records could contain information that may give the government reason to pursue the death penalty," the judge wrote in a Nov. 13 ruling. "That risk of injury to the defendant outweighs the public???s interest and need for disclosure." The Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that studies death penalty issues, counts 62 people currently on federal death row, none of them for crimes committed in Montana. The most recent addition is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted earlier this year in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Mendoza faces a separate accusation of attempted second degree murder in Washakie County, Wyoming, where authorities say he shot a man at a campground near the small town of Ten Sleep during a 2013 robbery attempt. (source: Associated Press) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Nov 25 11:31:31 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2015 11:31:31 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 25 INDONESIA: Luhut Backtracks on Death Penalty Moratorium A senior Indonesian official reported earlier this month as saying there would be a moratorium on the death penalty has denied making any such statement. Luhut Pandjaitan, the chief security minister, told reporters at the State Palace in Jakarta on Tuesday that he never said executions would be stopped in order for the government to focus on boosting the economy. "There is no moratorium on the death penalty. The government never mentioned any moratorium," he said. "I never said that. What I said was that we are still focused on handling the economy," he added. Luhut was widely reported by local and international media last Thursday as saying that executions would be put on hold while the government concentrated on reviving a slowing economy. The administration of President Joko Widodo has drawn widespread condemnation from the international community for reviving the death penalty that the previous administration of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had largely shelved. Under Joko, Indonesia has this year put to death 14 people convicted of drug offenses, 12 of them foreign nationals, including a mentally ill Brazilian and 2 Australians who had reformed and were providing classes and ministry for fellow prisoners. **** The last surviving member of the terrorist cell responsible for the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people has expressed regret for his actions and condemned the violence wrought by the Sunni militant group Islamic State. Ali Imron, serving a life sentence for his role in the October 2002 attacks on nightclubs in the popular resort island, said his goal all along was for the establishment of a nation grounded in Islamic values, but conceded that achieving this through violent means was wrong. "We still dream of establishing a country based on Islamic values, but in a good way. It is wrong to reach this goal through bomb attacks like we once did," he told reporters on Wednesday at the Jakarta Police headquarters, where he is currently in custody. (source for both: Jakarta Globe) IRAN----executions Iran regime hangs 11 after adoption of UN resolution on rights abuses The cycle of suppression, in particular group hangings, continues in Iran after the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly adopted of a resolution condemning rights violation on 19 November. At least 11 prisoners have been executed in Iran since the resolution has been adopted. On Tuesday, November 24, the Iranian regime hanged Alireza Shahi, a 25 year old prisoner, along with four other prisoners in Gohardasht (Rajai Shahr) Prison despite calls by international organizations. He had been in prison for seven years since age 18. 2 prisoners were executed in Tabriz central prison on November 23. Four other prisoners, including a female prisoner by the name of Hajar Safari, were also executed on November 12 in this prison. On Saturday, November 21, regime's henchmen hanged 3 Baluchi compatriot prisoners in Zahedan central prison. On that day, a 25-year-old prisoner by the name of Mehdi Boudineh was executed in Zabol central prison. Execution of a prisoner in Miandoab prison and a Pakistani prisoner by the name of Mohammad Younes Jamal-e-dini at Zahedan Central prison were carried out on November 18. These executions, together with the hanging of another 4 prisoners in Karaj Central Prison were among the other crimes perpetrated by the Iranian regime in the past 2 weeks. During this interval, the transfer of group after group of prisoners on death row to solitary confinements continues, including in Miandoab Prison. Some of the prisoners have been transferred to Gohardasht solitary cells for the 2nd time. Taking prisoners to the gallows to watch the hanging of other prisoners is one of the common tortures practiced in the prisons of this antihuman regime. These criminal executions, particularly a few days after the adoption of a resolution condemning human rights violations in Iran, bespeaks of the confrontation of the Iranian regime with the international community and it amplifies the need to refer the file of human rights violations in Iran to the UN Security Council. Trade with a regime that transgresses against all international norms and standards must be made contingent upon a cessation of barbaric punishments, especially the capital punishment. (source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran) UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: December verdict for trio in Al Ain murder trial----Court to give final verdict in Al Ain murder case involving 3 siblings 3 siblings accused of killing Omanis in Al Ain will hear the verdict in their case on December 29. The Court of Appeals had upheld the death penalty ruling for the first defendant, altered the verdict for the 2nd to 10 years and acquitted the 3rd. Additionally, the court also ruled against 3 government employees, 2 Emiratis and a Lebanese, accused of installing cameras in a women's section of the local authority they work for. The trio has been sentenced to 6 months plus suspension and deportation for the 3rd defendant. (source: Gulf News) BANGLADESH: UN wants 'moratorium' on death penalty in Bangladesh The UN has appealed to the Bangladesh government for an 'immediate moratorium' on the death penalty. The call comes immediately after the executions of war crimes convict Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid on Sunday. "We have long warned that, given the doubts raised over the fairness of trials conducted before the Tribunal, the Government of Bangladesh should not implement death sentences," the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a statement now available on its website. Its spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said in the statement they were now renewing the call for total abolition of the death penalty as it was an "inhumane practice." She said similar concerns were expressed by UN human rights experts who, on several occasions, called on the government to stop the executions. "The trials did not meet international standards of fair trial and due process as stipulated in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Bangladesh is a party," said the statement. "The UN opposes the use of the death penalty in all circumstances, even for the most serious international crimes," it said. Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury were executed in the early hours of Nov 22. Both were found guilty of supporting the Pakistan army in 1971 and for their role in the massacre of Hindus, freedom fighters and those who supported Bangladesh's independence. Bangladesh won its independence after 9 months of a bloody war. So far, 3 Jamaat-e-Islami leaders and a BNP leader have been hanged after they were found guilty by the International Crimes Tribunal for committing 'crimes against humanity'. On Monday, a spokesperson for the UN Secretary General said the executions have attracted their attention. "I think it's clear that the Secretary General opposes the use of the death penalty in all circumstances and has called on those countries that continue to use it to at least initiate a moratorium on the use of the death penalty". (source: bdnews24.com) SINGAPORE: Belgian accused of killing son to be remanded another week The Belgian man accused of killing his 5-year-old son in their D'Leedon condominium home will be remanded for another week at the Central Police Division to assist in investigations. Philippe Marcel Guy Graffart, who appeared in court looking calm and relaxed on Wednesday (Nov 25), is being represented by defence lawyer Ramesh Tiwary. District Judge Eddy Tham granted the prosecution's application for Graffart to be taken out of remand to assist in investigations. The 41-year-old was charged on Oct 7 with the murder of Keryan Gabriel Cedric Graffart. He allegedly committed the act at his 32nd-storey home at 3, Leedon Heights. He was then remanded for 4 weeks at the medical centre in Changi Prison for psychiatric assessment. Graffart works for the Singapore investment management arm of Nordea, a company that describes itself as the largest financial group in northern Europe. General manager of Nordea Private Banking in Singapore, Mr Kim Osborg Nielsen, was seen in court together with 3 other company representatives. The case will be heard in court again on Dec 2. If convicted of murder, Graffart faces the death penalty. (source: Straits Times) ********** Apex court mulls over plea to quash killer's execution Photo: Reuters Apex court mulls over plea to quash killer's execution The fate of convicted murderer Jabing Kho, who made an 11th-hour bid more than 2 weeks ago to stave off execution, still hangs in the balance as a 5- judge Court of Appeal mulls over his lawyer's arguments to quash his death sentence. Kho, a 31-year-old from Sarawak, was due to go to the gallows on Nov 6 for the brutal murder of a construction worker 7 years ago, after his appeal for clemency was rejected by the President last month. Less than 24 hours before he was to be hanged, lawyer Chandra Mohan K. Nair got a temporary stay of execution to prepare his case. Yesterday, Mr Mohan argued for the 5-judge court, which gave a split 3-2 verdict in January in favour of sending Kho to the gallows, to set aside its own decision. He said the court should reopen its landmark decision as errors had been made. In 2008, Kho bludgeoned Chinese national Cao Ruyin, 40, with a tree branch while robbing him. Cao died of head injuries 6 days later. Kho was given the death penalty - then mandatory for murder - in 2010. His appeal failed but he was re-sentenced to life imprisonment in 2013, after the law was changed to allow judges to opt for a life term for murder with no intention to kill. The prosecution appealed. As Kho's case was the first of its kind to reach the apex court since the law was changed, it laid down the legal principle for judges to apply in deciding when the death penalty was warranted. The principle - whether the actions of the offender would outrage the feelings of the community - was based on a local 1970s case of kidnapping for ransom. Yesterday, Mr Mohan argued that the court had applied the wrong sentencing principles. He argued that every murder outraged the feelings of the community and the court was restricting its own discretion. Deputy Public Prosecutor Francis Ng argued that the assertion was simply a disappointed litigant's attempt to convince the court to revisit a point that has been thoroughly considered.Mr Mohan also argued that in the re-sentencing stage, Kho was denied the chance to testify as to the number of blows and the force used when he attacked Mr Cao. But DPP Ng said Kho had already testified during his original trial that he hit the victim twice and did not know the force he used. Kho's mother and sister, who were in court, spoke to him briefly after the hearing. They then left with tears in their eyes and declined to be interviewed. The court will give its decision at a later date. Kho's stay of execution was extended. (source: asiaone.com) MALAYSIA: bolish mandatory death penalty: Bar associations The Malaysian Bar, Advocates' Association of Sarawak and Sabah Law Association are glad that Attorney General Tan Sri Dato' Sri Mohamed Apandi will propose to the Cabinet that the mandatory death penalty for drug-related offences be abolished. The 3 Bar associations of Malaysia also welcome Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nancy Shukri's reported statement that she hopes to table legislative amendments next year for such abolition. "There is great wisdom in leaving the decision on punishment for such offences to the discretion of the Judiciary. By abolishing the mandatory death penalty, the judiciary will have the discretion to sentence a convicted person to either death or imprisonment. However, concrete action on this issue is long overdue," they said in a statement. At the recent meeting held in conjunction with the Tripartite Bar Games in Miri, the Malaysian Bar, Advocates' Association of Sarawak and Sabah Law Association resolved to jointly urge the Government to give real meaning to the statements it has made, on at least four other occasions over the last 5 years, regarding its willingness to review the mandatory death penalty. It has been two years since the Government and the Attorney General's Chambers informed those present at a dialogue, with Members of Parliament on discretionary sentencing for capital punishment on 14 November 2013, that they were in the midst of such a review. Sentencing is part of the cardinal principle of judicial independence, and should always be left to our Judges. Judges use their experience in hearing cases, take into account the peculiar facts and circumstances of each case, and consider the case comprehensively before meting out punishment. Apart from serious questions relating to the efficacy and effectiveness of mandatory death sentences as a means of deterrence, the resort to mandatory sentences is an unnecessary fetter on judicial discretion, and an unwarranted impediment to the administration of justice. They said the mandatory death penalty, including for drug-related offences, has no place in a society that values human life, justice and mercy. The abolition of this extreme, degrading and inhumane form of punishment is consonant with the belief that every individual has an inherent right to life. This right is absolute, universal and inalienable, irrespective of any crimes that may have been committed. It added, moreover, there appears to be no significant reduction in the crimes for which the death penalty is currently mandatory. "The Government should, in the interest of justice, declare and implement an immediate official moratorium on any and all executions in such cases. "All of these sentences should be stayed pending the results of the review. It is unfair and unjust to carry out the death sentence when there is currently a possibility of reform which, if effected, should apply retrospectively." On a related matter, the 3 also expressed concern over the case of Kho Jabing, a Sarawakian currently on death row in Singapore. The Singapore courts had initially imposed the mandatory death penalty on him, for murder. However, pursuant to amendments to the law in Singapore that abolished the mandatory death penalty for murder (with retrospective effect), he was resentenced by the High Court to life imprisonment and whipping (24 strokes). The prosecution appealed, and the Court of Appeal, by a slim 3-2 majority, reinstated the death penalty. Kho Jabing was scheduled to be executed on Nov 6 after his petition to the President of Singapore for clemency failed. However, the execution has been temporarily stayed pending the hearing on Nov 23 of his application to review and set aside the sentence. In the event the application fails and the death sentence on Kho Jabing is maintained, the Malaysian Bar, Advocates' Association of Sarawak and Sabah Law Association called on the Government to support any further application for clemency, and urge it to do its utmost to intercede with the Singaporean authorities to commute Kho Jabing's death sentence to one of life imprisonment. (source: Daily Express) ********* Appeals Court Upholds Ex-Tow Truck Driver Death Sentence In Najadi Murder Case Tow truck driver Koong Swee Kwan's appeal against the death penalty for the murder of former Ambank founder Hussain Ahmad Najadi was dismissed by the Court of Appeal today. Koong was also jailed 18 years for an attempt to cause the death of Najadi's wife, Cheong Mei Kuan, at Kuan Yin Temple in Jalan Ceylon, 2 years ago. Datuk Wira Mohtarudin Baki, who led the panel of judges comprising Datuk Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat and High Court judge Kamardin Hashim, who is sitting as Appeal Court judge, said the decision was unanimous. "We find no merit in the appeal. In totality of the evidence, we find the conviction is safe. Appeal is dismissed," said Mohtarudin. On Sept 5, 2014, the High Court sentenced Koong, 46, to death for the murder of Hussain, 75. Judge Mohd Azman Hussin also sentenced Koong to 18 years jail for attempting to murder Cheong at the temple between 1.30pm and 2pm on July 29, 2013. Koong appealed against the sentence and conviction. Earlier, Koong's lawyer, Hisyam Abdullah @ Teh Poh Teik, submitted that Koong's trial was not a fair trial and asked for a court order for a re-trial. DPP Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin said the judge had considered Koong's statement from the dock and found it to be "bare denial." He also said there were no miscarriage of justice and asked the court to dismiss the appeal. (source: Malaysian Digest) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Nov 26 08:32:05 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2015 08:32:05 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., MO., COLO., IDAHO, ARIZ., ORE. Message-ID: Nov. 26 FLORIDA: Prosecutors cite 5 factors in asking for Mesac Damas to be put to death Prosecutors intend to cite 5 aggravating factors as the reasons why Mesac Damas should be put to death in the killings of his wife and 5 children, according to court documents filed Tuesday. The disclosure of aggravating factors before trial is a routine requirement of death penalty cases. None of the 5 factors cited are a surprise given the known facts of the case. Damas is charged with 6 counts of 1st-degree murder in the September 2009 deaths at his North Naples home. The 39-year-old has confessed to the killings in statements to the Daily News. The 5 factors that warrant the death penalty, prosecutors said, are that Damas was previously convicted of a felony involving violence; all 6 of the killings were committed in a cold, calculating and premeditated manner; 5 of the victims were younger than 12 years old; 5 of the victims were children of Damas; and 3 of the killings were especially heinous, atrocious or cruel. No trial date has been scheduled because the case has been temporary put on hold pending a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The high-court case deals with the constitutionality of Florida's death penalty laws. (source: Naples News) MISSOURI: MO High Court Tosses 25-Year-Old Death Sentence The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out the double-murder conviction of a man who faced the death penalty in the killing of 2 sisters in 1991. In a 4-3, 118-page decision, the state's high court sent Reginald Clemons' case back to the state court. Clemons was 1 of 4 men convicted of raping and killing Julie Kerry, 20, and Robin Kerry, 19. The Kerrys took their cousin, Thomas Cummins, then 19, to the old unused Chain of Rocks Bridge spanning the Mississippi River between Missouri and Illinois to show him a poem they had written there. On the bridge they encountered a group of men that allegedly included Clemons, who raped the sisters and forced them and Cummins off the bridge. Only Cummins survived the plunge into the river. The majority opinion cited the finding of Michael Manner, a retired judge appointed by the court to review the case, who concluded that prosecutors wrongly suppressed evidence and that detectives beat Clemons in order to coerce a confession out of him. "Here, the fact that the trial court denied Mr. Clemons' claim in his motion to suppress that his confession was physically coerced and allowed into evidence Mr. Clemons' confession without having the benefit of [probation officer] Mr. [Warren] Weeks' testimony substantially supports the master's finding that Mr. Clemons was not given a 'fair trial,'" Chief Justice Patricia Breckenridge wrote. "This is particularly true in light of the fact the trial court's primary basis for not suppressing Mr. Clemons' confession was because Mr. Clemons could not prove at whose hands and when he suffered his injury." Justices Laura Denvir Stith, Richard B. Teitelman and Special Judge Lisa White Hardwick made up the majority opinion. But Justices Paul C. Wilson, Zel M. Fischer and Mary R. Russell dissented, concluding there was no failure to produce evidence by the state. "Free to tell anyone what he remembered, Weeks never contacted Clemons' counsel, and they never contacted him," Wilson wrote in the 66-page dissent. "Clemons, of course, knows best who he met with in the hours and days following the interrogation, particularly those who volunteered remarks about an apparent injury to Clemons' face. Yet defense counsel made no effort to depose Weeks prior to Clemons' suppression hearing and trial, even though the state disclosed him as a potential witness and disclosed that he had been working at PTR in the early morning of April 8 when Clemons was booked." Prosecutors have 60 days to retry the case. In a statement emailed to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce said her staff would review the decision. "As this crime occurred almost 25 years ago, we will need to review the state's evidence, determine the availability of witnesses and reporting officers in the case, and discuss our options with the victims' family," Joyce said. "Once we have completed this process, we will then determine the appropriate course of action within the allotted period of time." She added, "Our thoughts and prayers are with the friends and family of Julie and Robin Kerry." A representative for Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster told the Post-Dispatch that the office is still reviewing the decision. (source: Coyurthouse News) COLORADO: Dexter Lewis files notice of appeal in Denver bar massacre----Lewis was convicted of stabbing five people to death in a Denver bar but avoided death penalty in sentencing Attorneys have filed a notice of appeal for a man convicted of stabbing 5 people to death in a Denver bar. In August, a Denver jury convicted Dexter Lewis of killing 5 people inside Fero's Bar & Grill. Lewis, now 25, was convicted of 16 charges including 10 counts of 1st-degree murder - 2 for each of the victims. But the same jury that unanimously found Lewis guilty of the murders was unable to agree on whether he should receive the death penalty. On Aug. 27, during the 2nd stage of a 3-part sentencing hearing, at least 1 of the jurors found that the details of Lewis' life that suggested mercy - including chronic abuse and neglect as a child - outweighed the heinous details of the crime that suggested death. Lewis was eventually given 5 consecutive sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole and an additional 180 years. Young Suk Fero, 63; Daria M. Pohl, 21; Kellene Fallon, 44; Ross Richter, 29; and Tereasa Beesley, 45, were killed in the attack on Oct. 17, 2012. On Nov. 18, Lewis' attorneys filed a notice of appeal and requested court transcripts and the case file. The 3-page filing offered few details about what Lewis' appeal will focus on. But the notice did state that the issues addressed in the appeal may include issues raised by attorneys during trial, sufficiency of the evidence presented and sentencing. It will likely be months before defense attorneys file an opening brief with the Colorado Court of Appeals. That filing will detail the issues attorneys are appealing. Because the details of the appeal are unknown, it is unclear if Lewis could face the death penalty a 2nd time, said Christopher Decker, a Denver attorney and legal analyst. "In a very fundamental way, if you raise certain structural issues you're back to square one," Decker said. If the court agrees with the appeal, it can hand down a variety of remedies, all depending on what issues are raised. Outcomes can range from overturning a conviction and ordering a new trial for a big error to simply correcting the record for a small mistake. If Lewis' attorneys appeal fundamental issues with his trial - such as problems with the jury or major errors by the judge - and a new trial is ordered, he could possibly face the death penalty again, Decker said. It is less likely the death penalty will be at issue if Lewis' attorneys appeal smaller points within the trial itself, such as evidence or testimony that was admitted. "It is likely that Lewis' attorneys have carefully gone through the issues of appeal and will limit them to those that will only relate to a new trial and not the sentencing," Decker said. The day before the jury was unable to agree on a sentence for Lewis, a judge in Arapahoe County sentenced James Holmes to life in prison for killing 12 people and injuring more than 70 others in an Aurora movie theater. The jury in that case was also not unanimous and as a result Holmes was spared the death sentence. Defense attorneys announced in August that they would not seek an appeal for Holmes. The final deadline for them to do so was Nov. 18. Lewis' appeal is being handled by attorneys with the Colorado Public Defenders Office, which also represented Lewis during trial. Brothers Joseph and Lynell Hill were charged with similar counts in the murders and accepted plea agreements before Lewis' trial. Joseph Hill, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole, violated his plea agreement and refused to testify during Lewis' trial. Lynell Hill was sentenced to 70 years in prison. A fourth man connected to the crime, Demarea Harris, was working as a confidential informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives at the time of the attack and reported it to his handlers hours later. He was never charged or arrested in the case. (source: Denver Post) IDAHO: Deadline to file for possibility of death penalty against John Lee extended again The deadline for prosecutors to decide whether or not they will seek the death penalty in the case against alleged Moscow shooter John Lee has been extended again. The Latah County Prosecutor's Office will now have until Jan. 16 to decide if it will pursue the possibility of the death penalty. The newly approved deadline by Latah County 2nd District Court Judge John Stegner also includes any pretrial motions or briefs by both sides. Lee, 29, of Moscow faces 3 counts of 1st-degree murder for the deaths of his adoptive mother, Terri Grzebielski; landlord David Trail; and Belinda Niebuhr, and 1 count of aggravated battery by use of a deadly weapon for injuring Michael Chin. The request to extend the deadline was supported by both the prosecutors and defense attorneys that more time is needed to further investigate circumstances of the case, the defendant and to have "sufficient information to better determine the scope and extent of potential statutory aggravating factors and mitigation." According to court documents, both sides remain actively engaged in review of voluminous materials in the case. The deadline had previously been extended to Dec. 1 with a similar request for more time to review case materials. If the death penalty is not sought in the case and Lee is found guilty, he still faces a minimum of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life for 1st-degree murder. An additional 15 years could also be added on to the sentence for the use of a firearm in the commission of the crime. Aggravated battery carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, plus 15 additional years for the firearms enhancement. All four charges also have the possibility of a $50,000 fine and a $5,000 civil fine to the victims. Lee's next court hearing is scheduled for Feb. 16 in Latah County 2nd District Court. (source: dnews.com) ************ Death penalty deadline extended in Renfro case----Prosecutors still have yet to decide if they will seek the death penalty against Jonathan Renfro A district judge says prosecutors have until the New Year to decide whether to pursue the death penalty of an Idaho man who is accused of killing a police officer and stealing his patrol car in northern Idaho. The Spokesman-Review reports that District Judge Lansing Hayes extended the capital crime deadline until January 4 on Wednesday. The deadline was previously set to expire on Friday. Investigators allege that Jonathan Renfro, who was on parole, shot Coeur d'Alene Police Sgt. Greg Moore on May 5 as the officer questioned him because he feared Moore would find a handgun in his pocket - a parole violation. Moore died later that evening. John Adams, Renfro's lawyer, has also filed a motion seeking to exclude cellphone evidence from the trial. (source: Associated Press) ARIZONA: Prosecutor fighting motions in Rector case The prosecutor in a Bullhead City death penalty case filed his response to three previous defense motions. Justin James Rector, 27, is charged with 1st-degree murder, kidnapping, child abuse and abandonment of a dead body. He is charged with the murder of 8-year-old Isabella Grogan-Cannella on Sept. 2, 2014 and leaving her body buried in a shallow grave near her Lakeside Drive home. Deputy Mohave County Attorney Greg McPhillips responded to one defense motion by arguing that the state has disclosed victim impact evidence and is currently collecting additional victim impact evidence to be released soon. The prosecutor said that Rector's attorneys, Gerald Gavin and Ron Gilleo, are wasting the judge's time by filing motions instead of asking McPhillips for evidence requests. McPhillips also asked the judge to deny a defense motion to excuse any juror who cannot consider mitigation evidence during the penalty phase of the trial if Rector is convicted of murder. All parties agree that a juror who refuses to consider mitigation factors or who automatically votes for the death penalty should not sit on a jury. The judge should not be striking jurors 11 months before the trial, the prosecutor argued. McPhillips also asked the judge to deny a defense motion asking the judge to record his reasons for overruling any objections raised by the defense attorneys during the trial. Superior Court Judge Lee Jantzen has denied about 90 % of the previous defense motions that Gavin and Gilleo have filed so far. The defense attorneys have filed about 5 dozen motions on behalf of Rector since they took the case in March. Rector's next status hearing is set for Dec. 9. Rector's 10-week murder trial is set to begin Oct. 17, 2016, with a pre-trial hearing set for Aug. 23, 2016. (source: Mohave Valley Daily News) OREGON: Florida chaplain to speak out against death penalty in Oregon; Says Bible used wrongly for justification A Catholic death row chaplain from Florida will visit Oregon March 13-17 to give talks on the death penalty. Catholic teaching has solidified in past decades, holding that the death penalty is no longer necessary to protect society. Many Catholic groups oppose executions as part of a consistent ethic of life. Archbishop Alexander Sample has spoken out in opposition to the death penalty. Dale Recinella, also an attorney, will start with a talk at University of Portland March 14. His schedule is still being finalized, but he is expected to appear in Portland, Salem, Eugene, Corvallis and elsewhere. Ron Steiner, head of Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, is issuing a special invitation to high school students to attend the talks. He hopes to have a measure on the 2018 ballot to abolish the practice, which has been put on hold in Oregon. Recinella is chaplain for Florida's death row and solitary confinement. In his talks around the nation, he counters those who use scripture to justify executions. "The death penalty's continued existence in the U.S. is inextricably tied to mistaken notions that God demands it," Recinella told a New Hampshire crowd in 2012. He calls those notions "flawed applications of Divine Revelation" similar to past justifications for slavery. Recinella says prosecutors in the U.S. have been using Bible quotes to obtain death sentences from juries for years and that their theology is bad. Recinella also points out botched executions and that sometimes states kill the wrong person. Life in prison is far cheaper than prosecuting a death penalty case, he says. His wife Susan, a psychologist, counsels families of murder victims and families of executed inmates. They often speak together. (source: Catholic Sentinel) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Nov 26 08:32:59 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2015 08:32:59 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 26 PHILIPPINES: 'Weekly' executions under Duterte - Dino Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte will reimpose the death penalty and implement it weekly if he is elected president, erstwhile PDP-Laban presidential bet Martin Di???o said Wednesday. Di???o, the current chairman of Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption, said in case Duterte wins, the latter will reimpose the death penalty 6 months into his presidency and have weekly executions of convicts of heinous crimes. "Once na nanalo siya, itong death penalty ay [restored] within six months. Kapag ito ay na-restore na, we will implement it weekly," he said. "Gusto niya magkaroon ng atmosphere ng katahimikan." Duterte, after months of blowing hot and cold about his presidential bid, said over the weekend that he is finally gunning for the country's top post. Duterte, known for his heavy handed approach on criminals, has attracted Filipino voters clamoring for an iron-fist leadership. However, not everyone is happy with his demeanor and spotty human rights record. (source: ABS-CBNnews.com) MALDIVES: Maldives initiates final appeal in death sentence over MP's murder Prosecutors filed for final appeal Thursday the death sentence handed to Hussain Humam over the brutal murder of former Ungoofaru MP Dr Afrasheem Ali. Regulations on death penalty that came into effect last year require the prosecution to exhaust the appeal process -- the High Court and Supreme Court -- even if the convict wishes to not file for appeal. High Court had on September 7 upheld the death sentence handed to Humam. The prosecutor general's (PG) office forwarded the case to the Supreme Court Wednesday to initiate the final stage of appeal after Humam failed to appeal the sentence against him within the appeal window. Humam was found guilty of the MP's murder and sentenced to death in January. He later appealed the sentence. A 5-member High Court bench had heard the closing arguments from both the defence and the prosecution on August 16. The bench unanimously backed the Criminal Court's verdict Monday afternoon. The defence during the closing argument had maintained that Humam's initial confession had been made under duress and the retraction of his earlier statement should have stood. They also argued that the trial had been shrouded by doubt as the state had failed to present an eyewitness to the actual crime. However, the prosecution had stressed that the lower court???s ruling had not only been based on the confession but also on the strong forensic evidence linking Humam to the murder. The judges had raised doubts over the defence's claims of Humam's psychological state. The defence, however, insisted that no test had been done so far despite several requests. Afrasheem was found brutally stabbed to death on the stairway of his apartment building in October 2012. Criminal Court had acquitted Ali Shan of Hicoast in Henveyru district of Afrasheem's murder. Maldives has recently adopted a series of new rules and regulations and is currently drafting a law on death penalty. The Supreme Court issued new guidelines on Sunday allowing death sentences and public lashing rulings issued by lower courts to be appealed automatically at the High Court. In a circular, the Supreme Court said if the defendant fails to appeal death sentences and public lashing verdicts within 10 days, the court that had initially issued the verdict should forward the relevant documents to the High Court. The appellate court would have 7 days to notify both the defendant and the prosecution of the appeal and during that period should take the necessary steps to begin appeal proceedings, it added. The new rules follow similar guidelines issued by the apex court early this month. The Supreme Court issued new guidelines on November 8 giving a month-long window for the last chance to appeal death sentences and public lashings backed by High Court. According to the guidelines, if a defendant fails to appeal a High Court verdict in favour of death sentences and public lashing rulings within a 30-day period, the appeal can then only be filed at the Supreme Court by the prosecution. The guidelines, included in a circular signed by Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed, did not specifically mention sentences of death and public lashing. However, it says that High Court rulings that need to be reconfirmed by the Supreme Court had to be appealed within 30 days, including public holidays. Under local laws, the only sentences that need to be reconfirmed by the Supreme Court are death sentences and public lashing verdicts. Judicature Act earlier granted a 90-day period, excluding public holidays, to appeal rulings by any court. However, the Supreme Court had in January annulled that clause and issued new guidelines under which rulings issued by lower courts had to be appealed at the High Court within 10 days and appeal over High Court verdicts needed to be filed at the Supreme Court within 60 days. Meanwhile, the government has included funds in the proposed state budget for next year to establish an execution chamber at the country's main prison to carry out the death penalty. The state budget for next year, which was approved by the parliament on Monday, includes MVR4 million to build an execution chamber. However, the correctional service was not immediately available for comment. Maldives adopted a new regulation last year under which lethal injection would be used to implement the death penalty. However, over mounting pressure from human rights bodies, companies have been refusing to supply the fatal dose to countries still carrying out capital punishment. Home minister Umar Naseer had earlier said the correctional service would be ready to implement the death penalty by the time a death sentence is upheld by the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the government announced on November 16 that it was in the process of drafting legislation on implementing death penalty. Attorney General Mohamed Anil told reporters that the bill being drafted by his office would expand on the already existing regulations on death penalty. The bill would include procedures on conducting murder investigations, filing charges in such cases and conducting proceedings in murder cases, he added. There are around 10 people on death row at present, but none of whom has exhausted the appeal process thus far. (source: haveeru.com) CARIBBEAN: EU won't punish Caribbean countries over death penalty, says official Secretary General of the International Commission against the Death Penalty, Dr Asunta Cavaller, has described the death penalty as "cruel, inhumane and degrading" even as the European Union said it would not punish Caribbean countries that refuse to abolish the death penalty. Speaking at the Caribbean Regional Conference on the Abolition of the Death Penalty that ended here on Tuesday, Cavaller agreed that abolishing the death penalty does not mean those found guilty of heinous crimes will not be punished. "By doing this you run the risk of executing innocent people. It targets those who are marginalised, ethnic minorities and people who don't have access to defence lawyers or are denied a fair trial; it alienates the right to life and human dignity," she said, adding that there was no evidence that the death penalty resulted in fewer crimes. "The death penalty has not proven to be a deterrent. Here in the Caribbean, many countries that retain the death penalty are the ones with the highest crime rates," she said. The two-day conference was organised by the European Union, in co-operation with the British High Commission and the International Commission against the Death Penalty. Minister of Governance Raphael Trotman, who addressed the opening of the conference, acknowledged that the matter was indeed controversial, but gave no indication that Georgetown would be supportive of abolishing the death penalty. He said Guyana welcomed what he described as a "thought-provoking conference". "Are we ready to take that step and do we have the political will? These are the questions that need to be answered in the near and medium-term future," Trotman said, adding that while the death penalty remains law here, there is an unspoken moratorium in effect where it was not applied in sentencing for over 2 decades. He told the conference of the move by the Parliament several years ago to remove the mandatory death sentence for people convicted of murder. EU Ambassador to Guyana, Jernej Videtic, said the abolition of the death penalty remains one of the main human rights issues for the EU, and welcomed the decision by Suriname in this regard. Head of the Political Division at the EU embassy in Guyana, Derek Lambe, told a news conference that Europe would not punish any Caribbean country that fails to abolish the death penalty. "There is no question that the EU would carry out sanctions or halt development aid or anything like that against any country that didn't abolish the death penalty; we don't work that way, we work in a spirit of partnership with countries in the Caribbean," he said. Lord Nanit Dholakia of the UK All Parliamentary Committee on the Abolition of the Death Penalty told the conference that there was no evidence anywhere in the world that proved that by establishing the death sentence it has reduced crime. He called on civil society to press their governments to abolish such laws. He also urged governments not to hide behind public opinion on this matter, but lead public opinion. (source: Jamaica Observer) SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi Arabia's Next Terrible Move 2 reports in local Saudi Arabian media reveal that a mass execution is planned to take place in that nation in a few days. The prisoners are not named, but one report states that more than 50 individuals are to be executed and that all of them are from the eastern part of the country, and another explains that all of the prisoners have been charged with terrorism. Both of these statements describe Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, the young man who was arrested when he was a teen; his uncle, Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr; and Ali Saed Al-rebeh, Mohammed Faisal al-shyookh, Dawood al-Marhoon, Abed allahhassan al-Zaher, Ali Mohammad al-Nimr, and Mohammad Suwaymil. Each was charged with terrorism and they all are from the east. Ali Adubisi, the Director of the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights in Berlin (ESOHR) published a brief article earlier today in which he explained his findings: "These 52 individuals are all to be executed based on terrorism-related charges. The group comprises a mix of individuals, who will all be executed across different regions of the kingdom in a single day. We do not have full details of all the 52 individuals." He added that 2 of the articles he had seen were quickly taken down, but one remains standing. (If those who can read Arabic, here is the link: Okaz. ESOHR reports the number as 52; Reprieve, the human rights watchdog group, reports 55. Adubisi has been in regular contact with the families of the prisoners, so he has one other detail that outside news sources do not have: "All the activists have recently been given an unexplained medical examination." He adds: "Medical examinations are common in the lead up to an execution." The Saudi Arabian government considers its Eastern region to be a hotbed of insurgency. This stems from sectarian differences between the people who live there and the rest of the country. Shiekh al-Nimr and the 6 underage defendants are all from that region and are considered terrorists because they were considered possible activists. Silencing activists is the Saudi Arabian government's way of preventing future change. Almost every prisoner sentenced to die in Saudi Arabia is beheaded, a method that I have seen argued online (chillingly) as being more humane than the American method of lethal injection (which I am also vehemently against). There are videos online, several videos, that are purported to show a genuine judicial beheading in Saudi Arabia. I have not seen if these have been verified as real or if they even could be real. To me, every method of judicially administered death is chilling. Some prisoners in Saudi Arabia are executed by firing squad. Others are stoned. Most are beheaded. All are dispatched in public; almost all punishments in Saudi Arabia, corporal and capital, are delivered in public, as if they are an entertainment. Only the nations of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, and Qatar have beheading as a legal means of execution; Saudi Arabia is the only nation that actually employs the method. As Ali Adubisi reported, he does not know the stories of the other 45 individuals. He adds, "Such a mass execution is an uncommon move by the Saudi authorities and signals a new approach to the implementation of the death penalty." He also reports that conditions for each of the 7 prisoners has deteriorated in the last 2 weeks: the recent torrential rains in Saudi Arabia flooded the prisons, the condemned men's cells flooded also, but none of them were moved to dry cells or even given towels to dry themselves. I recently wrote about a death-row prisoner in Saudi Arabia, Hussein Abu al-Khair. I reported last week: Hussein Abu al-Khair was arrested in 2014 after he was pulled over by police. They charged him with smuggling drugs across the border between Jordan and Saudi Arabia. According to his sister, Zeinab Abdle, he was told by the police that they were arresting him for drug smuggling even though they did not inspect the vehicle. Why look for something you are not going to find when officially you have found it already? Zeinab described what followed in a letter to me: "He was detained and was tortured for 12 days by being hung up-side down by the ankles with the help of thick chains. He was beaten with sticks, hands and other methods. He has been spat on, insulted and shamed through insults. His body has been hung with his legs and hands stretched out as he was being hurt. When his body and spirit were broken, he was forced to sign a false declaration saying that he admitted to smuggling drugs into Saudi Arabia. From this moment on, he was thrown into the Tabook jail awaiting his trial." He was convicted of drug smuggling and sentenced to death. I asked Zeinab earlier today if she or her sister have been able to speak with Hussein Abu al-Khair in recent days. She told me that her sister has spoken with him. It seems likely, but we do not know this definitively, that he is not among the 52 that ESOHR reported on today. He was not charged with terrorism, and he is not originally from the eastern portion of Saudi Arabia; he is Jordanian. Saudi Arabia is in a bloodthirsty moment in its history, something that usually comes from desperation. (source: mark Aldlrich, thegadabouttown.com) ************ Saudi Arabia To Sue Twitter User Who Called Poet's Death Sentence 'ISIS-Like' Saudi Arabia's justice ministry plans to sue a Twitter user who compared the death sentence handed down on Friday to a Palestinian poet to the punishments meted out by Islamic State, a major government-aligned newspaper reported on Wednesday. "The justice ministry will sue the person who described ... the sentencing of a man to death for apostasy as being `ISIS-like'," the newspaper Al-Riyadh quoted a source in the justice ministry as saying. The source did not identify the Twitter user or the possible penalty. On Friday, a Saudi Arabian court sentenced Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayadh to death for apostasy - abandoning his Muslim faith - according to trial documents seen by Human Rights Watch. Fayadh was detained by the country's religious police in 2013 in Abha, in southwest Saudi Arabia, and then rearrested and tried in early 2014. Saudi Arabia's justice system is based on Islamic Sharia law, and its judges are clerics from the kingdom's ultra- conservative Wahhabi school of Sunni Islam. In the Wahhabi interpretation of Sharia, religious crimes, including blasphemy and apostasy, incur the death penalty. In January, liberal writer Raif Badawi was flogged 50 times after he was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for blasphemy last year, prompting an international outcry. Badawi remains in prison, but diplomats say he is unlikely to be flogged again. In 2014, a Saudi court in Riyadh sentenced three lawyers to up to eight years in jail after they criticized the justice ministry on Twitter. The charges were dropped in early 2015 after King Salman inherited the throne from his brother. "Questioning the fairness of the courts is to question the justice of the Kingdom and its judicial system based on Islamic law, which guarantees rights and ensures human dignity", Al-Riyadh quoted the justice ministry source as saying. The ministry would not hesitate to put on trial "any media that slandered the religious judiciary of the Kingdom," it said. Saudi Arabia's Justice Ministry or other officials could not immediately be reached for comment. (source: Reuters) EGYPT: Death penalty reduced to life imprisonment for Seychellois trio convicted of drug trafficking in Egypt following 'intensive diplomatic representations' The Seychellois trio who were facing death row in Egypt, after being found guilty of drug trafficking, have had their sentence commuted to life imprisonment. According to a statement issued by State House on Wednesday evening, the decision was taken by the Egyptian President, Abel Fattah El-Sisi, "as a result of intensive diplomatic representations at the highest levels." The 3 men, Ronny Norman Jean, Yvon John Vinda and Dean Dominic Loze, were sentenced to death by execution on April 7, 2013. This followed their arrest on April 22, 2011 by Egyptian police aboard a boat near the Red Sea coastal town of Marsa Alam with 3 tonnes of cannabis on board. Jean, Vinda and Loze, were together with the skipper and owner of the vessel, a British national identified as Charles Raymond Ferndale, who was also sentenced to death. On October 15 last year, the Egyptian Court of Cessation rejected their appeal and upheld the death penalty. The Seychelles government had been engaging with the Egyptian authorities for quite a while to find a way for the death sentence to be commuted to a less severe punishment of life in jail. Seychelles is a not a country that applies the death penalty and the Indian Ocean archipelago is a strong advocate for the abolition of this practice worldwide. "President James Michel has, in his direct appeals to his Egyptian counterpart on several occasions, played a strong and proactive role in ensuring the Seychellois in Egypt are spared the death sentence," reads the State House statement issued on Wednesday. "From the onset of the trial President Michel had tasked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Transport of the Republic of Seychelles to ensure that the Seychellois nationals are given legal assistance to defend themselves within the Egyptian judicial system, treated humanely and with dignity, facilitated contact between their family members as well as dispatching diplomats to Egypt on a regular basis to hold talks with their Egyptian counterparts and meet with the detainees." For the families of the 3 men since travelling to Egypt to see their loved ones on November 4 last year, they had been awaiting the outcome of negotiations between the governments of Egypt and Seychelles, on the fate of the 3 convicts. Speaking to SNA, in a phone interview this morning, Nola Loze, the mother of Dean Loze, said she was given the latest news about the convicts' situation by President Michel himself. "I am very happy. I was informed yesterday while I was at work... I fell to my knees," said Loze. The last time the lady who is from Anse Boileau, a district on the Western Coast of the Seychelles main island of Mahe had seen his son was in November last year. Since that time she says that she has been receiving regular updates through a priest who is used to visiting inmates, at the prison where the 3 Seychellois nationals are being detained. While the Egyptian President has allowed for the death sentences to be commuted to life imprisonment this does not mean the 3 Seychellois will be returning to Seychelles immediately. According to the State House statement the island nation's ambassador accredited to Egypt, Joseph Nourrice is in Cairo to discuss the next step with the Egyptian authorities. Discussions will be focussing on a possible 'prisoner exchange agreement' to allow the 3 men to serve their life sentences in Seychelles. It is to be noted that the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi issued a decree in November last year that would allow foreign prisoners in Egypt to be repatriated to their country of origin to serve their sentences. (source: seychellesnewsagency.com) PAKISTAN: A silent church ignores a wave of executions in Pakistan----Hundreds put to death since moratorium lifted, but church officials say little Pakistan is close to achieving a notorious new milestone of becoming one of the world's top executioners, with almost 300 inmates already put to death this year and thousands more waiting. According to figures from Pakistan's independent Human Rights Commission, 295 people have been hanged in the country - a new record - since December last year. Amnesty International, however, puts the toll of executed inmates at 299. Abdul Basit, a paraplegic man who was convicted of murder, could have become the 300th, but his Nov. 25 execution was delayed at the 11th hour after the Pakistani president intervened. This was the 3rd time that an execution warrant had been issued for Abdul Basit, who was first scheduled to be hanged on July 29. Despite being unable to stand and being reliant on a wheelchair, jail authorities are adamant about carrying out his inhuman and unlawful hanging. "The hanging of a wheelchair-bound prisoner simply cannot be conducted in a humane and dignified manner as required by Pakistani and international law. Proceeding with Abdul Basit???s execution in the circumstances will offend against all norms of civilized justice," the rights group's chairwoman, Zohra Yusuf, said in a statement. The outspoken group has taken a principled approach to defending the rights of Pakistan's death row prisoners. If only the local church would do the same. Pakistan lifts moratorium Pakistan's record on executions this year is all the more astounding given that prior to December 2014, the country had not carried out any executions in 6 years. But Islamabad lifted its moratorium on the death penalty shortly after Taliban militants stormed a school in Peshawar, killing 150 people - including 130 schoolchildren. The horrific attack shocked the nation and triggered countrywide protests and demands to rein in the Taliban's campaign of terror and violence. As media and public pressure grew, the Pakistani military and political leadership rushed to restore capital punishment and announced the establishment of controversial military courts to fast-track the trials of terror suspects. Initially, the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif opted to execute only terror convicts, but pressure from Islamist parties and clergy convinced authorities to order executions for all kinds of death row convicts - a move that drew condemnation from the United Nations, the European Union, Amnesty International and other groups. Rights watchdogs say the government is ignoring its responsibilities to reform the legal system. They say that the circumstances that prompted the suspension of capital punishment in the first place have not changed after 6 years, and that the deeply flawed criminal justice system continues to pose the threat of wrongful convictions. Rights groups also argue that there is no evidence to suggest any correlation between the death penalty and reducing crime rates. When compared to 2014 statistics, Pakistan???s nearly 300 executions this year would put it near the top of an unfortunate list. This year, Saudi Arabia has executed at least 151 people, while Iran has put to death almost 700, according to Amnesty. Death row According to the Justice Project Pakistan, a Lahore-based nonprofit law firm that helps marginalized people in the legal system, more than 8,000 people are currently on death row. Pakistan???s government, on the other hand, says there are 6,000. Asia Bibi, a Catholic mother of four, is among those who have been handed the death sentence after her disputed conviction for blasphemy. Bibi's final appeal is pending before the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Among those who have already been executed are Aftab Bahadur Masih, a Christian man who was arrested in 1992 in a case involving the murder of a woman and her 2 sons. According to the Justice Project Pakistan, Bahadur was only 15 years old at the time of his arrest - too young to face the death penalty. The Catholic Church in Pakistan had made an unsuccessful appeal for clemency to Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain. In August, Pakistan executed Shafqat Hussain, convicted of killing a child in 2004. His lawyers claimed he was 14 when found guilty and his confession was extracted by torture, but officials say there is no proof he was a minor when convicted. Church response disappointing In September this year, Pope Francis called for the global abolition of the death penalty in his address to a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress. "The golden rule also reminds us of our responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of its development," Francis said in his speech to Congress. "This conviction has led me, from the beginning of my ministry, to advocate at different levels for the global abolition of the death penalty. I am convinced that this way is the best, since every life is sacred." Despite Pope Francis' clear and unambiguous stance on capital punishment, the Catholic Church in Pakistan has failed to take a stand against the record numbers of executions in the country this year. Apart from an appeal for clemency for Bahadur, neither the church nor the human rights arm of its bishops??? conference, the National Commission for Justice and Peace, has issued even a single statement on the death penalty. In fact, 2 senior officials from the commission told ucanews.com that they personally supported the government's move to resume capital punishment, reasoning it would help solve the country's long-standing terrorism woes. The 2 officials, however, asked not to be named. Although some clergymen individually opposed the executions in media interviews, there has been a muted and disappointing official response from the church, to say the least. It is high time that the Catholic Church in Pakistan took a principled stance against capital punishment. It would be in line with international laws, and indeed in line with the views of Pope Francis himself. (source: Zahid Hussain is a Pakistani journalist covering human rights and issues affecting minorities----ucanews.com) **************** Execution spree Due to a timely intervention by President Mamnoon Hussain, a disabled murder convict was given a fourth stay of execution for 2 months just hours before he was due to be hanged. Abdul Basit, 43, a convict paralysed from the waist down, was scheduled to be hanged on Wednesday morning, November 25 when a presidential decree halted the execution. He was convicted of murder in 2009 and contracted tubercular meningitis in prison in 2010. Earlier, his execution was harrowingly postponed thrice on medical grounds and concerns about how a wheelchair-bound man would mount the scaffold. Authorities acknowledge that as Abdul Basit was unable to stand on the gallows, it was impossible to carry out the execution according to prison rules. This particular case brings to the forefront a sorry state of affairs of the justice system in Pakistan where even the disabled cannot escape the merciless procedure of hanging after conviction. Although the execution has been stayed again, what about the agony he and his family have been passing through? This is an additional punishment for a disabled convict who has become a victim of the faulty justice system in the country. It has also raised questions about the standard of human rights and the concerned authorities??? ability to fulfil moral obligations. In fact, a flawed justice system, unfair trials and notoriety of the police for fabricating cases through torture have made the whole judicial procedure a murky phenomenon. It is a result of this failed system that cruel and unusual punishment is being meted out to a convict irrespective of his physical disability. Another terrible aspect is that the government has virtually been on an execution spree since the lifting of a moratorium on the death penalty. Convicts are being executed on an almost daily basis. According to Amnesty International, Pakistan has executed 299 people since the death penalty was controversially reinstated following a Taliban mass killing at a school in Peshawar last December. The Amnesty figures suggest Pakistan is on track to become one of the world???s top executioners in 2015. Hangings were initially reinstated only for those convicted of terrorism, but in March 2015, they were extended to all capital offences. At a time when the death penalty is being abolished in most countries, Pakistan is using this centuries old punishment as deterrence against crimes. In reality, the death penalty has failed to prove a deterrent against crime and terrorism. The time has come for the government to reform the judicial system. Instead of relying on cruel punishment, there is a need to introduce a reform culture in society where criminals could be treated as human beings. Remember, no society can succeed without equity, justice and fair play. (source: Editorial, Daily Times) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Nov 26 08:34:14 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2015 08:34:14 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 26 BANGLADESH: Bangladesh Executions Over War Crimes Trigger Mixed Reactions Sunday's executions in Bangladesh of two opposition leaders, accused of committing crimes during the country's 1971 war of independence from Pakistan, have sparked mixed reactions in the country and outside. Bangladesh's International Crime Tribunal found Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, a senior politician from the opposition Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) party, guilty on charges of conspiracy in abduction, torture and killing of intellectuals during the war. ICT also convicted Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, a leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), on charges of torture, rape and genocide. Following the executions, the ruling Awami League (AL) party and some groups supporting Bangladesh's war crime trials held victory rallies saying that Mujahid and Chowdhury deserved to be hanged for their war crimes. But JeI and BNP said the executions were politically motivated and aimed at eliminating political rivals. Rights groups and legal experts charged that Bangladesh executed the men after a flawed trial. Pakistan decries executions Since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina set up the ICT in 2010, it has convicted 24 people - mostly JeI leaders - of war crimes. Barring 2, all those convicted were handed out death sentences by the tribunal. So far, 4 - including Mujahid and Chowdhury - have been executed. Protests against Sunday's executions came from different corners, including Pakistan. Pakistan's foreign ministry issued a statement saying the trials of the two men were flawed, and that "Pakistan is deeply disturbed" by the executions. In a sharp reaction, Bangladesh summoned Pakistan's high commissioner in Dhaka and handed over a protest note. Bangladesh's junior foreign minister, Mohammed Shahriar Alam, said Pakistan had "no right" to make any comment on internal issues of Bangladesh. "On the issue of these trials of war criminals, who committed crimes against humanity, we shall not tolerate any negative comment from any country," Alam said. Victim's family welcomes punishment Dr. Nuzhat Choudhury's father, an eye specialist, was killed by Al Badr militia that Mujahid was convicted of leading during the war. Choudhury said after the execution of Mujahid that she felt justice had been delivered. "Mujahid was directly responsible for enlisting the names of top intellectuals of the time, like my father, and abducting them from their homes, brutally torturing them and subsequently murdering them. Therefore, in his trial and execution, my family and I personally got justice today," Choudhury told VOA. On Friday, the U.S. State Department said the executions of Mujahid and Chowdhury should not take place until it was clear that the trial processes had met international standards. Tureen Afroz, an ICT prosecutor, denied the tribunal's actions were motivated by politics. "But if a trial is taking place in an independent judicial forum where a defendant can freely exercise his internationally recognized rights, we call it a fair trial. I would like to say that all trials of the ICT have been very defense friendly," Afroz told VOA. Trials have 'serious flaws,' some say Earlier this month, Amnesty International noted that the trial and appeal processes had suffered from "serious flaws." "They were brought to the attention of the government by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other independent observers," said Abbas Faiz, senior south Asia researcher of AI. "The government authorities who had the power to stop the executions had full knowledge of these concerns. Yet, they went ahead with the executions." Sam Zarifi, Asia-Pacific regional director of the International Commission of Jurists, said the human rights committee of the United Nations is very clear that if a government wants to carry out a death penalty, it has to ensure that the judicial process in the case has been absolutely fair. "In the case of the International Crime Tribunal in Bangladesh, unfortunately this hasn't been the case," Zarifi said to VOA. "We saw witnesses not being allowed to testify, evidence that could exculpate the defendants not being admitted on vague grounds." Alex Carlile, a lawyer and member of Britain's House of Lords, said the trials in the cases of Mujahid and Chowdhury fell "far, far short of acceptable standards." Pointing to the case that Bangladesh executed the 2 men just 3 or 4 hours after their reported presidential clemency petitions had been rejected, Carlile said Bangladesh resorted to unusual haste in carrying out the executions. "I think the speed at which the executions took place is obscene," he said. "It falls way outside any acceptable criminal justice policies. I think the Bangladesh government has lost all respect among lawyers the world over." (source: voanews.com) ************* Bangladesh refutes UN claim on war crimes trial Bangladesh has refuted the claim of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that the trials of war criminals at the International Crimes Tribunal were not fair. Saying that the statement is "highly disturbing," the government has sent a reply to the OHCHR and protested such claim. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a press release in this regard on Thursday, 2 days after the UN rights body issued the statement involving war crimes trial in the country. On Tuesday, the UN human rights body renewed its call to the government of Bangladesh to immediately institute a moratorium on the death penalty and abolish it. The statement came two days after BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and Jamaat-e-Islami leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid were executed for crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War. In a statement, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Ravina Shamdasani said: "We've long warned given the doubts that have been raised about the fairness of trials conducted before the Tribunal, the government of Bangladesh should not implement death penalty sentences." In reply, the foreign ministry press statement said: "Both the convicted individuals have been handed down the death sentence by the ICT-BD for charges proven against them beyond reasonable doubts. The verdicts were subsequently upheld by the Appellate Division of Bangladesh Supreme after a full bench hearing. "On the judgment of the Supreme Court, the Review Petitions submitted by the convicted persons have also been heard by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on 18 November 2015, and subsequently disposed of.: Bangladesh explained that the ICT-BD trials takes solely into consideration the crimes committed by the individuals accused and convicted for crimes against humanity they had committed in 1971, and has no preoccupation with their present political status, reads the press release. "Mr Chowdhury or Mr Mujahid's cases have nothing to do with their political identity or affiliation, and the point that they belong to some opposition political parties is only a coincidence as far as the trials are concerned." "Moreover, certain accused and convicted individuals in the ICT-BD trials are with ruling party and its electoral allies. In this regard, Bangladesh has given a full account of the trials and proceedings related to the 2 cases of Messers Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid," it added. Bangladesh also reiterated that as a state party to the ICCPR, along with its Optional Protocol, Bangladesh is obliged to maintain international standards in its judicial process. The provisions of the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973 (ICT Act 1973) and the rules made thereunder are not inconsistent with the rights of the accused enshrined under article 14 of the ICCPR. The Government recognises its responsibility towards its citizens and is committed to fulfill its obligations to the citizens of Bangladesh. Bangladesh's response to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights emphasised that the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973 (ICT Act 1973) of Bangladesh was enacted by the Bangladesh Parliament which is vested with the legislative powers of the Republic under the Constitution. Read the Full Response of Bangladesh Government: The ICT Act provides for the detention, prosecution and punishment of persons for genocide, crimes against humanity and other crimes under international law and for matters connected therewith, stated the release. "Thus, the ICT Act provides for the detention, prosecution and punishment of persons liable for such crimes committed during the War of Liberation of Bangladesh from 25 March to 16 December 1971." The violations involved the indiscriminate killing of civilians, including women and children; the attempt to exterminate or drive out of the country a large part of population of approximately 10 million people; the dislocation of, at any one stage or another, of nearly half of the country's population of 75 million people; the arrest, torture and killing without trial of suspects; the raping of women; the destruction of villages and towns; and the looting of property. In addition to criminal offences under domestic law, there is a strong prima facie case that criminal offences were committed in international law, namely war crimes and crimes against humanity and acts of genocide under the Genocide Convention 1948. Article VI of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948 Genocide Convention) provides that persons charged with genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article III shall be tried by a competent tribunal of the State in the territory of which the act was committed. The Convention also provides that (Article 6.2) in countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes in accordance with the law in force at the time of the commission of the crime and not contrary to the provisions of the present Covenant and to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This penalty can only be carried out pursuant to a final judgement rendered by a competent court. This clearly is the case, which has been maintained by the Supreme Court in Bangladesh with regard two verdicts under discussion. Article V of the Convention also provides that The Contracting Parties undertake to enact, in accordance with their respective Constitutions, the necessary legislation to provide effective penalties for persons guilty of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III of the Convention. It has been categorically found that the rights of defense and procedure given in the ICT Act and the Rules of Procedure are manifestations of "due process of law" and "fair trial" which make the legislation of 1973 more humane, jurisprudentially sound and legally valid. The International Bar Association (IBA) Committee, in a report has also opined that "The 1973 Legislation together with the 2009 amending text, provides a system which is broadly compatible with current international standard". This opinion should alone suffice, as far as the minimum standard required by international law is concerned. Besides, the ICC Statute never denies the primacy of the national law. Article 10 of the Statute explicitly recognizes that "nothing in this part shall be interpreted as limiting or prejudicing in any way existing or developing rules of interpreted as limiting or prejudicing in any way existing or developing rules of international law for the purpose other than this Statute". In conclusion, Bangladesh mentioned that The ICT-BD trials have created an opportunity for ending the culture of impunity, ensuring justice to the victims, and paving the way for truth and reconciliation. This was duly recognised by the European Parliament in its Resolution of16 January 2014 where it posited, "... the International Crimes Tribunal has played an important role in providing redress and closure for victims of and those affected by the Bangladeshi war of independence." Similarly, the European Parliament earlier also acknowledged the need for reconciliation, justice and accountability for the crimes committed during the 1971 war of independence while stressing the important role of ICT in this matter. It is unfortunate that while the international community across the board has embraced the trials as an effort to end the culture of impunity for mass atrocity crimes committed over 4 decades ago, some selected quarters are still resorting to sweeping, biased and unfounded comments about the trials as fed to them by the agents and sympathisers of those accused and convicted. The Government and the people of Bangladesh are confident that plausible legal arguments can be provided for all the fabricated charges being leveled against the trials, and that the fact that fair trial and due process standards had been upheld through out the trial process, would ultimately prevail. In view of the above, to any discerning observer, the position taken by the OHCHR in the said press briefing note raises a question - whether the OHCHR is siding with the perpetrators of war crime, genocide and crimes against humanity. It is also a question if the OHCHR is choosing to undermine the cry for justice of the families of innumerable victims; whether the impunity that the majority of the people of Bangladesh want to see gone, is being upheld by the OHCHR. The present government of Bangladesh came to power with an overwhelming majority who supported their declared manifesto of bringing an end to the impunity so long enjoyed by the perpetrators of war crime, genocide and crimes against humanity and no democratic government could ignore such a demand in Bangladesh. (source: dhakatribune.com) *************** Man to die for killing wife for dowry A court here yesterday sentenced a man to death for killing his wife for dowry in Sadar upazila in 2000. Judge Saiful Islam of the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal handed down the verdict. The death penalty awardee is Bappi Mia, 37, son of Abdus Samad of Manik Chok Hotilapur area in the upazila. The Tribunal acquitted three charged sheeted accused as charges brought against them could not be proved. They are Bappi's elder brother Papu Mia, Rani Begum, wife of Bappi's brother Tutul Mia, and mother Arefa Begum. According to the case statement, Bappi married Kohinoor Begum, 19, daughter of Abul Hossain of Joypurpara in the upazila, in 1999. On June 14, 2000, Bappi put pressure on Kohinoor to bring money from her parents as dowry. As she refused to do so, Bappi beat her dead and dumped the body in a nearby water body. Police recovered Kohinoor's body the following day and sent it to Mohammad Ali Hospital for autopsy. Kohinoor's father filed a case with Bogra Sadar Police Station, accusing 4 identified and 2 unidentified people. Sub-inspector (SI) Mojibur Rahman, investigation officer (IO) of the case, submitted a charge sheet mentioning the names of the accused on November 10, 2000. (source: The Daily Star) SAUDI ARABIA: Mothers of Saudi juveniles facing beheading appeal for mercy, as executions loom----Local media in Saudi Arabia have reported that more than 50 people detained will be executed over the coming days The mothers of 5 juvenile prisoners facing the death penalty in Saudi Arabia have called for their children's convictions to be quashed, amid fears they may about to be executed. A joint statement released by the mothers on Tuesday described the potential execution of their children as "unique in the history of Saudi justice". "Saudi authorities have subjected our children to multiple forms of injustice," the statement said, with the mothers accusing the government of arbitrarily detaining and torturing their children, as well as subjecting them to unfair trials. "We demand that the Saudi government drop their sentences and order their re-trial. These trials must be public, in accordance with international principles, and must be attended by neutral observers," they said. Mohammed al-Shioukh, Abdullah al-Zaher, Ali al-Rebh, Dawood al-Marhoon, and Ali al-Nimr have been sentenced to death. All of them were under 18 years old at the time of their arrests in 2012, which were for taking part in anti-government protests organised by the Shia community in the Eastern Province. Fears have risen that the 5 young Saudis will be imminetly beheaded after local news outlet Okaz reported on Monday that 55 people convicted of "anti-government offences" will be executed over the coming days. Okaz did not reveal the names of those to be executed, nor did they reveal the exact date of the potential executions, but they did say some of those to be beheaded will be prisoners from the Eastern Province. Anti-death penalty advocacy group Reprieve described the reports as "extremely concerning". "These reports are [...] suggesting the Saudis may be just days away from executing people convicted when they were children, who were demanding political reform in their country," Maya Foa, director of Reprieve's Death Penalty Team, said in a statement. "These executions must be stopped," she added. Saudi Arabia's Shia community make up around 10 to 15 % of the kingdom's 29 million population. They are concentrated in the country's Eastern Province, which is rich with oil but rife with poverty. The Shia community have long complained that the government discriminate against them, particularly in areas of employment and education. In 2011, inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings, protests erupted in the Eastern Province, with the local Shia community pouring onto the streets to demand increased representation and more rights in the kingdom. The leader of those protests, firebrand cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, was arrested in July 2012 after a gun battle with authorities. Nimr, the uncle of juvenile detainee Ali al-Nimr, is among those slated to be executed for their role in the Eastern Province protests, which continue to take place but have dramatically decreased in size since the 2012 crackdown. Saudi authorities reject that Nimr led peaceful rights-based protests, and instead allege that they faced - and continue to face - armed anti-government gangs in the Eastern Province. "The al-Nimr family members pursued violence and attacks on security forces and government facilities beside terrorising civilians, hooliganism and vandalism," Saudi authorities recently said in a statement given to the Daily Telegraph. "We have all the rights to maintain safety and security of our citizens and we cannot understand the demands to make it go unpunished." The mothers of the 5 young Saudis facing execution said on Wednesday that they will not go quiet even if their children are beheaded. "We [...] will only stay silent over this crime if they kill us alongside our children," the statement said. Saudi Arabia has executed at least 151 people so far in 2015, nearly doubling last year's total of 88. (source: middleeasteye.net) ********** Concerns as reports suggest juvenile executions in Saudi may be days away International human rights NGO Reprieve has raised concerns over Saudi media reports, which suggest that juveniles Ali al Nimr and Dawoud al Marhoon could be executed in days. Saudi news outlet Okaz has today reported that 55 people convicted of 'anti-Government offences', are to be executed in the coming days. A number of those are apparently from the same region as juveniles Ali al Nimr and Dawoud al Marhoon, and Ali's Uncle, the high profile pro-democracy activist Sheik al Nimr. The fears were compounded after the young men were taken for an announced medical examination in the prison, which suggests their execution has been scheduled. The reports have raised concerns at human rights NGO Reprieve, which is assisting the two juveniles, that their executions could be imminent, as well as that of Abdallah al-Zaher, who was only 15 when he participated in protests. Both Ali and Dawoud were convicted in part on trumped-up anti-Government charges, despite their being youth activists who attended pro-democracy protests. Ali al Nimr and Dawoud al Marhoon were both sentenced to death when they were under 18, for attending pro-democracy political protests. Both are understood to have been held in solitary confinement in Riyadh. British Prime Minister David Cameron has previously called on the Saudi authorities to stop the planned execution of Ali al Nimr, and his government cancelled a bid to provide services to the Saudi prisons because of human rights concerns. Maya Foa, Director of Reprieve's Death Penalty Team, said: \"These reports are extremely concerning - suggesting that the Saudis may be just days away from executing people convicted when they were children, who were demanding political reform in their country. These executions must be stopped, and Saudi's allies in the UK must once again make representations to prevent them going ahead." (source: reprieve.org) IRAN----execution Call to save death row prisoner aged 15 at time of alleged crime Execution of 17 prisoners, including 6 young men aged 20 to 25, only 5 days after UN condemns executions in Iran The Iranian Resistance calls for measures to save the life of Mr. Salar Shadi Zadi, a young prisoner on death row who was merely 15 at the time of his alleged crime, and asks all international human rights dignitaries and organizations to protest this barbarity and medieval viciousness, and to take effective action to prevent the execution of this young man. Salar Shadi Zadi is scheduled to be executed on November 28 after already enduring 9 years behind bars. At least 72 prisoners under the age of 18 have been executed under the mullahs' rule during the past decade, Amnesty International reported. The religious fascism ruling Iran, dubbed by the people as the "Godfather of ISIS," has in the past 5 days alone executed at least 17 prisoners. This follows the recent United Nations resolution condemning vicious human rights violations in Iran and a UN call to stop executions in Iran. 6 of those executed had only 20 to 25 years of age. A 20-year-old man in the town of Mayamey in Semnan Province was hanged on Wednesday, November 25. Despite calls made by international organizations a day earlier, Alireza Shahi, aged 25, was executed along with 4 other individuals. >From the age of 18 he had been behind bars for 7 years. 3 prisoners hanged on November 21 in Zahedan Central Prison were all young men. Mojtaba Lak-Zehi, 22, was aged 17 at the time of his alleged crime. He and Hassan Dori Moghadam, 20, were both from Iran's Baluchi minority community. Nazir Ahmad Rigi, 24, was an Afghan national. Also on November 21, Mehdi Budineh was executed in Zabol Central Prison at the age of 25. The mullahs' regime is resorting to the execution of youths in public and in prisons across the country in an attempt to cement a climate of fear across the society and prevent massive uprising by the disgruntled population described by regime officials as the "army of the hungry." The Iranian Resistance calls on all Iranian people, especially the youth, to rise up and protest these crimes. (source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran) **************** Young Prisoner Hanged in Public in Northern Iran A young prisoner charged with rape was hanged to death in public in Meyami, Semnan. Iranian state-run media Javan News has identified the prisoner by the initials A.M. and stated his age as "about 30 years old." Iranian offiials have not released any more information about the case, making it unclear whether the prisoner was over the age of 18 at the time of his arrest. Commenting on the execution, Abbas Ali Akbari, the head of Meyami's Judiciary, says: "The offender was arrested for committing several counts of rape and was sentenced to lashings and death." (source: Iran Human Rights) ENGLAND: Holloway prison closure will be mourned by few ---- Notorious Victorian prison???s inmates have included Sylvia and Christabel Pankhurst, Myra Hindley and Ruth Ellis The announcement that the site of Holloway prison is to be sold to become a chic London housing address would have astounded generations of women incarcerated there. Despite repeated alteration and rebuilding in the 163 years since it opened, so that barely a trace of the original architecture survives, Holloway was still described in the most recent report by the prison inspectorate as having "a fearsome reputation". Its inmates have included the sisters Sylvia and Christabel Pankhurst and other suffragettes, many of whom suffered the pain and sometimes broken teeth of repeated force-feeding to break their hunger strike. Many were freed from Holloway when they became ill enough to embarrass the government, only to be rearrested and locked up again under what was known as "the cat and mouse act". The Moors murderer Myra Hindley fell in love with one of her prison officers in Holloway. Ruth Ellis became the last woman to be executed in England, in Holloway. She was hanged by the state executioner Albert Pierrepoint while a crowd of 500 outside the gates chanted protests against the death penalty. Her body was exhumed with those of other executed prisoners during rebuilding work in the 1970s, and reburied in a churchyard in Buckinghamshire under the name Ruth Hornby to protect the grave from ghoulish souvenir hunters. A more aristocratic prisoner entered the high gates in 1940. Lady Diana Mitford was often described as the most beautiful woman in England - "her beauty rang through the room like a peal of bells", a smitten Evelyn Waugh wrote. She became a friend of Adolf Hitler, who sent a chauffeur-driven Mercedes to take her to the Olympic Games in Berlin, and she married the British fascist leader Oswald Mosley at the home of the Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, with Hitler as a guest. Mosley was imprisoned in Brixton in 1940, and Mitford soon afterwards in Holloway, which was then in a terrible state, its plumbing system badly damaged by German bombing. Mitford's treatment was far from that meted out to thousands of poor women without grand connections. Winston Churchill personally ordered that she should be allowed a daily bath, though in fact water was so scarce that she was reduced to weekly bathing. Mitford ordered in supplies through her Harrods account, and later - again at Churchill's intervention - Mosley was allowed to join her to live in a small house within the prison walls, where they grew aubergines and fraises du bois in the yard. When both were released in 1943, 20,000 people signed a petition in protest. Like many other Victorian prisons that would acquire notoriety, Holloway was constructed in an attempt to improve conditions for inmates held in overcrowded buildings that had hardly changed since medieval times. In the 1850s Holloway was still a pleasant semi-rural area, with market gardens and cottages. The prison was originally for men and women, but in 1903 it became the largest women's prison in the country. Within a decade, the imprisonment of the suffragettes and the vivid accounts of many, including Sylvia Pankhurst, of the torture of force feeding had made Holloway infamous. In the most recent report by the chief inspector of prisons, Nick Hardwick, he wrote that although the rate of self-harm was falling, at 63 incidents a month it was still high, as in many women's prisons, and that Holloway prisoners were anxious and fearful about their safety. "This was not surprising," he wrote. "Holloway has a fearsome reputation." Although there will undoubtedly be protests if the site is sold for luxury housing, few will mourn the death sentence for Holloway as a prison. (source: The Guardian) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Nov 27 10:52:53 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2015 10:52:53 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., ALA., OHIO, TENN., UTAH, IDAHO, CALIF., USA Message-ID: Nov. 27 FLORIDA: Cathedral to hold 'Cities for Life' event The Cathedral Basilica will "light up" at 6 p.m. Monday for "Cities for Life: Praying for Life, Mercy and Reconciliation." The event will advocate for an end to the death penalty. Pastor of the Cathedral Basilica, the Rev. Tom Willis, will preside over the Holy Hour, and the homily will be given by Deacon Jason Roy, Catholic Chaplain on Florida's death row. This event is in collaboration with the worldwide Community of Sant'Egidio campaign to end the use of the death penalty. More than 1,900 cities have declared themselves "Cities for Life" and show their commitment to the abolition of the death penalty by lighting up cathedrals and other significant religious and civic landmarks (i.e., the Coliseum in Rome) every Nov. 30. This year, the Bishops of Florida have decided to participate in all 7 Florida Catholic dioceses. All are welcome to attend. (source: St. Augustine Record) ******************* Oscar Ray Bolin, Jr. asks Florida Supreme Court to stay execution A death-row inmate facing execution in January for a murder in Pasco County 30 years ago is asking the Florida Supreme Court for a stay in the case and to grant a hearing so his attorneys can argue "newly discovered evidence," which a circuit court recently rejected. Republican Gov. Rick Scott signed the death warrant for Oscar Ray Bolin, Jr., last month, scheduling his execution for Jan. 7. Bolin killed 3 women in the Tampa Bay area in 1986. He was sentenced to death for 2 of them and is serving a life sentence on the third. The scheduled execution is for the murder of Teri Lynn Matthews, whom he abducted from the Land O' Lakes Post Office in the early morning hours of Dec. 5, 1986. In a motion to the Supreme Court filed late Monday, Bolin's attorneys argue they have new evidence that needs to be heard, including that an Ohio inmate "confessed to having committed the murder." Download Filed_11-23-2015_Motion_Briefing_Schedule A circuit court last month denied Bolin's request for an evidentiary hearing on the matter, reasoning that the "confession was not evidence of a magnitude that it would probably produce an acquittal or a sentence other than death if admitted at a retrial." After Scott signed Bolin's death warrant, Bolin appealed his case once more to the Sixth Circuit Court, and on Friday, the court denied Bolin's motion for rehearing and a request to vacate the death sentence. Bolin was convicted of abducting Matthews and then bludgeoning her with a wooden club, spraying her with a water hose and loading her into a truck to dispose of her body. She was found wrapped in the sheet on the side of the road in Pasco County later that day with severe head injuries and stab wounds in her neck and body. Bolin previously appealed his case to federal court but his petition was denied in 2013, and the 11th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals also denied to review the case. Bolin has been convicted of 2 other murders in Hillsborough County. He is currently sentenced to death for the 1986 murder of Stephanie Collins and is serving a life sentence for the 1986 murder of Natalie Holley. (source: Tampa Bay Times) ALABAMA----death row inmate dies Attorney: Alabama inmate seeking freedom from death row dies An Alabama death row inmate who was seeking to overturn his murder conviction has died, one of his attorneys said Thursday. Attorney Cissy Jackson said Donnis Musgrove died Wednesday night at the Donaldson Correctional Facility in Bessemer, Alabama. Jackson said Musgrove was suffering from lung cancer. "It was a privilege to know and represent Donnis," Jackson said in an emailed statement. "My husband and I have been working for his release since 1997, and we are so sorry that he did not live to be exonerated." Musgrove, 67, was sentenced to die for the gunshot killing of Coy Eugene Barron in 1986. However, Musgrove has steadfastly maintained his innocence, and his attorneys contend the prosecution falsified the evidence against him, including witness statements and a shell casing that was used to link him to the slaying. The attorney general's office previously has declined to comment on Musgrove's legal arguments. Musgrove was trying to become the 3rd inmate freed from Alabama's death row since April. Lawyers asked U.S. District Judge David Proctor to rule quickly because of Musgrove's ill health. 2 other men have been released from Alabama's death row since April after winning appeals. 1 of them, Anthony Ray Hinton, was tried by the same Jefferson County prosecutor and judge who handled Musgrove's case, and the same ballistics expert was involved in each case. Musgrove contended that the evidence of wrongdoing in his case is more extensive than in the case against Hinton. The state had argued that rules prohibited Musgrove from making new claims about being innocent and bar him from questioning evidence used in his trial, but prosecutors didn't directly addressed his arguments contending that he was wrongfully convicted based on bogus evidence conjured up by prosecutors and police. (source: Associated Press) OHIO: Ohio prosecutors are turning away from the death penalty in favor of life in prison----Since taking office, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty has asked for death in just 5 cases Ohio prosecutors have filed 77 % fewer death penalty indictments since 2010, preferring instead to seek life without parole. Ohio's declining death penalty numbers are part of a national trend, and the Plain Dealer reports that life-without-parole nearly doubled in the past 5 years. In Cuyahoga County, Prosecutor Tim McGinty has asked for the death penalty in just 7 % of cases that would qualify. His predecessor, Bill Mason, asked for death in 78 % of cases. Retired University of Akron Law Professor Dean Carro says one of the main reasons is likely the cost. "You're talking about a direct appeal, post-conviction appeals, Habeas Corpus, petitions for A Writ of Certiorari?, so there may be 5, 6, 7 [or] 8 appeals. All of which have their attendant costs. I would guess somewhere in the nature of $100,000, at least. "The public has been moving away in terms of public sentiment away from the propriety of the death penalty. And the growing number of people who have initially been determined to have been guilty, and it later turns out that they're innocent." Since taking office in 2012, Prosecutor McGinty has asked for death in just 5 cases. 3 plead guilty and are in prison, while 2 are still pending. (source: WKSU news) TENNESSEE: Time has come for Tennessee to re-evaluate death penalty I was pleasantly surprised and greatly encouraged by the recent statement adopted by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) concerning the death penalty. I am a conservative evangelical pastor. I used to support the death penalty, but now I believe the time has come for its complete repeal. I am glad to know there are other like-minded evangelicals and that their numbers are growing. Earlier this year the 3,000-member National Latino Evangelical Coalition voted to support the repeal of the death penalty, becoming the first evangelical association to take this position. Now the NAE has shifted its position as well. The NAE represents more than 45,000 churches from nearly 40 denominations. The organization has always been in favor of the death penalty. In 1973 it adopted the following resolution: "We call upon Congress and state legislatures to enact legislation which will direct the death penalty for such horrendous crimes as premeditated murder, the killing of a police officer or guard, murder in connection with any other crime, hijacking, skyjacking, or kidnapping where persons are physically harmed in the process." Conservative pastor changes mind on death penalty While the new resolution does not completely eradicate the 1973 resolution, it does take a significant step forward by acknowledging there is a legitimate, biblical difference of opinion among evangelicals on the death penalty. In part, the new resolution, adopted in October, reads: "Evangelical Christians differ in their beliefs about capital punishment, often citing strong biblical and theological reasons either for the just character of the death penalty in extreme cases or for the sacredness of all life, including the lives of those who perpetrate serious crimes and yet have the potential for repentance and reformation. ... We affirm the conscientious commitment of both streams of Christian ethical thought." I have come to believe that while one could argue from Scripture the death penalty is just in some cases, we are incapable of doing it justly so we should not do it all - especially if there is another sentence (life in prison) that would be just and allow for redemption and reconciliation. The new NAE resolution makes the same point, stating that all human systems are fallible. Death row inmates oppressed by tyranny of the majority Nonpartisan studies of the death penalty have identified systemic problems in the United States. These include eyewitness error, coerced confessions, prosecutorial misconduct, racial disparities, incompetent counsel, inadequate instruction to juries, judges who override juries that do not vote for the death penalty, and improper sentencing of those who lack the mental capacity to understand their crime. The time has come for the Tennessee legislature to take another look at the death penalty in light of all of these concerns and determine if this is a policy that is actually serving the cause of justice or the citizens of Tennessee. (source: Opinion; The Rev. Kevin Riggs is senior pastor of Franklin Community Church----The Tennessean) UTAH: Judge annuls evidence ruling in death penalty case The judge presiding over a St. George murder case has annulled his ruling that authorized the defense to begin seeking deposition testimony from prosecutors in all of Utah's 29 counties as well as the state Attorney General's Office, and will instead require more evidence before issuing a decision. Attorneys Gary Pendleton and Mary Corporan, who represent Bloomington Hills resident Brandon Perry Smith, announced a plan last week to call on Utah prosecutors past and present to explain why they did not seek the death penalty in murder cases stretching back to 1992. Pendleton informed Judge G. Michael Westfall that 150 state prison inmates are serving life without parole terms because prosecutors didn't seek the death penalty in their cases. Pendleton's claim forms the bedrock of a motion to declare the death penalty unconstitutional in Utah on the basis of unequal application. "Why is the death penalty not being sought in those cases but it is being sought in this case?" he asked at the time. Smith, 34, is accused of killing 20-year-old Jerrica Christensen 2 weeks before Christmas 2010 in a brutal downtown incident. Smith's codefendant in the case, Paul Clifford Ashton, avoided the death penalty and was instead sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing the other victim in the case - Brandie Sue Dawn Jerden, 27 - as well as for the attempted murder of James Fiske, 33, during the incident. Ashton was also sentenced for the unrelated murder of homeless resident Bradley Eitner, 43, which occurred a few weeks earlier. The murders took place at Ashton's 600 South residence, and evidence gathered in Smith's case indicates Ashton called on Smith to help him the night of Christensen's and Jerden's deaths, although Pendleton has argued the evidence also shows Smith was manipulated or coerced into becoming involved in Ashton's scheme without prior knowledge of what Ashton was planning. Westfall's amended ruling issued Tuesday states that U.S. and Utah Supreme Court rulings have established that a "credible threshold showing" of discrimination must be made in three test areas - in other words, the defense must present sufficient evidence to convince the court that inmates at the state prison had cases similar to Smith's in specific detail, that Smith is in a classification that is different from those inmates such as having a different ethnicity, and that Smith has been treated differently than the inmates who meet the first 2 criteria. Westfall's new ruling states the defense claims that have been presented thus far were insufficient to justify deposing all of the state's capital crime prosecutors to obtain evidence about their decision making. "When a defendant is granted permission to do (evidence) discovery on a selective prosecution claim, the discovery requires the government (prosecutors) to assemble files and respond to a case of discrimination or arbitrary imposition of the death penalty," Westfall wrote. "This process diverts government resources and requires prosecutors to disclose prosecutorial strategy," he wrote. "Because of this, the Supreme Court has initiated extremely rigorous standards before a defendant may be granted discovery and question prosecutors about their prosecutorial strategy." Westfall states that once the defense has made a credible showing that the three tests have been met, the court will consider anew the request to depose all Utah prosecutors who had a hand in deciding potential death penalty cases since 1992, or to summon all the prosecutors to St. George for an evidentiary hearing in court. In the meantime, the court will schedule a status conference to determine deadlines for further proceedings in the case, including for the threshold showing and for all other motions in the 5-year-old case. "If feasible, the court will also discuss with the parties potential trial dates," Westfall writes. A previous trial date was established for two weeks in September of this year, but the trial was postponed indefinitely as new defense motions were filed in the case. Christensen's mother, Ellen Hensley, has previously expressed concerns about the length of the court process and held a candlelight vigil at the courthouse on the last anniversary of her daughter's death to call for swifter justice for the victims of crimes. Westfall addressed the concerns of the victim's family at last week's hearing, but Pendleton responded that he was also concerned about providing adequate representation for Smith "on all the legal issues." Pendleton's motion to declare the death penalty unconstitutional amounts to a challenge about whether anyone should be sentenced to death unless everyone who could legally be sentenced to death receives that ultimate penalty, barring a specific explanation from prosecutors about why someone receiving a life sentence qualifies as an exception. Pendleton noted that the United States declared the death penalty unconstitutional between 1972 and 1976 "on the basis that it was imposed irregularly and without objective standards." The nationwide ban was lifted when prosecutors resolved the high court's concern with a new definition of "aggravating circumstances" that set the standard for deciding on the death penalty. The death penalty has since been allowed on a state-by-state basis, and Utah established 8 aggravating circumstances to define death penalty cases that have since grown to 22 or 23 aggravators, Pendleton said. But he argues that the death penalty is only imposed in 3 % of potential death penalty cases, meaning the prosecution is still using some type of arbitrary and undeclared decision process in making that determination. (source: The Spectrum) IDAHO: Death penalty decision looms for admitted Sgt. Moore killer A district judge said prosecutors have until the New Year to decide whether to pursue the death penalty for Jonathan Renfro, who is accused of killing Coeur d'Alene Police Officer Seargent Greg Moore and stealing his patrol car in northern Idaho. District Judge Lansing Hayes extended the capital crime deadline until January 4 on Wednesday. The deadline was previously set to expire on Friday. Investigators allege that Jonathan Renfro, who was on parole, shot Sgt. Moore on May 5 as the officer questioned him because he feared Moore would find a handgun in his pocket - a parole violation. After his May arrest, Renfro admitted to authorities after that he killed Sgt. Moore during an early-morning traffic stop. He is facing 1st Degree Murder Charges. Sgt. Moore was taken to a local hospital after he was shot and he later died from his injuries. A doctor testified during the hearing that Moore was shot in the mouth. Authorities said Sgt. Moore called into dispatch reporting that he had stopped a "suspicious person." Police said it was somewhere after that moment that Moore was shot. Renfro admitted to taking Sgt. Moore's firearm during his interview with investigators. Court documents said he also admitted to taking two pistol magazines and a flashlight from Sgt. Moore. Renfro also told investigators that he left the shooting scene in Moore's patrol vehicle. He confessed to ditching the vehicle in Post Falls because he knew authorities were looking for him. John Adams, Renfro's lawyer, has also filed a motion seeking to exclude cellphone evidence from the trial. Renfro's trial is set to begin in September 2016. (source: Associated Press) CALIFORNIA: Judge: Kerman man can't be executed for 1979 murder A Kerman man who has spent more than 3 decades on California's death row for raping and killing his 12-year-old stepdaughter is ineligible for the death penalty because he is intellectually disabled, a Fresno County Superior Court judge has ruled. Instead, Judge Wayne Ellison said Donald Griffin should spend the rest of his life behind bars. Ellison's ruling is the 1st of its kind in Fresno County Superior Court and gives death-penalty opponents new fuel to ban capital punishment in California. "We are a civilized society," said Fresno lawyer Barbara Hope O'Neill, who defended Griffin in the 1990s. "This ruling just shows how ridiculous the death penalty is, not just for Mr. Griffin, but for the family of the victim who has to agonize over every twist and turn in the case." Ellison's ruling earlier this month came after several experts testified that Griffin was intellectually disabled before he turned 18 years old. When Griffin became intellectually disabled is key. A 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling called Atkins v. Virginia bans the execution of mentally disabled defendants because it violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Court records say Griffin was 30 when he was accused of raping and killing his stepdaughter, Janice Kelly Wilson, who was known as Kelly, in December 1979. He was convicted and given the death penalty in November 1980. "This court finds that the convincing force of the evidence supports the conclusion that petitioner (Griffin) does have a condition of significant sub-average general intellectual functioning within the meaning of Atkins and Penal Code 1376," Ellison wrote in his Nov. 12 ruling. Penal Code 1376 also addresses a defendant's intellectual disability and the California death penalty. "Based on the foregoing findings of fact and conclusions of law, this court rules that petitioner is ineligible for imposition of the death penalty under Penal Code 1376 and Atkins," Ellison wrote. Ellison then sentenced Griffin, who waived his right to attend the Nov. 12 hearing, to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Steve Wright, an assistant Fresno County district attorney, said this week he could not comment because the case is still pending; the District Attorney's Office is consulting the California Attorney General's Office about whether to appeal Ellison's ruling. One of Griffin's appellate lawyers, Mary McCombs, also declined to comment, saying the case is pending a decision by the prosecution. But O'Neill said Tuesday: "This is absolutely the right ruling." Until the prosecution makes its decision, Griffin, 66, will remain on death row in San Quentin State Prison. Since 1978, when California reinstated the death penalty, 13 death row inmates have been executed. The last was Clarence Ray Allen, who received a death sentence in 1982 for masterminding Fresno's notorious Fran's Market slayings of Bryon Schletewitz, 27, Douglas White, 18, and Josephine Rocha, 17. By the time he was executed in 2006, Allen was 76, a diabetic, legally blind, using a wheelchair and had survived a near-fatal heart attack at San Quentin. His accomplice, Billy Ray Hamilton, 57, never saw the executioner. He died the following year of natural causes, prison officials said. Death-penalty watchers say the last time a death row inmate from Fresno County was re-sentenced to life in prison without parole was in 1998. Peter Edelbacher was sentenced to death in 1983 for killing his wife, Lela, but the penalty was overturned 6 years later by the California Supreme Court. Citing courtroom errors, the state's high court ordered a new trial for Edelbacher on whether he should be executed. After years of legal wranglings and several false starts, a jury was chosen in October 1998 to hear evidence against Edelbacher. But on the day testimony was scheduled to begin, the District Attorney's Office informed Judge Ralph Nunez that it could no longer seek the death penalty. In their decision, prosecutors cited several rulings by Nunez to exclude certain evidence the prosecution had wanted to present against Edelbacher. Edelbacher, 60, remains behind bars in Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga. The only other death row inmate from Fresno County to escape the execution chamber was Michael Todd Leach. But that was a jury's decision. In October 1979, Leach and Patrick Allen Jones lured 17-year-old Michael Messer to a fig orchard at DeWolf and Ashlan avenues, east of Fresno. There, they robbed Messer and stabbed him to death. Jones pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Leach was given the death penalty after a jury convicted him of murder during the commission of a robbery. At the time, he was 18 and the youngest death-row resident in the United States. But on Dec. 31, 1985, the state Supreme Court under Rose Bird overturned the death penalty for Leach and 10 other defendants. The penalty phase of Leach's trial was retried, and a jury concluded that he should receive life in prison. In 1988, Judge Mario Olmos sentenced Leach to life in prison without parole. Leach, 54, remains behind bars at Salinas Valley State Prison in Soledad. Donald Griffin, who admitted to killing Kelly but denied raping her, was tried, convicted and sentenced to death in November 1980. In the Griffin case, court records say Kelly's mutilated body was found by a motorist Dec. 13, 1979. The girl had been raped, sodomized, stabbed in the neck, strangled and cut open with a hunting knife, prosecutors said. Griffin admitted to killing Kelly but denied raping her, court records say. Given a death sentence, his case has been tangled in a lengthy legal fight. In 1988, the California Supreme Court upheld the conviction but overturned the death sentence, ruling that the jury in the 1980 trial was wrongly told that if they sentenced Griffin to life in prison without possibility of parole, the governor could modify that sentence so Griffin eventually could be paroled. In his 1st trial, Griffin was represented by Fresno attorney Robert Rainwater. In his 2nd trial in 1992, Griffin was defended by O'Neill and Fresno attorney Peter Jones. A new jury gave Griffin the death penalty again, but during the trial O'Neill and Jones raised the mental retardation issue. Because his intellectual disability was part of the record, Griffin's appellate lawyers, after years of legal fighting, were able to bring his case back to a Fresno courtroom this year after the California Supreme Court ruled they had presented enough evidence on Griffin's behalf to qualify for a hearing under the 2002 Atkins ruling. The hearing took place in Ellison's courtroom in July. Griffin, who did not attend the hearing, was represented by McCombs, a supervising deputy in the state Public Defender's Office, and San Francisco attorney Michael Laurence, executive director of the Habeas Corpus Resource Center. They contend Griffin, who had no prior criminal record before the killing, has been intellectually disabled since childhood. Prosecutors Robert Mangano of the Fresno County District Attorney's Office and George Hendrickson of the Attorney General's Office represented the victim's family. They contend that while Griffin may be borderline mentally disabled, he still knew what he was doing when he raped and killed his stepdaughter. During the hearing, experts for Griffin said he suffered physical abuse as a child under his father's harsh discipline. In addition, Griffin was subjected to "severe and violent sexual abuse" within his extended family, court records say. Griffin's witnesses include J. Gregory Olley, a professor at the University of North Carolina and expert in the field of forensic psychology as it relates to intellectual disability and the death penalty. Olley testified that Griffin was the product of an impoverished home: his parents were cotton pickers and Griffin could not read while growing up in the Tranquillity area. He barely reads at 1st-grade level today, Olley told the judge. "He was a loner and withdrawn. He was disheveled in his appearance," Olley testified. Because of his speech impediment, Griffin was reluctant to go to school. "Kids would call him 'dummy' and 'retard,'" the psychologist told Ellison. Though he was friendly, Griffin could not make friends because he was not a good conversationalist, Olley said. On cross-examination, Mangano suggested that Griffin was smart enough to plan Kelly's murder. But Olley said that wasn't the case; Griffin never cleaned the victim's blood off his shoes, clothing and truck. Authorities also apprehended Griffin quickly, Olley testified. In his Nov. 12 ruling, Ellison said the prosecution expert, Andrew Cavagnaro, who obtained his graduate degrees from Fresno State and the California School of Professional Psychology, did not provide "a sound basis for concluding that petitioner is not intellectually disabled." "The court therefore finds that the petitioner (Griffin) has met his burden to prove that it is more likely than not that he is intellectually disabled," Ellison wrote. (source: Fresno Bee) USA: Capital punishment The recent execution of Marcus Ray Johnson has re-opened the debate over capital punishment in our country. While Johnson maintained his innocence, the Dougherty County jury was right to sentence Johnson to death after finding he brutally murdered Angela Sizemore more than 21 years ago. "I have no doubt in my mind that Marcus Ray Johnson is guilty and the jury has spoken. And believe based upon the facts and the law that this was the appropriate punishment for the crimes," said Dougherty D.A.Greg Edwards. The death penalty should remain a viable form of punishment when it involves a crime as heinous the murder of Angela Sizemore. We do believe anyone who receives such a sentence should be afforded every reasonable appeal, but where does reasonable end and just playing the system against itself begin? How can it be argued that the death penalty is a proper deterrent to terrible crimes if it takes 21 years to be carried out? This issue must be addressed in the future, so everyone can be assured the punishment fits the crime. (source: Editorial, WALB news) ************ Obama struggles with stance on the death penalty President Barack Obama is making a hard case for overhauling the U.S. criminal justice system, but where he stands on the death penalty is unclear. Obama has hinted that his support for capital punishment is eroding, but he has refused to discuss what he might call for. A Justice Department review has dragged on for 18 months with little mention or momentum. The president recently repeated he is "deeply concerned" about the death penalty's implementation, though he also acknowledges the issue has not been a top priority. "I have not traditionally been opposed to the death penalty in theory, but in practice it's deeply troubling," Obama told the Marshall Project, a nonprofit journalism group, citing racial bias, wrongful convictions and questions about "gruesome and clumsy" executions. His delay in proposing solutions, he said, was because "I got a whole lot of other things to do as well." Obama said he plans to weigh in, and considers the issue part of his larger, legacy-minded push for an overhaul of the criminal justice system. White House officials say the president is looking for an appropriate response and wading through the legal ramifications. Capital prosecutions are down across the United States. A shortage of lethal injection drugs has meant de facto freezes in several states and at the federal level. Spurred in part by encouragement from Supreme Court justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, advocates are debating whether the time is right to push the court to take a fresh look at whether the death penalty is constitutional. A solid majority - 61 % - of the public supports the death penalty in murder cases, but that share has crept downward while opposition has inched up, according to a Gallup poll last month. Obama isn't alone in struggling with the issue. "We have a lot of evidence now that the death penalty has been too frequently applied and, very unfortunately, often times in a discriminatory way," Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said. "So I think we have to take a hard look at it." She also said she does "not favor abolishing" it in all cases. For Clinton's Democratic presidential rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the issue is settled. "I just don't think the state itself, whether it's the state government or federal government, should be in the business of killing people," he said. On the Republican side, candidate Jeb Bush says he's swayed by his Catholic faith and is "conflicted." "We should reform it," he told NBC's "Meet the Press." In September, Pope Francis stood before Congress and urged that the death penalty be abolished. Obama specifically noted the comment when talking about the speech to aides. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama was "influenced" by what the pope said. Such hints have death penalty opponents likening Obama's deliberations to his gradual shift toward supporting gay marriage. Charles Ogletree, a Harvard law professor who taught the president, said: "Though not definitive, the idea that the president's views are evolving gives me hope that the he - like an increasing number of prosecutors, jurors, judges, governors and state legislators - recognizes that the death penalty in America is too broken to fix." White House officials caution that any presidential statement disputing the effectiveness or constitutionality of the death penalty would have legal consequences. For example, would the administration then commute the sentences of the 62 people currently on federal death row to life in prison? Every lawyer representing a death row inmate would make that case in an appeal, said Douglas Berman, criminal law professor at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law. Among those inmates: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted of murder in the Boston Marathon bombing. "There's not been a president who in the modern use of the federal death penalty has indicated a disaffinity for it," Berman said. "And if this one were to say, 'I don't think it's something we ought to be doing,' that's a policy statement and personal statement, but it is also one that indisputably would be put in the legal papers and would require courts to grapple with its significance." If Obama went further, perhaps formalizing the federal freeze, it could affect other major terrorism cases. The Justice Department has yet to decide whether to seek the death penalty in the prosecution of the man charged in the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, for example. A moratorium might serve as a model for the states - where most capital prosecutions occur - and would make more of a mark than expressions of concern, advocates argue. "On an issue like this, it's important to make judgments on what people actually do," said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes the death penalty. "We have seen in many states governors who say they are against the death penalty, nonetheless denying clemency in controversial cases. ... Whether people say they're personally supportive of the death penalty or not doesn't really matter. It's what they do that matters." (source: Associated Press) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Nov 27 10:53:45 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2015 10:53:45 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 27 SINGAPORE: 26-year-old man arrested for murder at Boon Lay Drive----The suspect will be charged in court on Saturday with the murder of a 23-year-old woman. A 26-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a murder at Boon Lay Drive on Thursday night (Nov 26), the police said. In a news release on Friday, the police said they received a call for assistance from a unit at Block 268B Boon Lay Drive at about 8.16pm on Thursday. When the police arrived, they found a 23-year-old woman lying motionless in the unit. She was taken to Ng Teng Fong General Hospital where she was subsequently pronounced dead at about 11.14pm. The suspect will be charged in court on Saturday with murder. If convicted, he faces the death penalty. (source: channelnewsasia.com) CARIBBEAN: Public opinion not major stumbling block to removal of death penalty - EU forum A European Union (EU)-organised forum has recommended the formalising of the unofficial moratorium on the death penalty in Caribbean countries and it has argued that public opinion is not a major impediment to the removal of capital punishment. The 2-day Caribbean Regional Conference on the Abolition of the Death Penalty at the Arthur Chung Convention Centre at Liliendaal which ended on Tuesday also stressed that the death penalty is incompatible with human rights and human dignity and that it does not "deter crime effectively". A statement from the conference yesterday said that it recommended that international and regional human rights law and standards relating to the death penalty be respected and that there be engagement and constructive dialogue with governments in the Caribbean as they move towards eventual abolition. The conference, which saw participants from Europe and the Caribbean and a clutch of organisations against capital punishment, also recommended the strengthening of judicial structures so that the crimes can be effectively investigated, that victims are supported and ensuring legal assistance to vulnerable sections of society. (source: Stabroek News) INDONESIA: Islet off Madura to host Waseso's Narcotics prison National News Minister ready to provide more info to ethics council Social media further alienates unhappy children Indonesia to show the world how to prevent forest fires at COP21 National Narcotics Agency (BNN) chief Cmr. Gen. Budi Waseso said on Thursday that an islet off Madura in East Java would be the location for a special prison for drug convicts.Budi said that the secluded island was an appropriate location for the special penitentiary for drug offenders. "From the several islands that we surveyed, there is an island off Madura that is [...] secluded from any kind of communications," he said as reported by kompas.com. The island is a 10-hour away boat ride away from Sumenep district, Madura. "We will also construct a moat surrounding the prison filled with wild beasts like crocodiles and piranhas," he said. BNN is coordinating with the Legal and Human Rights Ministry on the construction of the 250-inmate capacity prison, which will also be used as an execution center for drug convicts on death row. Budi said earlier this month that he had proposed the crocodile-guarded penitentiary for drug convicts who had received serious sentences such as the death penalty, adding that the project was also in response to overcrowding in narcotics prisons nationwide. Around 60 % of prison inmates in the country are drug convicts. The special prison is also intended to prevent drug lords from continuing to run their businesses from inside the prison. According to recent BNN data, there are 5.9 million drug users in Indonesia and 30 to 40 people who die from drug abuse every day. (source: thejakartapost.com) PHILIPPINES: Poe, Duterte at odds over revival of death penalty Presidential aspirant Senator Grace Poe on Friday declared her opposition to the revival of the death penalty espoused by her rival candidate Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte. "What is alarming about the death penalty is you cannot wipe out all the criminals even if you kill some of them)," Poe said in Pilipino in response to a question on her stand on the death penalty. Duterte has been calling for the return of the death penalty for heinous crimes like plunder, illegal drug possession, rape, and kidnapping saying executing hardened criminals can be an effective deterrent to criminality. In an apparent rebuke to Duterte's favorite line of public execution of criminals to maintain peace and order, Poe said: "There is no need to shoot (criminals), what is important is to just do your job." Poe said that most often, even in America, the victims of death penalty are poor and have no means to defend themselves during court trials. The death penalty was suspended during the administration of then president and current Manila Mayor Joseph Ejercito Estrada and was repealed in the 13th Congress during the term of then president and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Ironically, one of Poe's strong supporters and re-electionist Senator Vicente Sotto III recently filed a bill that aims to bring back the death penalty for heinous crimes. His bill remains pending at the Senate. Poe urged the government to reform the justice system as solution to lawlessness and criminality. She said the country's judicial system is most often tilted in favor of the rich and influential people. Poe urged the courts to speed up trials, for the national government to provide the right compensation to judges as a deterrent to corruption, to strictly implement the law and ensure fair penalty to all lawbreakers. She also lamented the massive anomalies inside the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa. She said that if she would be elected president and would become frustrated with jail anomalies, she vowed that she would hold office inside the prison facility to stop all shenanigans by jail officials and inmates. (source: inquirer.net) SRI LANKA: Sri Lanka's top killer cop, son get death penalty Sri Lanka's 1-time super cop and darling of the former administration, deputy inspector general Vaas Gunawardena and his son were condemned to death after they were found guilty of a 2013 killing. The father-son duo along with four other policemen were convicted for the abduction and murder of businessman Mohamed Shiyam sometime between April and May 2013 at a time when "white vans" had a free run abducting people. Extra judicial killings were rife at the time and the authorities turned a blind eye to abductions carried out using ubiquitous white vans, but the Shiyam case was a chance investigation after CCTV footage showed his abduction. Gunawardena's son Ravindu, who was already the subject of a previous abduction and assault of a fellow student Nipuna Ramanayake in 2009. In that case, Gunawardena's wife was also accused of beating the student. The 3-judge bench of the Colombo High Court on Friday read out a 802-page judgement holding Vaas Gunawardena guilty of killing Mohamed Shiyam in return for 10 million rupees ($71,000) from a business rival. Gunawardena becomes the highest-ranking officer to be convicted of murder. His role in the murder was discovered when CCTV footage showed Shiyam being taken away in a vehicle of Gunawardena. His son was among several policemen in abducting Shiyam. All of them were sentenced to death. Sri Lanka's security forces regularly kidnapped and killed opponents during the island's ethnic war, a practice that continued after the conflict ended in 2009. The practice was so well-known that people began referring to it as being "white-vanned", after the vehicles used to abduct victims. White vans Former defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa told the local media this month that forces under his command arrested the leader of the Frontline Socialist Party Premakumar Gunaratnam in April 2012 although at the time it was an unsolved "white van" abduction. Gunaratnam was freed by his abductors following intense international pressure, including Australia, his adopted country. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa's admission that he had instigated the "arrest" of Gunaratnam underscored the military's involvement of extra judicial abductions carried by the former regime. Former president Mahinda Rajapakse and his administration faced international censure over their failure to ensure accountability for extrajudicial killings carried out by security forces and the police. Rajapakse, who was ousted in a January election, has denied his son was involved in the controversial murder of a rugby player in May 2012. Police had initially dismissed the death of national rugby skipper Wasim Thajudeen as the result of a road accident, but following the change of government, police have reopened the case and launched a murder investigation. The Rajapakse government always denied any involvement in the abductions. (source: economynext.com) SOUTH AFRICA ANC saddened by death of 'Mother Theresa of the Vaal' The African National Congress (ANC) in Gauteng on Thursday said it was "deeply saddened" by the death of Theresa Ramashamole, "the only woman in South African history to face the death penalty for political reasons". Ramashamole. affectionately known as the "Mother Theresa of the Vaal", passed on at her home in Sharpeville, Sedibeng on Tuesday. "She was a resilient and gallant warrior in the fight against apartheid," a statement said. "At a tender age of 24 she was arrested during the Vaal 1984 uprising against rent increases." In September that year, she was, "along with 5 men known then as the Sharpeville 6 ... charged for the killing of a Lekoa township councillor who was killed by an angry crowd on the 1st day of the uprising". "In December 1985, the 6 were convicted and sentenced to death for their alleged 'association with the crowd' that killed the councillor, with no direct evidence linking them to the murder. "During her incarceration she suffered torture and was injured during the trial when her arm was broken inside a police vehicle." She sat on death row for 6 years, before being released on December 13, 1991 "as part of the amnesty for political prisoners arising from agreement of the talks about talks between the ANC and the apartheid regime". The ANC said Ramashamole "passed on after serving the people of Emfuleni in Sedibeng as a councillor for 9 years". "We send our sincere condolences to Comrade Ramashamole's family, comrades and friends. Their loss is our loss." (source: sowetanlive.co.za) ********** NFP wants wider debate on death penalty The National Freedom Party says participation in the debate around the death penalty should not only be limited to politicians but extended to the public to weigh in on the matter. The party as well as the IFP and the Minority Front are supporting the call for a referendum on the death penalty. But Community Safety MEC Willies Mchunu dismissed the call during a debate in the Provincial Legislature in Pietermaritzburg on Wednesday - saying there is no evidence a death penalty results in the reduction of crime. The NFP disagrees with party member Erickson Zungu saying criminals are having it easy because punishments are not severe. ''Now the time has come where they have to revisit that what was done by the apartheid regime. So be it." ''However the people should be allowed to express themselves because it is them, the people from the grassroots that suffer the most and that are exposed to all these criminal cases,'' he said. (source: East Coast radio) AUSTRALIA: AFP says it has learned Bali 9 Were the Bali 9 case to occur now, Australian Federal Police could still provide information to Indonesian authorities without first seeking ministerial approval. That's because guidelines, adopted in 2009, require the minister to approve cooperation with foreign police forces in possible death penalty cases once arrests have been made. In the Bali 9 case, no-one had been arrested when the AFP tipped off Indonesian police about a group of Australian drug traffickers. They soon were, with ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran executed in April this year.But the AFP now says it does things differently.AFP assistant commissioner Scott Lee said the organisation focused on senior leaders of organised crime groups. 'In recent days and weeks we have had individuals that we are aware of who are travelling offshore as drug couriers,' he told a parliamentary inquiry in Canberra on Friday. 'We have taken active decisions not to communicate that information.'AFP assistant commissioner Leanne Close said you could 'never say never' about providing information to foreign law enforcement agencies. 'We certainly have strengthened the processes for our officers working offshore and in Australia to make sure they always consider this (the death penalty) first before the provision of any information,' she said. The parliamentary committee, chaired by long-time death penalty opponent Philip Ruddock, is examining how Australia presses for the international abolition of the death penalty and what more could be done. In its submission, the AFP said it had to deal with police in other countries, including some that imposed the death penalty, and that cooperation had been demonstrably successful in protecting Australians. Since 2012, federal agencies had seized 10 tonnes of amphetamines, 2 tonnes of cocaine, a tonne of heroin plus other drugs weighing 20.3 tonnes - enough for more than 8 hits for every person in Australia. 'Without the ability to work with all of our international partners the AFP would be hindered in performing the roles expected by Government and the Australian community,' it said. In deciding whether to cooperate with foreign police, the AFP now assesses a range of factors. That includes assessing the reliability of information, seriousness of the alleged criminal activity, nationality, age and personal circumstances of the person involved and potential risks to the person, including the death penalty. (source: skynews.com.au) IRAN----executions 7 Executions in North & South Iran - Including Kurdish and Pakistani Prisoners According to the Baluchestan Activists Campaign, 5 people were hanged at Minab Prison (in Hormozgan province) on the morning of Tuesday November 24. The prisoners were reportedly executed for alleged drug related offenses; one of the prisoners was Kurdish and another was a Pakistani citizen. The names of the 3 other prisoners have been reported as: Mousi Kadkhodaie, Shokrollah Baluchi, and Ali Faramarzi. The names of the 2 other prisoners are not known at this time. The Kurdistan Human Rights Network reports on 2 executions at Tabriz Central Prison (in East Azerbaijan province) which were carried out on Wednesday November 25. The prisoners, Reza Purna and Nouralodin Purna, were hanged for drug related offenses. According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, 600 people are estimated to be on death row in Tabriz Central Prison. In response to the high number of prisoners awaiting execution, Iran's Judiciary has in recent weeks begun to accelerate the rate in which death sentences are being carried out in this prison. At least 8 people have been hanged at Tabriz Central Prison in the last 2 weeks. Iranian authorities and official sources have been silent on the executions mentioned in this report. (source: Iran Human Rights) VIETNAM: Vietnam lawmakers ease death penalty on corruption Corrupt Vietnamese officials could be spared the death penalty if they repay at least 75 % of their ill gotten gains, state media reported Friday, after lawmakers amended the penal code. The Communist country's rubber stamp parliament lifted the death penalty from seven crimes, ranging from the military charge "surrendering to the enemy" to low level drug crimes, the VNExpress newspaper said. The measures approved Friday also include a revision making it possible for death penalty sentences for graft to be commuted to life in prison providing at least three quarters of the stolen assets are returned, VNExpress added. The Ministry of Justice had earlier sought to abolish the death penalty for corruption but provoked strong public criticism online and in state-run media. Vietnam has sentenced officials to death in high-profile corruption cases in the past, including 2 top executives at disgraced state shipping firm Vinashin. Those officials remain on death row. After the vote Friday, 15 crimes now carry the death penalty in the country, down from 22. The changes Friday show that Vietnam is following "progressive trends" in international policy making, lawyer Bui Quang Nghiem told AFP. "The National Assembly is also determined to fight against corruption by maintaining the death penalty for the crime," he added. Vietnam has been struggling with a large death row population after a two-year hiatus on executions between 2011 and 2013 as the country changed from using the firing squad to lethal injections. The country stopped using firing squads in July 2011 in favour of "more humane" lethal injections but was unable to import the necessary drugs due to a European Union export ban. In May 2013, Vietnam amended its laws to allow locally-produced chemicals to be used, and it executed its 1st prisoner after the 2-year hiatus that August. Vietnamese authorities do not disclose the number of executions they carry out but there are believed to be hundreds currently on death row. (source: Agence France-Presse) PAKISTAN: Punjab for sweeping amends in federal laws Punjab apex committee yesterday met Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and recommended a set of changes in the federal laws for speedy trial and execution of terrorists. Vowing to eliminate banned religious outfits, the meeting also decided to expand the scope of operation against the facilitators of terrorists on the basis of intelligence. The decision comes after a government investigation found that students and teachers from 54 seminaries, of the total 13,782 religious seminaries in the province, were actively involved in terrorism and sectarian activities while people at 244 Madrassas were identified as terrorists??? facilitators. The chief minister observed in the meeting that terrorists and their facilitators would be made an example and those destroying peace in the country would be brought to their logical end. Lahore Corps Commander Lt-Gen Sadiq Ali, MPA Jehangir Khanzada - who is a son of former Home Minister Col (r) Shuja Khanzada-, Chief Secretary Khizar Hayat Gondal, Punjab Rangers DG Maj-Gen Umar Farooq Burki, General Officer Commanding 10th Division Maj-Gen Tariq Aman, inspector general of police, home secretary and senior civil and military officers attended the meeting. The committee recommended seven amendments in different sections of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), CrPC and ATA, 1997 Fair Trial Act, 2013 and Protection of Pakistan Act, 2014 as proposed by the Punjab government. The proposed changes are aimed at tightening noose around the terrorists. The Punjab government has already sent its recommendations to the federal government in this regard. Through a new insertion (Section 297-A) in the PPC, the offence of misuse of loudspeakers to outrage religious, ethnic or sectarian feelings may be made punishable with imprisonment ranging from 3 to 7 years with fine. And if the misuse of loudspeaker triggers violence; then besides application of other relevant provisions of laws, the offence may be punished with imprisonment from 5 to 10 years and fine up to Rs10 million. A proposed amendment in Article 164 of Qanoon-e-Shahadat 1984 would make conviction on sole basis of modern devices or techniques lawful, thereby leaving no room for terrorists to get scot free mainly due to lack of credible evidence. Through amendment in section 182 of PPC, the offence of fake registration of FIR (false information) would be made a cognisable offence with same quantum of punishment as is for the offence in which false information is given. An amendment in section 511 of CrPC, offences under Arms Act, may be made non-bailable. A new section - 11 WW of ATA, 1997 - has been proposed to be inserted in the Anti-Terrorism Act by which lynching by a mob would be made punishable with imprisonment up to 3 years and with fine up to Rs100,000 (in case of hurt); life imprisonment and fine up to Rs500,000 (in case of grievous hurt); death penalty and fine up to Rs1,000,000 (in case of death). Proposed amendments in Fair Trial Act, 2013 and Protection of Pakistan Act, 2014 will give concurrent powers to the provincial government for detention and issuance of warrants of suspected persons. Through an amendment in section 143 of PPC, the punishment for unlawful assembly will be enhanced from existing six months imprisonment to one year and fine up to Rs100,000 but not less than Rs50,000. Proposed amendments in Pemra (Amendments) Act, 2015, will bar the media organisations from broadcasting of any material, including statements by proscribed organisations or militants, which amounts to projection or glorification or abetment of terrorists. Moreover, broadcasting of any program involving violence or hatred, live actions, operations or tactical moves of LEAs, scenes with violence including close up shots of persons killed or tortured will not be allowed. Such offences will be cognisable on a written complaint from an authorised officer. The committee also approved reforms in police and other law enforcement agencies to cope with the challenge of terrorism. According to an official handout, the meeting reviewed in detail the measures taken in the province under National Action Plan and expressed its satisfaction over the steps taken for curbing terrorism in Punjab. Timely measures taken by the Punjab government in this regard were also appreciated. Addressing the meeting, Shahbaz Sharif said that officers and Jawans of Pak Army, police as well as all segments of society have rendered supreme sacrifices in the war against terrorism. He said that military and political leadership of Pakistan is moving forward against terrorism with complete unity. (source: The Nation) SAUDI ARABIA: Black Friday Saudi-style: Riyadh to behead more than 50 people Saudi Arabia is planning to execute more than 50 people, found guilty of terrorism, in a single day. The move was immediately slammed by Amnesty International, which said the Saudis are "using the guise of counter-terrorism to settle political scores." The information about executions was recently released in Saudi media, which said that up to 55 'Al-Qaeda terrorists' and 'criminals' from the town of Awamiyya will be executed in the next few days. However, it hasn't been specified when and how exactly the executions will take place. Awamiya, in Eastern Province where the authorities suppressed protests in 2011, has a predominantly Shiite population. According to sources, the executions may be carried out after Friday prayers. Reuters cited the Saudi Okaz newspaper as saying these 55 people are accused of sedition, attacks on security officials, and attempts to overthrow the government and carry out attacks by using explosives and surface-to-air missiles. According to Okaz, those on death row have killed more than 100 civilians and 71 security personnel. One of the prisoners is accused of attempting to buy nuclear material in Yemen worth $1.5 million for use inside Saudi Arabia. The Saudi plan has been slammed by Amnesty, which said that executing dozens of people "in a single day would mark a dizzying descent to yet another outrageous low for Saudi Arabia." "Saudi Arabia's macabre spike in executions this year, coupled with the secretive and arbitrary nature of court decisions and executions in the kingdom, leave us no option but to take these latest warning signs very seriously," said James Lynch, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Amnesty International. Earlier the mothers of 5 teenagers who are among those on death row implored King Salman to show clemency. "The sentences handed down to our children are unique in the history of Saudi justice," the statement from the mothers said. "They were based on confessions extracted under torture, trials that barred them from accessing defense counsel, and judges that displayed bias towards the prosecution." This year has seen a sharp increase in the number of executions in the Kingdom. About 150 people have already been put to death. This is already a 26-% increase on 2014. The number of executions in 2015 is catching up with the Kingdom's all-time annual record of 192, which was documented by Amnesty International in 1995. The watchdog has been scathing of the Kingdom's human rights record, saying they "fall far short" of global norms. (source: rt.com) ************* Execution looms for at least 50 on death row, including Shi'a activists More than 50 people are at increased risk of imminent execution following reports in national media outlets close to the Saudi Arabian authorities that they will soon be put to death in a single day, warns Amnesty International. The mothers of 5 Shi'a Muslim activists who are among the prisoners have implored King Salman for clemency, after learning that preparations potentially associated with impending executions have taken place. "Saudi Arabia's macabre spike in executions this year, coupled with the secretive and arbitrary nature of court decisions and executions in the kingdom, leave us no option but to take these latest warning signs very seriously," said James Lynch, Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International. "These executions must not go ahead and Saudi Arabia must lift the veil of secrecy around its death penalty cases, as part of a fundamental overhaul of its criminal justice system." Among the 5 activists named in the mothers' appeal are juvenile offenders Ali al-Nimr, Abdullah al-Zaher and Dawood Hussein al-Marhoon. Amnesty International has campaigned for their death sentences to be quashed, because of credible allegations they were tortured and had grossly unfair trials at the Specialized Criminal Court, which is used in counter-terrorism cases. International law prohibits the use of the death penalty against anyone under the age of 18. Besides Amnesty International campaigning on their behalf, a group of UN experts and the European Parliament have both urged Saudi Arabia to halt the execution of Ali al-Nimr. The UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has publicly stated he does "not expect [Ali] al-Nimr to be executed". Ali al-Nimr and his uncle Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent Shi'a Muslim cleric, were among 6 activists arrested following protests calling for political reform, which began in the kingdom's predominantly Shi'a Eastern Province in 2011. "Among those who are at imminent risk of execution are these 6 Shi'a Muslim activists who were clearly convicted in unfair trials. It is clear that the Saudi Arabian authorities are using the guise of counter-terrorism to settle political scores," said James Lynch. "3 of those 6 activists were sentenced for 'crimes' committed while they were children and have said that they were tortured to confess. Given what we know about the deep flaws in the Saudi Arabian criminal justice system, we have serious concerns about the fairness of death penalty trials in the country." The mothers went public with their fears after learning this week that their sons had been subjected to a "random" medical examination in prison, which they believe is potentially a sign of impending execution. 4 of the 5 have been kept in solitary confinement, in a prison wing housing death row inmates, since they were moved to al-Ha'ir prison in Riyadh in early October. In the letter, they call for their sons' convictions to be quashed and retrials to be carried out in public proceedings that meet international fair trial standards, with independent observers allowed to attend. Earlier this week, a number of Saudi Arabian newspapers close to the authorities reported that up to 55 "from al-Qai'da terrorists and al-Awamiyya" will be executed "in the next few days". Al-Awamiyya is a predominantly Shi'a area of Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province where demonstrations took place in 2011. "Beheading or otherwise executing dozens of people in a single day would mark a dizzying descent to yet another outrageous low for Saudi Arabia, whose authorities have continued to show stone-faced cynicism and even open defiance when authorities and ordinary people around the world question their sordid record on the use of the death penalty," said James Lynch. Saudi Arabia has long been one of the most prolific executioners in the world, and its record is worsening following a massive recent spike in executions. Amnesty International will release its annual report on death sentences and executions around the world in early 2016. Amnesty International opposes the death penalty at all times and in all cases without exception - regardless of who is accused, the crime, guilt or innocence or method of execution. (source: Amnesty International) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Nov 27 12:46:37 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2015 12:46:37 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 27 Court reserves decision on formation of JIT in Musharraf treason case A special court in Islamabad on Saturday reserved its decision regarding formation of joint investigation team and timeframe of probe in the treason case against former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, Dunya News reported. A special court bench headed by Justice Faisal Arab heard the case today. Prosecution lawyer Akram Sheikh argued that the federal government will challenge Islamabad High Court's decision in the same court through inter-court appeal. If decision is upheld on inter-court appeal, another inquiry will be held against November 3 move. Akram Sheikh further argued that it is the government's prerogative to get the matter investigated through any agency. FIA team had refused to re-investigate the November 3rd action, stating that the government failed to protect dignity of the agency. The lawyer prayed to court to announce another timeframe for probe. Meanwhile, Justice Faisal Arab remarked that apparently it seems that the government and the defence party are seeing IHC's decision as vague. The high court has left the matter of re-investigation up to the government. The decision on the request will be announced at 4:00pm. Musharraf faces the death penalty if convicted of charges over his suspension of the constitution and imposition of emergency rule in 2007, when he was trying to extend his tenure. Musharraf governed the country for nearly a decade after the 1999 coup but was forced to step down in 2008 after growing discontent with his rule. He left the country soon after. He returned to Pakistan in March 2013 after years in self-imposed exile, with the hope of running in the national election that was held in May 2013. But he was disqualified from participating in the vote because of his actions while in power and has spent most of his time battling legal cases. (source: Dunya News) SRI LANKA/SAUDI ARABIA: Sri Lanka urges Saudi not to stone to death maid for adultery Sri Lanka said on Friday it was calling on Saudi Arabia to pardon a domestic worker sentenced to death by stoning after she admitted committing adultery while working in the Arab nation. An official from Sri Lanka's Foreign Employment Bureau said the married 45-year-old woman who was working as a maid in Riyadh since 2013 was convicted of adultery by a Saudi court in August. Her partner, also a Sri Lankan migrant worker, was given a lesser punishment of 100 lashes on account of being single. "She has accepted the crime 4 times in the courts. But the Foreign Employment Bureau has hired lawyers and have appealed against the case," Upul Deshapriya, spokesman for the Foreign Employment Bureau, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "The appeal is going on. Also from the foreign ministry side, they are in negotiation with the Saudi government on a diplomatic level." Officials from the Saudi Embassy in Colombo did not respond to requests from the Thomson Reuters Foundation on whether they would consider the plea for clemency. Oil-producing Saudi Arabia follows Sharia, or Islamic law, and is often criticised by human rights groups for the wide range of crimes such as adultery, drug smuggling and witchcraft which carry the death penalty. Stoning, a form of execution where a group throws stones at a person buried waist or chest deep in the ground until they are dead, is still carried out in parts of the Muslim world. In 2013, Saudi Arabia beheaded a young Sri Lankan housemaid for the killing of an infant left in her care, rejecting repeated appeals by Colombo against her death sentence. Thousands of men and women from the Indian Ocean island travel to the Middle East every year to seek jobs as maids or drivers. According to Central Bank data, 279,952 Sri Lankans went to work in Middle Eastern nations in 2014, generating over $7 billion in remittances, around 9 % of total GDP. Saudi Arabia, which is current chair of the United Nations Human Rights Council Panel, has executed over 150 people this year, mostly by public beheading, the most in 20 years, rights group Amnesty International said this month. Foreigners, mostly guest workers from poor countries, are particularly vulnerable as they typically do not know Arabic and are denied adequate translation in court, Amnesty said. Riyadh says it provides fair trials to all defendants. (source: Reuters) **************** 'Kill us alongside our children' defiant activists' mothers tell king The mothers of 5 young Saudi prisoners sentenced to death by beheading made a passionate plea to the king to spare their sons' lives. The appeal followed reports that the Gulf kingdom is poised to execute more than 50 people convicted of terrorism. In a public letter the women said the verdicts against the young dissidents, including Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, were based on confessions extracted under torture and the related trials fell short of international standards. "The sentences handed down to our children are unique in the history of Saudi justice," the letter read. "As mothers of young men both deprived of their right to liberty and facing an unknown fate that may deprive them of their right to life, we demand that the Saudi government drop their sentences and order their retrial." It concluded: "We stress that we will only stay silent over this crime if they kill us alongside our children." It was signed by Naima Ali al-Matrook, Fatima Hassan al-Ghzwe, Zahra Hassan al-Rebh, Amena Ahmed al-Saker and Nasra Abdullah al-Ahmed, mothers of 5 activists from the Shia minority arrested on sedition charges in 2012 when they were all teenagers. Among them is al-Nimr, a 21-year-old dissident whose case has triggered uproar worldwide.The nephew of a vocal Shia cleric and activist, he was arrested aged only 17, for taking part in a protest. He was forced to sign a confession under torture and has since been sentenced to death on a diverse set of charges, including attacking police, breaking allegiance to the king, setting up terror cells, rioting and robbing a pharmacy, according to human rights organisation Reprieve. Under Saudi Arabia's draconian legal system, he is to be beheaded and his body crucified in public. The death sentence is expected to be carried out in the coming days as local media reported authorities were preparing for a mass execution of 55 convicts in a single day. "These executions must not go ahead and Saudi Arabia must lift the veil of secrecy around its death penalty cases, as part of a fundamental overhaul of its criminal justice system," said James Lynch, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International. "Beheading or otherwise executing dozens of people in a single day would mark a dizzying descent to yet another outrageous low for Saudi Arabia, whose authorities have continued to show stone-faced cynicism and even open defiance when authorities and ordinary people around the world question their sordid record on the use of the death penalty". (source: IB Times) *************** Fellow poets protest Saudi death sentence facing Ashraf Fayadh Poets from around the world are lining up in solidarity with the Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayadh, with the Syrian poet Adonis, Ireland???s Paul Muldoon and Britain's poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy among the signatories to a letter laying out how "appalled" they are at the death sentence he has been handed by Saudi Arabian authorities. Fayadh was sentenced to death last week for renouncing Islam, a charge which he denies. Evidence used against him included poems from his collection Instructions Within, which is banned in Saudi Arabia, as well as his posts on Twitter, and a conversation he had in a coffee shop in Abha which was said to be blasphemous. He was given 30 days to appeal the sentence. Today, PEN International published the latest salvo from an international arts community which has rallied behind him, with Muldoon, Duffy and Adonis joined as signatories to a letter attacking Saudi Arabia's ruling by major names from the world of international poetry including the Serbian-American poet Charles Simic, the American John Ashbery, Palestinian Ghassan Zaqtan, Israeli Amir Or and the Hungarian-born George Szirtes. "We, poets from around the world, are appalled that the Saudi Arabian authorities have sentenced Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayadh to death for apostasy," they write, in a letter which PEN International hopes to deliver to the poet himself in an expression of solidarity. "It is not a crime to hold an idea, however unpopular, nor is it a crime to express opinion peacefully. Every individual has the freedom to believe or not believe. Freedom of conscience is an essential human freedom." The letter says that Fayadh's death sentence "is the latest example of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's lack of tolerance for freedom of expression and ongoing persecution of free thinkers", ending with a plea for the Palestinian's release. "We, Fayadh's fellow poets, urge the Saudi authorities to desist from punishing individuals for the peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression and call for his immediate and unconditional release," they write. Speaking to the Guardian on Friday, Szirtes insisted that "opinions are not crimes". "Incitement can be a crime, hate speech may be a crime, but opinions are not," he said. "That is precisely why organisations such as PEN exist. Any sentence for an individual opinion brings shame on Saudi Arabia: a death sentence brings maximum shame." According to Szirtes it is "incongruous for a country like ours to be allied with a country that makes decisions like this". "It runs counter to all our thoughts, habits and instincts, not just as poets or writers but as human beings," he added. "Nor is it just a cultural matter: it is a matter of exactly that which we describe as universal human rights." The appeal follows the release of a joint statement signed by more than a dozen cultural and free speech organisations condemning the conviction of the Palestinian poet, including PEN International, which will be delivered to the Saudi embassy in London today by English PEN. Last week, Fayadh told the Guardian that he was "really shocked" to receive his sentence "but it was expected, though I didn't do anything that deserves death". "They accused me [of] atheism and spreading some destructive thoughts into society," he said, describing his poetry collection as "just about me being [a] Palestinian refugee ... about cultural and philosophical issues. But the religious extremists explained it as destructive ideas against God." Pen International pointed to extracts of Fayadh's poems, translated by Mona Kareem. "it was said: settle there... / but some of you are enemies for all / so leave it now," he writes in one. "look up to yourselves from the bottom of the river; / those of you on top should provide some pity for those underneath." The free speech organisation said that during his trial, the poet "expressed repentance for anything in the book that religious authorities may have deemed insulting", and said, according to trial documents: "I am repentant to God most high and I am innocent of what appeared in my book mentioned in this case." On 25 November, the Guardian reported that, in a message to his supporters, Fayadh said he was "grateful for everyone working on my behalf". "To be honest, I was surprised because I felt alone here. I am in good health. I'm struggling to follow all the developments. People should know I am not against anyone here, I am an artist and I am just looking for my freedom," said the poet. (source: The Guardian) MALAYSIA: Hakam: Impose moratorium on execution of 1,022 death row prisoners The National Human Rights Society of Malaysia (Hakam) welcomes the government's move to abolish the mandatory death sentence for drug-related offences. The mandatory death sentence deprives the sentencing judge of the discretion to consider all relevant facts of the case and the individual circumstances of each convicted person. A sentencing judge must be given the option to impose the appropriate sentence. Whilst removing the mandatory death sentence is a step in the right direction, we would call on the government to abolish the mandatory death sentence in its entirety for all criminal offences. The death penalty violates the right to life guaranteed under Article 5 of our Federal Constitution and is undoubtedly a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment contrary to international law. A recent public opinion survey on the death penalty in Malaysia undertaken by Emeritus Professor Roger Hood QC from the University of Oxford has shown that the majority of the Malaysian public do not support an imposition of the death penalty. We also call on the government to impose a moratorium on the execution of 1,022 death row prisoners currently waiting for execution pending the abolition of the mandatory death sentence for all criminal offences. Having been on the Human Rights Council and presently on the Security Council as a non-permanent member, Malaysia must show a genuine commitment to abide by international norms in relation to the right to life and the prohibition against cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. We hope that the government will continue taking steps in the right direction towards the ultimate abolishment of the death penalty. Ambiga Sreenevasan is president of Hakam. The above state was issued on behalf of the Hakam executive committee. Addendum Following Hakam's statement calling for a moratorium of all 1,022 executions while the government looks into abolishing the mandatory death sentence in Malaysia, Hakam also urges the government to explore all diplomatic channels to persuade the Singapore government to grant clemency to Kho Jabing, the Sarawakian who is on death row in Singapore. Hakam acknowledges Sarawak Chief Minister Adenan Satem's statement that he will write to appeal to the Singapore government to grant clemency to Jabing. This is indeed an urgent call for the government to defend one of her citizens on death row. The Malaysian government must view this as a serious case. Kho Jabing was sentenced to death in 2008 and in 2013, Singapore amended its law concerning the mandatory death sentence. This resulted in a resentencing hearing for Kho Jabing. The High Court of Singapore then sentenced him to life imprisonment plus 24 strokes of the cane which shows that the High Court found that he should not be sentenced to death. Upon appeal by the prosecution, the Court of Appeal sentenced him to death in a 3-2 decision. This fact plays an important role in proving that we should be pursuing all means necessary to ensure he is given clemency and a chance at rehabilitation. The court had also acquitted Kho Jabing's co-accussed, Galing, of murder charge and sentenced him of the offence of robbery with hurt. The minority judgment of the Court of Appeal also found that there was insufficient evidence to establish beyond reasonable doubt that Kho Jabing had acted in a way which exhibits viciousness or a blatant disregard for human life. The Malaysian government must do all it can within its capacity to appeal to the Singapore leadership to exercise discretion to grant Kho Jabing clemency. This move should not be seen as interfering in the legal system of Singapore but it must be viewed as the government's positive obligation to protect the right to life of its citizens abroad. Hakam reiterates that nobody should be sentenced to death as it is contrary to international norms in relation to the right to life and the prohibition against cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. (source: aliran.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Nov 28 08:01:05 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 28 Nov 2015 08:01:05 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----NEB., UTAH, ARIZ., ORE. Message-ID: Nov. 28 NEBRASKA: Confusion over Nebraska's execution drugs New questions are arising about Nebraska's effort to obtain the drugs needed to execute prisoners on death row. Federal sources stated that the Drug Enforcement Administration and Food and Drug Administration said they have no idea what Nebraska officials are referring to when discussing that they're 'working with' Federal Agencies. Gov. Pete Ricketts said during an October news conference that the state is working with the DEA, trying to get execution drugs from India. Agents in St. Louis said that no one had spoken to Nebraska about this and officials at the DEA headquarters stated that nothing has changed, like they said weeks ago, the DEA will not approve the importation of this drug. The governor's corrections director also told state senator's that he is working with the Food and Drug Administration, but a senior-level official in the agency's headquarters said the only word that matters is the court order blocking sodium thiopental importation. Corrections spokesperson Dawn-Renee Smith is now attempting to clarify Ricketts' and Frakes' words: "'Working with' simply means that we are still in the process of obtaining the chemicals and completing any necessary steps required by the DEA and/or the FDA." The state indicated that it has taken some new action within the last week. (source: KETV news) UTAH: Judge: Defendant can't depose Utah prosecutors A St. George judge has amended a court order that would have allowed a murder defendant's lawyers to depose all of Utah's 29 county attorneys to determine why some seek the death penalty and some don't. Attorneys for Brandon Perry Smith sought the depositions as part of an effort to have Utah's death penalty statutes deemed unconstitutional. They contend in court papers that some 150 Utah inmates are serving terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole for crimes in which prosecutors could have sought the death penalty, but chose not to. Smith, 34, is charged with aggravated murder and aggravated assault in the 2010 stabbing death of 20-year-old Jerrica Christensen. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Washington County prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in the case. In August, 5th District Judge G. Michael Westfall granted the request from Smith's attorneys for a 3-day evidentiary hearing on the application of Utah's death penalty laws and set a February 2016 date for a review of the deposition process. On Nov. 18, however, he changed course, saying in an amended order that before Smith can take depositions from state prosecutors he "must first that his prosecution has resulted in a discriminatory effect." To do that Smith's attorney must provide "credible evidence" that his case meets the threshold standards for raising a selective prosecution claim, the judge wrote. That includes evidence of Utah State Prison inmates whose cases include similar factual circumstances; evidence that Smith is of a different class than those inmates; and that Smith has been treated differently than others. If Smith meets the threshold standards, Westfall said he will reconsider the issue. In court papers, Smith's attorneys say that since 1992, the death penalty has been applied in "fewer than 3 %" of cases with defendants eligible for the punishment. "The infirmity of Utah's present scheme is apparent," attorneys Gary Pendleton and Mary Corporan wrote. "The exercise of prosecutorial discretion becomes arbitrary and capricious by definition when the law establishes no basis for determining when a death-eligible murder, as defined by statute, is charged as a capital offense and when it is charged as a noncapital homicide." Smith is accused of beating Christensen and cutting her throat with a pocket knife moments after his friend, Paul Clifford Ashton, shot and killed Brandie Sue Dawn Jerden and shot and wounded James Fiske. In court papers, Smith's attorneys have said he killed the woman because he felt threatened by Ashton. Prosecutors have argued that Smith is cold-hearted and relished taking the life of a stranger. They allege that several aggravating factors make the killing a death-penalty case: that Christensen was killed during a criminal episode in which 2 or more people were killed, that the homicide was committed incident to attempted kidnapping, that Christensen was killed to prevent her from testifying and that the homicide was committed in an "especially heinous, atrocious, cruel or exceptionally depraved manner." Ashton is serving two life sentences in federal prison after he pleaded guilty in the apartment killings, and also admitted to kidnapping and aiding in the murder of a homeless man in October 2010. A review hearing for Smith is set for Feb. 3. (source: Salt Lake Tribune) ARIZONA: Inmates Accuse Arizona of Experimenting with Lethal-Injection Drugs A group of 5 condemned prisoners this week asked the U.S. District Court in Phoenix not to lift a moratorium on executions instituted after a botched 2014 lethal injection, arguing that the Arizona Department of Corrections has not properly addressed concerns about the drugs used for the procedure. A federal judge in November 2014 ordered the DOC to halt executions until the agency shared a protocol for lethal injection that included, among other things, a list of drugs to be used. The DOC released the information in October, but the inmates, represented by lawyers from the Federal Public Defenders Office, contend that it is "impossible to know" how the department will proceed because the protocols are too vague. The DOC reserved the right to "change any aspect of the procedure, at any time, for any reason, with no notice," lawyers wrote. Given the department's "demonstrated pattern of extraordinary departures from their written procedures, there is a 'very real' threat that they will again carry out executions under procedures that 'lack necessary procedural protections.'" Arizona, they wrote, conducts executions in an "arbitrary, experimental, and unconstitutional manner." 2 of the state's 3 proposed cocktails require sodium thiopental, an anesthetic that is in short supply because it is no longer manufactured in the United States. Arizona tried to illegally import some from India, but the Food and Drug Administration seized it at at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. The 3rd proposed drug cocktail relies on midazolam, the controversial sedative used in Joseph Wood's execution in July 2014, which inspired the U.S. District Court to institute the stay on lethal injections. Wood, who was sedated with midazolam and then given hydromorphone to arrest his breathing, should have died in 10 minutes, but he gasped and snorted for 2 hours. During that time, DOC officials pumped him full of 14 times the required dose of each drug. Attorneys initially filed the lawsuit before Wood's execution in an attempt to compel the Arizona DOC to be more transparent about how it conducts lethal injections. It also called on the department to allow the media to witness all stages of the executions. The state argued in court filings that if the procedures were public, it would make it more difficult to obtain the drugs necessary to execute prisoners. Some drug manufacturers had begun refusing to work with the DOC, forcing the agency to turn to less-reliable drugs, such as midazolam. Because of the lawsuit, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed Wood's execution, ruling that he had a First Amendment right to know what drugs the department intended to use, but the Supreme Court overturned the decision and Wood was killed. In the wake of his botched execution, the U.S. public defenders amended the lawsuit to exclude Wood and tried again - this time with more success. The First Amendment Coalition, a group of local media outlets, joined the suit. No executions will be scheduled until the litigation is resolved. The state's death-penalty problems are the topic of a 60 Minutes documentary set to air Sunday at 5:30 p.m. on CBS Channel 5 in Phoenix. The documentary, called The Execution of Joseph Wood, digs into the shortage of the anesthetic sodium thiopental and how it contributed to Wood's tortured death. In a preview, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich is shown squirming while a reporter grills him about Arizona's attempts to illegally import sodium thiopental. When the DOC could not secure sodium thiopental, it chose to use midazolam to sedate Wood even though the drug had previously been used in 2 other so-called botched executions. When Ohio used the drug on Dennis McGuire in January of 2014, witnesses said he continued to gasp for 26 minutes like "a fish lying along the shore puffing for that one gasp of air that would allow it to breathe." In April of 2014, Oklahoma inmate Clayton Lockett raised his head after he was injected with the drug and said, "Oh man ... I'm not ..." He continued to writhe, groan, convulse, and try to rise from the table for 43 minutes. Wood's execution was the longest in United States' history. (source: phoenixnewtimes.com) OREGON: Oregon Supreme Court upholds Guzek death penalty After 3 previous remands - and $3 million in costs - 4th sentencing stands Nearly 30 years after the brutal 1987 slaying of a Terrebonne couple - and after court costs topping $3 million - the Oregon Supreme Court on Friday rejected convicted killer Randy Lee Guzek's appeal of his 4th death sentence, affirming that penalty for the 1st time and refusing to remand the case for a 5th sentencing trial in Bend. Guzek was 18 at the time of the brutal slayings of Rod and Lois Houser and was convicted of 2 counts of aggravated murder in 1988. The Oregon Supreme Court affirmed those convictions in 1990, but 3 times prior had ordered new penalty-phase trials under the automatic reviews required in the state court and death penalty process. In March of 2014, 4 years after his last death sentence, Guzek's attorneys filed a nearly 900-page brief raising 87 "assignments of error" - all but 13 of which the high court summarily rejected without discussion in Friday's 31-page ruling, its 1st to uphold a death sentence imposed on Guzek. The 2 categories of claims the court rejected included the requirement that Guzek wear a "stun belt" during the latest remanded death penalty proceedings and that the trial court gave improper instructions to the jury on how to consider Guzek's in-court statement. Guzek had claimed an alibi - that he was at home when the murders occurred - and while that defense was used at the original trial in 1988, using it in later proceedings became a point of contention. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the defense could not be used for retrial. Clatsop County District Attorney Josh Marquis is the former Deschutes County prosecutor who handled the last three sentencing trials and would again have been special prosecutor if a retrial was ordered. He told NewsChannel 21 that Friday's ruling ends the automatic appeals in state court - but does not mean Guzek has run out of appeals. However, courts that receive any future appeals would have the discretion of deciding whether to hear them or not. As a result, "This (ruling) is very gratifying for me and the Houser family - I spoke to one of them this morning," Marquis said. "I would never use the word 'closure - it's a stupid word - but there is some degree of finality with the decision," he said. "I probably will never appear with Randy Lee Guzek in court again, which makes me very happy." Marquis noted that over the past quarter-century, "48 Deschutes County jurors have said he deserves the death penalty. All had to say yes - if one said no, he wouldn't be on death row." In fact, if the death penalty was overturned in some formal fashion, Guzek might have been eligible for parole, as the "true life" sentence without possibility of parole was not an option at the time of his original conviction. 5 years ago, at his last death penalty sentencing trial in Bend, Guzek wrote a 5-page brief that rejected the judge's request that he let jurors consider the option of "true life," Marquis said. Marquis said "a lot of the credit" for the eventual successful outcome should go to the original Bend murder trial prosecutor, Ron Brown - now his chief deputy DA in Astoria. He also credited state Assistant Attorney General Timothy Sylvester, who argued the most recent case on the state???s behalf. On the stun belt matter, Marquis noted that the issue of restraints is a "Catch-22 for those in the system." "Someone in a convicted murder case can't wear visible shackles - that's clearly against constitutional law," Marquis said. "This belt, which has gotten smaller and smaller - and now is basically a wrist band - is extremely humane and has ever been activated in the 20 years used in Oregon. I even offered to have the damn thing put on me and be shocked, to show it's not dangerous." Marquis noted Guzek's "allocution" is an in-court statement by the defendant to the jury that is not under oath or subject to cross-examination, "and it's not really evidence." He said the court basically found what he was allowed to do did not violate state law or the Constitution, and upheld the jury instructions given by the judge (visiting, now-retired Judge Jack Billings of Eugene). Guzek still could bring "collateral appeals" in the federal court system -- something Marquis said he fully expects -- or a "post-conviction relief" case in state court, claiming his constitutional rights were violated. "It's never completely, fully over until he dies of natural causes, is executed or runs out of appeals, or instructs his lawyers, as in the Timothy McVey case, not to continue appeals," Marquis said. From what I've learned in the 20 years I've spent on the Guzek case, I'd be astonished if he waived any appeals at all." But in future appeals, "the arguments are much more legal ones, and not sufficiency of the evidence," he said. Guzek, now in his mid-40s, has at this point been on Oregon's death row longer than anyone else, said Marquis, who has argued a strident defense of the death penalty in books and in debates from the University of Oregon to the European Parliament. The death penalty issue remains highly political, with former Gov. John Kitzhaber stopping executions 4 years ago and current Gov. Kate Brown extending that moratorium, for now as she works with a small group of advisers to decide what stance to take on the matter. Marquis said numerous polls have shown a strong majority of Oregonians support the death penalty. "This is a sanction rarely sought, rarely imposed - that's the way it should be," he said. (source: KTVZ news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Nov 28 08:01:58 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 28 Nov 2015 08:01:58 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 28 SUDAN: SLM-Minnawi warns Khartoum against carrying out death sentences in its members The head of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM -MM) Mini Minnawi denounced the death penalty handed yesterday to 18 of its members and warned Khartoum against carrying it out. The defendants were arrested following the capture of Ba'ashim area, north-west of Mellit in North Darfur last March by the Sudanese army and militiamen of the Rapid Security Forces (RSF). The defendants faced charges of undermining the constitutional system, stir up war against the state, using heavy weapons, looting and destroying the citizens' properties and threatening local peace security. Minnawi said in a statement today that the verdicts "do not respect the rules of justice and international law for the protection of prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention". He called on all political forces, civil society and humanitarian organizations, local, regional and international to launch a campaign to save their lives. Minnawi described this as a political trial "intended to humiliate the Sudanese people and avenge for the defeats received by the regime at the hands of our forces". The rebel chief recalled that they released scores of Sudanese army POW's with the remaining ones receiving good treatment. It is to be noted that the Darfur Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and SLM-MM called during their recent negotiations with the Sudanese government to release its detained members but the government swiftly rejected this demand. (source: Sudan Tribune) BARBADOS: CCJ rejects application by convicted murderers The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), in a ruling today, ordered that the case of Vincent Edwards and Richard Haynes be sent back to the Barbados Court of Appeal. Edwards and Haynes had been convicted of murder in June 2013 and sentenced to death. The 2 men had previously appealed their convictions and sentences to the Court of Appeal, but that matter was dismissed. They subsequently filed their application to the CCJ and to appeal as poor persons. However, the CCJ decided that the issue of the unconstitutionality of the mandatory death penalty should be sent back to the Barbados Court of Appeal for a determination of how that issue should be resolved. 'The Court found no 'compelling reason' to allow the applicants to raise the issue for the first time before the CCJ. The Court said that it should not lightly allow persons to 'leapfrog the local courts' because 'the views of the local judges should first be heard' on such an important question." The CCJ panel, which comprised Justices Adrian Saunders, Winston Anderson and Maureen Rajnauth-Lee, also advised the Court of Appeal to resolve the matter in a timely fashion. ". . . the Barbados Court of Appeal could either hear this issue and deliver judgment itself on it or it could first be heard by a trial judge. However, whatever option is chosen,writing in a police officer's notebook. These confessions were never initialled orsigned by either Edwards or Haynes and were denied by them at the trial. Secondly, they argued that the mandatory death penalty imposed on them was unconstitutional, despite a 2002 amendment to the Constitution of Barbados that specifically legitimizes mandatory death sentences for murder. This 2nd issue was, however, never raised by the men until they filed their Application to the CCJ. The Court granted permission for the men to appeal their convictions on the first ground and to appeal as poor persons. In granting such permission, the Court found that the case was one of significant public importance, it warranted an appeal before the final court and that the men had demonstrated that there was a realistic possibility of a miscarriage of justice. The Applicants were represented by Andrew Pilgrim, QC, Angella Mitchell-Gittens and Alexandria Thomas, while Donna Babb- Agard, QC, and Alliston Seale acted for the Respondent. (source: Barbados Today) MALDIVES: Verdict looms on death penalty clemency High Court is set to announce its verdict on Monday over the case seeking to annul the clause giving the president power to grant clemency to convicts on death row. The case seeking to annul the clause in the Clemency Act, which gives the president the power to turn death sentences into life imprisonment, was filed privately by a group of individuals. The High Court ended hearings on the case on Thursday and a verdict is expected on Monday. State is against the case arguing that the clause was in direct contradiction to Islamic law. The state argued that the authority given to the president by the clause cannot be used in Qisas (the right of a murder victim's nearest relative or Wali [legal guardian] to, if the court approves, take the life of the killer) cases. The case being heard by the 5-judge bench of the appellate court was filed in 2012. Maldives has recently adopted a series of new rules and regulations and is currently drafting a law on death penalty. The Supreme Court issued new guidelines on Sunday allowing death sentences and public lashing rulings issued by lower courts to be appealed automatically at the High Court. In a circular, the Supreme Court said if the defendant fails to appeal death sentences and public lashing verdicts within 10 days, the court that had initially issued the verdict should forward the relevant documents to the High Court. The appellate court would have seven days to notify both the defendant and the prosecution of the appeal and during that period should take the necessary steps to begin appeal proceedings, it added. The new rules follow similar guidelines issued by the apex court early this month. The Supreme Court issued new guidelines on November 8 giving a month-long window for the last chance to appeal death sentences and public lashings backed by High Court. According to the guidelines, if a defendant fails to appeal a High Court verdict in favour of death sentences and public lashing rulings within a 30-day period, the appeal can then only be filed at the Supreme Court by the prosecution. The guidelines, included in a circular signed by Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed, did not specifically mention sentences of death and public lashing. However, it says that High Court rulings that need to be reconfirmed by the Supreme Court had to be appealed within 30 days, including public holidays. Under local laws, the only sentences that need to be reconfirmed by the Supreme Court are death sentences and public lashing verdicts. Judicature Act earlier granted a 90-day period, excluding public holidays, to appeal rulings by any court. However, the Supreme Court had in January annulled that clause and issued new guidelines under which rulings issued by lower courts had to be appealed at the High Court within 10 days and appeal over High Court verdicts needed to be filed at the Supreme Court within 60 days. Meanwhile, the government has included funds in the proposed state budget for next year to establish an execution chamber at the country's main prison to carry out the death penalty. The state budget for next year, which was approved by the parliament on Monday, includes MVR4 million to build an execution chamber. However, the correctional service was not immediately available for comment. Maldives adopted a new regulation last year under which lethal injection would be used to implement the death penalty. However, over mounting pressure from human rights bodies, companies have been refusing to supply the fatal dose to countries still carrying out capital punishment. Home minister Umar Naseer had earlier said the correctional service would be ready to implement the death penalty by the time a death sentence is upheld by the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the government announced on November 16 that it was in the process of drafting legislation on implementing death penalty. Attorney General Mohamed Anil told reporters that the bill being drafted by his office would expand on the already existing regulations on death penalty. The bill would include procedures on conducting murder investigations, filing charges in such cases and conducting proceedings in murder cases, he added. There are around 10 people on death row at present, but none of whom has exhausted the appeal process thus far. (source: haveeru.com) PAKISTAN: I'll kill myself before I die! Mumtaz Qadri, who was awarded a death sentence for the murder of former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer, has threatened jail authorities that he would commit suicide if he were not allowed to meet his family in a separate room as per the previous routine. The Supreme Court of Pakistan upheld Qadri's death sentence and he is being kept in Rawalpindi's Adyala jail. When Qadri's relatives went to meet him at the jail recently, they were allowed to meet the convict through an iron fence due to security reasons. Qadri protested against the move and threatened to commit suicide if he was not allowed to meet his family in a separate room, a jail official said. After Qadri's suicide threat, the jail authorities allowed him to meet his family in a separate room. A bench of the apex court headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa rejected an appeal seeking to revoke Qadri's death penalty. Qadri, a former police guard, who was entrusted security of former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer, had shot him dead on January 4, 2011 outside his residence in Islamabad. (source: Pakistan Today) *************** Court reserves decision on formation of JIT in Musharraf treason case A special court in Islamabad on Saturday reserved its decision regarding formation of joint investigation team and timeframe of probe in the treason case against former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, Dunya News reported. A special court bench headed by Justice Faisal Arab heard the case today. Prosecution lawyer Akram Sheikh argued that the federal government will challenge Islamabad High Court's decision in the same court through inter-court appeal. If decision is upheld on inter-court appeal, another inquiry will be held against November 3 move. Akram Sheikh further argued that it is the government's prerogative to get the matter investigated through any agency. FIA team had refused to re-investigate the November 3rd action, stating that the government failed to protect dignity of the agency. The lawyer prayed to court to announce another timeframe for probe. Meanwhile, Justice Faisal Arab remarked that apparently it seems that the government and the defence party are seeing IHC's decision as vague. The high court has left the matter of re-investigation up to the government. The decision on the request will be announced at 4:00pm. Musharraf faces the death penalty if convicted of charges over his suspension of the constitution and imposition of emergency rule in 2007, when he was trying to extend his tenure. Musharraf governed the country for nearly a decade after the 1999 coup but was forced to step down in 2008 after growing discontent with his rule. He left the country soon after. He returned to Pakistan in March 2013 after years in self-imposed exile, with the hope of running in the national election that was held in May 2013. But he was disqualified from participating in the vote because of his actions while in power and has spent most of his time battling legal cases. (source: Dunya News) SRI LANKA/SAUDI ARABIA: Sri Lanka urges Saudi not to stone to death maid for adultery Sri Lanka said on Friday it was calling on Saudi Arabia to pardon a domestic worker sentenced to death by stoning after she admitted committing adultery while working in the Arab nation. An official from Sri Lanka's Foreign Employment Bureau said the married 45-year-old woman who was working as a maid in Riyadh since 2013 was convicted of adultery by a Saudi court in August. Her partner, also a Sri Lankan migrant worker, was given a lesser punishment of 100 lashes on account of being single. "She has accepted the crime 4 times in the courts. But the Foreign Employment Bureau has hired lawyers and have appealed against the case," Upul Deshapriya, spokesman for the Foreign Employment Bureau, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "The appeal is going on. Also from the foreign ministry side, they are in negotiation with the Saudi government on a diplomatic level." Officials from the Saudi Embassy in Colombo did not respond to requests from the Thomson Reuters Foundation on whether they would consider the plea for clemency. Oil-producing Saudi Arabia follows Sharia, or Islamic law, and is often criticised by human rights groups for the wide range of crimes such as adultery, drug smuggling and witchcraft which carry the death penalty. Stoning, a form of execution where a group throws stones at a person buried waist or chest deep in the ground until they are dead, is still carried out in parts of the Muslim world. In 2013, Saudi Arabia beheaded a young Sri Lankan housemaid for the killing of an infant left in her care, rejecting repeated appeals by Colombo against her death sentence. Thousands of men and women from the Indian Ocean island travel to the Middle East every year to seek jobs as maids or drivers. According to Central Bank data, 279,952 Sri Lankans went to work in Middle Eastern nations in 2014, generating over $7 billion in remittances, around 9 % of total GDP. Saudi Arabia, which is current chair of the United Nations Human Rights Council Panel, has executed over 150 people this year, mostly by public beheading, the most in 20 years, rights group Amnesty International said this month. Foreigners, mostly guest workers from poor countries, are particularly vulnerable as they typically do not know Arabic and are denied adequate translation in court, Amnesty said. Riyadh says it provides fair trials to all defendants. (source: Reuters) **************** 'Kill us alongside our children' defiant activists' mothers tell king The mothers of 5 young Saudi prisoners sentenced to death by beheading made a passionate plea to the king to spare their sons' lives. The appeal followed reports that the Gulf kingdom is poised to execute more than 50 people convicted of terrorism. In a public letter the women said the verdicts against the young dissidents, including Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, were based on confessions extracted under torture and the related trials fell short of international standards. "The sentences handed down to our children are unique in the history of Saudi justice," the letter read. "As mothers of young men both deprived of their right to liberty and facing an unknown fate that may deprive them of their right to life, we demand that the Saudi government drop their sentences and order their retrial." It concluded: "We stress that we will only stay silent over this crime if they kill us alongside our children." It was signed by Naima Ali al-Matrook, Fatima Hassan al-Ghzwe, Zahra Hassan al-Rebh, Amena Ahmed al-Saker and Nasra Abdullah al-Ahmed, mothers of 5 activists from the Shia minority arrested on sedition charges in 2012 when they were all teenagers. Among them is al-Nimr, a 21-year-old dissident whose case has triggered uproar worldwide.The nephew of a vocal Shia cleric and activist, he was arrested aged only 17, for taking part in a protest. He was forced to sign a confession under torture and has since been sentenced to death on a diverse set of charges, including attacking police, breaking allegiance to the king, setting up terror cells, rioting and robbing a pharmacy, according to human rights organisation Reprieve. Under Saudi Arabia's draconian legal system, he is to be beheaded and his body crucified in public. The death sentence is expected to be carried out in the coming days as local media reported authorities were preparing for a mass execution of 55 convicts in a single day. "These executions must not go ahead and Saudi Arabia must lift the veil of secrecy around its death penalty cases, as part of a fundamental overhaul of its criminal justice system," said James Lynch, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International. "Beheading or otherwise executing dozens of people in a single day would mark a dizzying descent to yet another outrageous low for Saudi Arabia, whose authorities have continued to show stone-faced cynicism and even open defiance when authorities and ordinary people around the world question their sordid record on the use of the death penalty". (source: IB Times) *************** Joint statement on death sentence of Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayadh ---- Index on Censorship condemns the decision by Saudi authorities to sentence Ashraf Fayadh to death on charges of apostasy We, the undersigned organisations, all dedicated to the value of creative freedom, are writing to express our grave concern that Ashraf Fayadh has been sentenced to death for apostasy. Ashraf Fayadh, a poet, artist, curator, and member of British-Saudi art organisation Edge of Arabia, was first detained in August 2013 in relation to his collection of poems Instructions Within following the submission of a complaint to the Saudi Committee for the Promotion of Virtue. He was released on bail but rearrested in January 2014. According to court documents, in May 2014 the General Court of Abha found proof that Fayadh had committed apostasy (ridda) but had repented for it. The charge of apostasy was dropped, but he was nevertheless sentenced to 4 years in prison and 800 lashes in relation to numerous charges related to blasphemy. At Ashraf Fayadh's retrial in November 2015 the judge reversed the previous ruling, declaring that repentance was not enough to avoid the death penalty. We believe that all charges against him should have been dropped entirely, and are appalled that Fayadh has instead been sentenced to death for apostasy, simply for exercising his rights to freedom of expression and freedom of belief. As a member of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), the pre-eminent intergovernmental body tasked with protecting and promoting human rights, and the Chair of the HRC's Consultative Group, Saudi Arabia purports to uphold and respect the highest standards of human rights. However, the decision of the court is a clear violation of the internationally recognised rights to freedom of conscience and expression. Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states that, "[e]veryone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief'. Furthermore, under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, "everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers". Saudi Arabia is therefore in absolute contravention of the rights that as a member of the UN HRC it has committed to protect. There are also widespread concerns over an apparent lack of due process in the trial: Fayadh was denied legal representation, reportedly as a result of his ID having been confiscated following his arrest in January 2014. It is our understanding that Fayadh has 30 days to appeal this latest ruling, and we urge the authorities to allow him access to the lawyer of his choice. We call on the Saudi authorities to release Ashraf Fayadh and others detained in Saudi Arabia in violation of their right to freedom of expression immediately and unconditionally. List of signatories: AICA (International Association of Art Critics) Algerian PEN All-India PEN Amnesty International UK Arterial Network ARTICLE 19 Artists for Palestine UK Austrian PEN Banipal Bangladesh PEN Bread and Roses TV British Humanist Association Bulgarian PEN Centre for Secular Space CIMAM (International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art) Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain Croatian PEN Crossway Foundation Danish PEN English PEN Ethiopian PEN-in-Exile FIDH (International Federation for Human Rights) Five Leaves Publications Freemuse German PEN Haitian PEN Human Rights Watch Index on Censorship International Humanist and Ethical Union Iranian PEN in Exile Jimmy Wales Foundation Lebanese PEN Ledbury Poetry Festival Lithuanian PEN Modern Poetry in Translation National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) Norwegian PEN One Darnley Road One Law for All Palestinian PEN PEN American Center PEN Canada PEN International PEN South Africa Peruvian PEN Peter Tatchell Foundation Portuguese PEN Quebec PEN Russian PEN San Miguel PEN Scottish PEN Slovene PEN Society of Authors South African PEN Split This Rock Suisse Romand PEN School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing, University of East Anglia The Voice Project Trieste PEN Turkish PEN Wales PEN Cymru (source: indexoncensorship.org) ***************** Woman to be stoned to death for adultery in Saudi Arabia - while male partner to receive 100 lashes A woman faces being stoned to death after being convicted of adultery in Saudi Arabia - while the man she was caught with faces 100 lashes. The married 45-year-old woman, originally from Sri Lanka, was working as a maid in Riyadh and was convicted of adultery in August. But her partner, who was single and also from Sri Lanka, was given a punishment of 100 lashes after being found guilty of the same offence. Upul Deshapriya, spokesman for the Foreign Employment Bureau said: "She has accepted the crime 4 times in the courts. "But the Foreign Employment Bureau has hired lawyers and have appealed against the case. "The appeal is going on. Also from the foreign ministry side, they are in negotiation with the Saudi government on a diplomatic level." Saudi Arabia follows Sharia law which is criticised by human rights groups for carrying the death penalty for crimes such as adultery and drug smuggling. Stoning, in which 'offenders' are pelted with stones until death is still carried out in some parts of the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, which is current chair of the United Nations Human Rights Council Panel, has executed over 150 people this year, mostly by public beheading, Amnesty International said this month. Foreigners, mostly guest workers from poor countries, are particularly vulnerable as they typically do not know Arabic and are denied adequate translation in court, Amnesty added. Last month we reported how a Saudi wife who suspected her husband of cheating filmed him with his maid on her mobile phone. She posted the video on social media with the caption: "The minimum punishment for this husband is to scandalise him." But, she could actually be imprisoned for a year on defamation charges, due to Saudi Arabia's strict law. (source: The Mirror) ******************* Fellow poets protest Saudi death sentence facing Ashraf Fayadh Poets from around the world are lining up in solidarity with the Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayadh, with the Syrian poet Adonis, Ireland???s Paul Muldoon and Britain's poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy among the signatories to a letter laying out how "appalled" they are at the death sentence he has been handed by Saudi Arabian authorities. Fayadh was sentenced to death last week for renouncing Islam, a charge which he denies. Evidence used against him included poems from his collection Instructions Within, which is banned in Saudi Arabia, as well as his posts on Twitter, and a conversation he had in a coffee shop in Abha which was said to be blasphemous. He was given 30 days to appeal the sentence. Today, PEN International published the latest salvo from an international arts community which has rallied behind him, with Muldoon, Duffy and Adonis joined as signatories to a letter attacking Saudi Arabia's ruling by major names from the world of international poetry including the Serbian-American poet Charles Simic, the American John Ashbery, Palestinian Ghassan Zaqtan, Israeli Amir Or and the Hungarian-born George Szirtes. "We, poets from around the world, are appalled that the Saudi Arabian authorities have sentenced Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayadh to death for apostasy," they write, in a letter which PEN International hopes to deliver to the poet himself in an expression of solidarity. "It is not a crime to hold an idea, however unpopular, nor is it a crime to express opinion peacefully. Every individual has the freedom to believe or not believe. Freedom of conscience is an essential human freedom." The letter says that Fayadh's death sentence "is the latest example of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's lack of tolerance for freedom of expression and ongoing persecution of free thinkers", ending with a plea for the Palestinian's release. "We, Fayadh's fellow poets, urge the Saudi authorities to desist from punishing individuals for the peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression and call for his immediate and unconditional release," they write. Speaking to the Guardian on Friday, Szirtes insisted that "opinions are not crimes". "Incitement can be a crime, hate speech may be a crime, but opinions are not," he said. "That is precisely why organisations such as PEN exist. Any sentence for an individual opinion brings shame on Saudi Arabia: a death sentence brings maximum shame." According to Szirtes it is "incongruous for a country like ours to be allied with a country that makes decisions like this". "It runs counter to all our thoughts, habits and instincts, not just as poets or writers but as human beings," he added. "Nor is it just a cultural matter: it is a matter of exactly that which we describe as universal human rights." The appeal follows the release of a joint statement signed by more than a dozen cultural and free speech organisations condemning the conviction of the Palestinian poet, including PEN International, which will be delivered to the Saudi embassy in London today by English PEN. Last week, Fayadh told the Guardian that he was "really shocked" to receive his sentence "but it was expected, though I didn't do anything that deserves death". "They accused me [of] atheism and spreading some destructive thoughts into society," he said, describing his poetry collection as "just about me being [a] Palestinian refugee ... about cultural and philosophical issues. But the religious extremists explained it as destructive ideas against God." Pen International pointed to extracts of Fayadh's poems, translated by Mona Kareem. "it was said: settle there... / but some of you are enemies for all / so leave it now," he writes in one. "look up to yourselves from the bottom of the river; / those of you on top should provide some pity for those underneath." The free speech organisation said that during his trial, the poet "expressed repentance for anything in the book that religious authorities may have deemed insulting", and said, according to trial documents: "I am repentant to God most high and I am innocent of what appeared in my book mentioned in this case." On 25 November, the Guardian reported that, in a message to his supporters, Fayadh said he was "grateful for everyone working on my behalf". "To be honest, I was surprised because I felt alone here. I am in good health. I'm struggling to follow all the developments. People should know I am not against anyone here, I am an artist and I am just looking for my freedom," said the poet. (source: The Guardian) MALAYSIA: Hakam: Impose moratorium on execution of 1,022 death row prisoners The National Human Rights Society of Malaysia (Hakam) welcomes the government's move to abolish the mandatory death sentence for drug-related offences. The mandatory death sentence deprives the sentencing judge of the discretion to consider all relevant facts of the case and the individual circumstances of each convicted person. A sentencing judge must be given the option to impose the appropriate sentence. Whilst removing the mandatory death sentence is a step in the right direction, we would call on the government to abolish the mandatory death sentence in its entirety for all criminal offences. The death penalty violates the right to life guaranteed under Article 5 of our Federal Constitution and is undoubtedly a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment contrary to international law. A recent public opinion survey on the death penalty in Malaysia undertaken by Emeritus Professor Roger Hood QC from the University of Oxford has shown that the majority of the Malaysian public do not support an imposition of the death penalty. We also call on the government to impose a moratorium on the execution of 1,022 death row prisoners currently waiting for execution pending the abolition of the mandatory death sentence for all criminal offences. Having been on the Human Rights Council and presently on the Security Council as a non-permanent member, Malaysia must show a genuine commitment to abide by international norms in relation to the right to life and the prohibition against cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. We hope that the government will continue taking steps in the right direction towards the ultimate abolishment of the death penalty. Ambiga Sreenevasan is president of Hakam. The above state was issued on behalf of the Hakam executive committee. Addendum Following Hakam's statement calling for a moratorium of all 1,022 executions while the government looks into abolishing the mandatory death sentence in Malaysia, Hakam also urges the government to explore all diplomatic channels to persuade the Singapore government to grant clemency to Kho Jabing, the Sarawakian who is on death row in Singapore. Hakam acknowledges Sarawak Chief Minister Adenan Satem's statement that he will write to appeal to the Singapore government to grant clemency to Jabing. This is indeed an urgent call for the government to defend one of her citizens on death row. The Malaysian government must view this as a serious case. Kho Jabing was sentenced to death in 2008 and in 2013, Singapore amended its law concerning the mandatory death sentence. This resulted in a resentencing hearing for Kho Jabing. The High Court of Singapore then sentenced him to life imprisonment plus 24 strokes of the cane which shows that the High Court found that he should not be sentenced to death. Upon appeal by the prosecution, the Court of Appeal sentenced him to death in a 3-2 decision. This fact plays an important role in proving that we should be pursuing all means necessary to ensure he is given clemency and a chance at rehabilitation. The court had also acquitted Kho Jabing's co-accussed, Galing, of murder charge and sentenced him of the offence of robbery with hurt. The minority judgment of the Court of Appeal also found that there was insufficient evidence to establish beyond reasonable doubt that Kho Jabing had acted in a way which exhibits viciousness or a blatant disregard for human life. The Malaysian government must do all it can within its capacity to appeal to the Singapore leadership to exercise discretion to grant Kho Jabing clemency. This move should not be seen as interfering in the legal system of Singapore but it must be viewed as the government's positive obligation to protect the right to life of its citizens abroad. Hakam reiterates that nobody should be sentenced to death as it is contrary to international norms in relation to the right to life and the prohibition against cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. (source: aliran.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Nov 29 08:14:01 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2015 08:14:01 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., ALA., KY., USA Message-ID: Nov. 29 FLORIDA: Florida Supreme Court Rejects Appeal In Broward Girl's Murder The Florida Supreme Court has unanimously rejected an appeal by a Death Row inmate convicted of murdering an 11-year-old Broward County girl nearly 3 decades ago. Michael T. Rivera, now 53, was sentenced to death in the murder of Staci Lynn Jazvac, who disappeared in January 1986 after leaving her Lauderdale Lakes home to ride her bicycle to a nearby shopping center. The girl's body was found in February 1986 in a field in Coral Springs. In the appeal, Rivera's attorneys pointed, in part, to newly discovered DNA evidence. That evidence involved a hair, which was found in a van that prosecutors said had been used by Rivera to abduct the girl. The hair was found to not belong to the victim, which Rivera argued could bolster his contention that he did not murder the girl. But the Supreme Court rejected the argument. "The DNA evidence simply confirms the possibility that was asserted during trial that the hair did not belong to Staci," said the 36-page opinion. "Notably, the evidence is not exculpatory in nature, nor does it establish that Staci was never in contact with Rivera or in (the) ... van. Moreover, the state presented ample evidence during trial that Rivera committed the murder, including the testimony of 2 non-jailhouse witnesses to whom Rivera confessed." (source: CBS news) ALABAMA: Parents of murdered brothers say victims overlooked in death penalty debate Like thousands of aging couples in thousands of towns across America, Joe and Cindy Burch while away the time between doctors' appointments at a fast-food restaurant, talking about the world's problems. On this chilly day in early November, it's the Arby's on Quintard. The topic is the death penalty and the inmates who claim it's cruel and unusual. "They get more rights than some of our children, some of our elderly," Cindy says, with a nervous chuckle. "I believe in the right to live, but they've also earned the right to die," Joe says. They could be any couple in America, opining about crime a few steps from the soda fountain. Cindy chuckles nervously when she says something assertive. Joe leans in, taps the table with his fingers, looks you in the eye. When the point is made, he leans back and looks away. They're not just any couple. "He suffered nothing," Joe says. "Well, to not know that his 8-year-old son ... graduating ... I think he was 8 in 2002," Cindy says. "To miss the wedding, miss the dating. But, I mean, we're not going to get any of that." "No wedding, no grandkids," Joe says. "I want to be a good grandma," Cindy says, her voice cracking. "We will never have that," Joe says. "Our family tree is done. He took away our family tree. It stopped right then, on May 15th." Deadly day In 2002, if you lived in Jacksonville and wanted to see a movie on Wednesday night, you'd probably head to Blockbuster on McClellan, the biggest movie store for miles around. If someone warned you to be safe, you'd assume they were warning you to look twice before pulling out into the rush of traffic on Alabama 21. The Burch's sons, 19-year-old Andrew and 20-year-old Joseph, went out to grab a movie on a Wednesday night in May, and never came back. A customer found the Burch brothers and Blockbuster employees Austin Joplin and Doug Neal all shot dead inside the store. A gun found at the scene led investigators to Donald Ray Wheat, of Clay County, who had already served a 10-year sentence for a 1971 manslaughter. Police hailed Andy Burch as a hero: evidence at the scene suggested he fought back before being shot, and may have unsettled his attacker so much that Wheat fled the scene without his gun. For Joe and Cindy Burch, parenthood was over, in the blink of an eye. Andrew and Joseph - acolytes at St. Luke's, partners in a grass-cutting business, stunningly good bowlers who sometimes put in 20 games a day - were their only children. Donald Wheat died of natural causes in prison, leaving 2 sons behind. But he'd been sentenced to death: to be strapped to a gurney, injected with poison and killed. Joe and Cindy Burch still wrestle with that. With the fact that Wheat's full sentence was never carried out. With the fact that, had he lived, Wheat would likely be at least a decade away from execution and still filing appeals. "If you're not going to use the death penalty, if it takes 25 or 30 years, just don't do it," Cindy Burch says. "You need to respect the death sentence." She's no capital punishment opponent. It was Cindy who called the newspaper, after reading months of headlines about inmates' legal battles to block their pending executions. The core of their argument - that lethal injection is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual - turns her stomach. "Look what they do," she said. "And then they're crying, when it's time for them to be put to death." A long wait Last week, the state scheduled inmate Christopher Brooks for execution Jan. 21 for a 1992 murder. If that execution happens, Brooks will be the 1st person to die by lethal injection in Alabama in more than 2 years. State officials seem as eager as ever to set execution dates for the 188 people now on death row. But the world around Alabama's justice system has changed. First, European drugmakers refused to supply the state with the drugs that once were the staple of execution by lethal injection. American companies followed suit. A leading pharmacists' group this year discouraged its members from participating in executions. Every new proposed drug combination brings new legal challenges. The ground of public opinion has shifted, too - nationwide, if perhaps not in Alabama. In 2002, the year the Burches buried their sons, a Gallup survey showed seven Americans in 10 supported capital punishment. This October, the number was 61 %, nearly a 40-year low. Even in conservative Alabama, the tone on crime is different than it was 20 years ago. Republicans have joined Democrats in saying prisons are overcrowded. The Burches have noticed. "They're saying they're going to let out prisoners," Cindy says, referring to the state's plan to reduce the prison population by thousands, by reducing sentences for small-time thieves and drug offenders. She's not convinced it will stop at non-violent criminals. So much pain In an hour of talk at their table, the Burches never lapse into the bumper-sticker talk - "an eye for an eye" - that characterizes so many conversations about capital punishment. But they can't escape the idea that justice has to contain some measure of retribution. "There's so much pain there inside of me," Joe says. "I cannot get it out. I tried. I cannot get it out." He remembers sitting behind Wheat in the courtroom. Joe was younger then, healthier. He knew that if he tried, he could have made it over the bench and landed at least 1 blow. "If I would have hit him 1 time, I would have felt better," he said. But Wheat was surrounded by police, "more protected than I would be protected in my whole life." The law itself, in the person of a deputy, sat by Joe's side during much of the trial. He doesn't say whether the deputy was there to support him, or restrain him, or both. "I know we're supposed to forgive," says Cindy. "The Lord is going to have to forgive for me until I can. I know forgiving is not for Him, it's for us, and I want to do it. But if I say that out loud, I feel like I'm not loving my boys anymore." That's about it, Cindy says. After reading so much about inmates in the paper, she just wanted to say her piece. "I don't know," Joe says. "If you write about this, it's going to get everybody up in arms about the death penalty. You've got all these church groups that don't favor the death penalty. But they have never had anything like that happen to their family." "Possibly," Cindy corrects. "Possibly, you know," Joe says. He leans back, and looks away. (source: The Anniston Star) KENTUCKY: Death row inmate fights for hip-replacement surgery A Kentucky death row inmate has renewed his request for a federal court order requiring the state to arrange hip-replacement surgery for him. The Lexington Herald-Leader reports that Robert Foley's request has been turned down by a federal judge twice since his hip gave out in July. Foley's hip surgery could cost more than $50,000. In 2012 the Department of Corrections looked for a hospital willing to do the surgery, but a half-dozen declined. Foley's attorneys say a doctor recommended the surgery in August, and say the surgery could be done at Baptist Health Paducah Hospital. Foley was convicted of shooting 2 brothers to death in Laurel County in 1991, and of shooting 4 people in Laurel County in 1989 and covering their bodies in an unused septic tank. Sharon Vaughn McGeorge, who was only a teenager when her father, Rodney Vaughn, and uncle Lynn Vaughn, were murdered, told CBS affiliate WKYT in 2010: "I don't think I will ever have peace in my life..... until Robert Foley is executed." (source: CBS news) USA: Where's death penalty in push for criminal justice overhaul? Even as President Barack Obama tries to make a hard case for overhauling sentences, rehabilitating prisoners and confronting racial bias in policing, he has been less clear about the death penalty. Obama has hinted that his support for capital punishment is eroding, but he has refused to discuss what he might call for. A Justice Department review has dragged on for 18 months with little mention or momentum. The president recently repeated he is "deeply concerned" about the death penalty's implementation, though he also acknowledges the issue has not been a top priority. "I have not traditionally been opposed to the death penalty in theory, but in practice it's deeply troubling," Obama told the Marshall Project, a nonprofit journalism group, citing racial bias, wrongful convictions and questions about "gruesome and clumsy" executions. His delay in proposing solutions, he said, was because "I got a whole lot of other things to do as well." Obama said he plans to weigh in, and considers the issue part of his larger, legacy-minded push for an overhaul of the criminal justice system. White House officials say the president is looking for an appropriate response and wading through the legal ramifications. Capital prosecutions are down across the United States. A shortage of lethal injection drugs has meant de facto freezes in several states and at the federal level. Spurred in part by encouragement from Supreme Court justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, advocates are debating whether the time is right to push the court to take a fresh look at whether the death penalty is constitutional. A solid majority - 61 % - of the public supports the death penalty in murder cases, but that share has crept downward while opposition has inched up, according to a Gallup poll last month. Obama isn't alone in struggling with the issue. "We have a lot of evidence now that the death penalty has been too frequently applied and, very unfortunately, often times in a discriminatory way," Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said. "So I think we have to take a hard look at it." She also said she does "not favor abolishing" it in all cases. For Clinton's Democratic presidential rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the issue is settled. "I just don't think the state itself, whether it's the state government or federal government, should be in the business of killing people," he said. On the Republican side, candidate Jeb Bush says he's swayed by his Catholic faith and is "conflicted." "We should reform it," he told NBC's "Meet the Press." ''If it's to be used as a deterrent, it has to be reformed. It can't take 25 years. That does no one any good. Neither the victims nor the state is solving this problem with that kind of tangled judicial process." In September, Pope Francis stood before Congress and urged that the death penalty be abolished. Obama specifically noted the comment when talking about the speech to aides. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama was "influenced" by what the pope said. Such hints have death penalty opponents likening Obama's deliberations to his gradual shift toward supporting gay marriage. Charles Ogletree, a Harvard law professor who taught the president, said: "Though not definitive, the idea that the president's views are evolving gives me hope that the he - like an increasing number of prosecutors, jurors, judges, governors and state legislators - recognizes that the death penalty in America is too broken to fix." White House officials caution that any presidential statement disputing the effectiveness or constitutionality of the death penalty would have legal consequences. For example, would the administration then commute the sentences of the 62 people currently on federal death row to life in prison? Every lawyer representing a death row inmate would make that case in an appeal, said Douglas Berman, criminal law professor at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law. Among those inmates: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted of murder in the Boston Marathon bombing. "There's not been a president who in the modern use of the federal death penalty has indicated a disaffinity for it," Berman said. "And if this one were to say, 'I don't think it's something we ought to be doing,' that's a policy statement and personal statement, but it is also one that indisputably would be put in the legal papers and would require courts to grapple with its significance." If Obama went further, perhaps formalizing the federal freeze, it could affect other major terrorism cases. The Justice Department has yet to decide whether to seek the death penalty in the prosecution of the man charged in the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, for example. A moratorium might serve as a model for the states - where most capital prosecutions occur - and would make more of a mark than expressions of concern, advocates argue. "On an issue like this, it's important to make judgments on what people actually do," said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes the death penalty. "We have seen in many states governors who say they are against the death penalty, nonetheless denying clemency in controversial cases. ... Whether people say they're personally supportive of the death penalty or not doesn't really matter. It's what they do that matters." (source: Associated Press) ************ Former host of NBC's news program calls OKC bomber's conviction cathartic to America The former host of "Meet the Press" writes in a memoir that bomber Timothy McVeigh's conviction brought emotional release to the country. "In our post-9/11 world, it's easy to lose sight of the gravity of the Oklahoma City bombing and the trial that followed," David Gregory wrote in "How's Your Faith? An Unlikely Spiritual Journey." He wrote the 1995 bombing "shocked and frightened the American public like nothing before" and that McVeigh's 1997 trial in Denver was "a major news event." "For the most part, McVeigh's guilty verdict brought nationwide emotional release. It was like a national panacea after the mockery of justice that was the O.J. Simpson trial," he wrote. "People poured out of neighboring office buildings and restaurants to cheer on and thank the prosecution team as they made the short walk from the courthouse back to their offices, escorted by police on horseback." Gregory, now 45, covered McVeigh's trial as an NBC correspondent. He later was the chief White House correspondent for NBC during the presidency of George W. Bush. He was moderator of NBC's Sunday morning talk show "Meet the Press" from December 2008 until he was replaced in the summer of 2014. His memoir was released in September. He wrote at length about the bombing case because he met and fell in love during the trial with prosecutor Beth Wilkinson. The 2 wed in 2000. Gregory described himself in the book as a Jew, the product of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. He described his wife as coming from a strong Protestant family. He said his wife was the one who pressed him for more depth about his faith, putting him on a journey to understand and deepen his spirituality. Gregory is scheduled to speak about his journey Wednesday at the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum. McVeigh was found guilty June 2, 1997, and hundreds of people gathered across the street from the federal courthouse to hear the verdict. The spectators loudly applauded prosecutors as they walked out of the courthouse. In an oral history for the museum, Wilkinson recalled the moment as emotional. "We looked around and the streets of Denver were just filled with people," she said in the 2011 interview for the museum. "I remember walking ... with the rest of the trial team ... and being totally overwhelmed with emotion by the outpouring, not for us, although obviously that felt good, but for the victims, the survivors, the people of Oklahoma and for the justice system." Jurors on June 13, 1997, chose a death sentence as McVeigh's punishment, but there was no similar cheering outside the courthouse for that verdict. Wilkinson said: "It was a very somber moment. No one was happy. We thought that was justice, but there was no showing of that kind of joy. ... And and I think that's right because it's a very sad thing that the death penalty was appropriate." In the chapter about the bombing, Gregory also criticized the conspiracy theories about the attack. He wrote that, in 20 years, "no evidence supporting those theories has come to light." In an interview with The Oklahoman, he was harsher, calling the conspiracy theories nonsense. "People ... don't want to accept the answer that's right in front of them - that it was possible for 2 psychopaths to be so twisted in their ideology that they would actually have the capacity to pull this off and to pull this off on their own. People were willing to deny the evidence that was right in front of them, that was completely satisfactory, that answered all the questions. Instead, they wanted to reach for something that was much harder to understand." He recalled being frustrated with others in the profession. "I think the media loves a juicy conspiracy story that they can keep holding on to. I think there was some really bad journalism at that time,??? he said. (source: The Oklahoman) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Nov 29 08:14:51 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2015 08:14:51 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 30 BANGLADESH: HC urged to uphold death penalty of 152 BDR mutiny convicts Attorney General Mahbubey Alam today prayed to the High Court to uphold the lower court verdict that sentenced 152 convicts for killing 74 people including 57 army officials in the 2009 Pilkhana mutiny. The lower court has rightly convicted and sentenced 152 accused to death after properly examining relevant documents, evidence and statements of witnesses, as they are responsible for the heinous killings, he told the HC while finishing his arguments on the death reference of the case. After concluding today's proceedings on the death reference, the HC of Justice Md Shawkat Hossain, Justice Abu Zafor Siddique and Justice Nazrul Islam Talukder set tomorrow for resuming 141th day's hearing on the case. The defence lawyers will start placing arguments tomorrow on behalf of the convicts, Deputy Attorney General AKM Zahid Sarwar Kazal told The Daily Star. He also said after finishing hearing the arguments on the death reference, the HC will hold hearing on the appeals filed individually and collectively by 567 convicts. 74 people, including 57 army officials, were slain in the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) mutiny on February 25-26, 2009 at the force's Pilkhana headquarters in Dhaka. In November 2013, a Dhaka court sentenced 150 soldiers of BDR, now Border Guard Bangladesh, and 2 civilians to death, and jailed 161 for life for their involvement. It also gave rigorous imprisonment, ranging from 3 to 10 years, to 256, mostly BDR soldiers. The remaining 277 were acquitted. A total of 844 people, 823 of them BDR personnel, stood trial in Bangladesh's biggest criminal case in terms of the number of accused and convicts. (source: The Daily Star) GUYANA: The death penalty is not a deterrent Dear Editor, Tomorrow, 30th November, is Cities for Life Day when cities around the world celebrate the abolition of the death penalty. On that day in 1786, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany became the 1st civil state in the world to get rid of capital punishment. Over 414,000,000 South Americans can join in the celebrations. Each and every one of them lives in a country that has abolished the death penalty. Only 1 tiny group, roughly 1/5 of 1 % of South America's peoples, is left out. The people of Guyana. We are the only country in South America that still has the death penalty. Our western neighbour Venezuela was the 1st in South America to abolish it. Our eastern neighbour, Suriname, is the most recent. But we have nothing to celebrate. At last week's EU sponsored International Conference on the Abolition of the Death Penalty, a few people said that the EU should not tell Guyana to abolish the death penalty. I totally agree, but the EU is not telling us what to do. Guyana is a democracy. The EU has a right to express its opinion that the death penalty is cruel and inhumane, not a deterrent and has no place in a civilised society. About 150 states hold that opinion. Perhaps we should give it serious consideration. The member states of the EU have very low murder rates. According to OECD data, EU Ambassador Jernej's home state of Slovenia has a murder rate of 2 per 100,000 persons per year, and the UK, the conference co-sponsor, has a murder rate of 3 per 1,000,000 persons per year. Our murder rate fluctuates at around 18 per 100,000 each year. Perhaps we should ask the UK and the rest of the EU how they have achieved such low murder rates. The answers may be complex but at least we can start to fix our own broken society piece by piece. At the conference some individuals have argued that the Bible says "An eye for an eye." On what grounds does one prefer that instruction to God's commandment, "Thou shalt not kill"? Modern Israel abolished the death penalty for murder in 1954. Christians believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. In Matthew 5:38 Jesus appears to reject completely the teaching of "an eye for an eye." What criteria can a Christian use to reject the teachings of Christ? These are not easy questions to answer. What is very worrying is that the various Christian churches and sects of Guyana appear to have no interest in working together to formulate one coherent position on the death penalty. It was good to see the Catholic nuns and Bishop Alleyne at the conference. It was disappointing that more religious leaders did not participate. In order to have a rich and meaningful discussion, we need the opinions and advice of Hindus, Moslems, Baha'is, Rastafarians, House of Israel, Christians and other religions. A much repeated justification for the death penalty is that it deters murder. It should be obvious to everyone by now that every time someone is murdered the death penalty has failed as a deterrent. How many people have to die before society accepts that the death penalty does not work? There are some who argue that, despite the murders, the death penalty is working because it keeps the rest of us from killing one another. That seems a very extreme position. It is not supported by the experience of countries that do not have the death penalty. In 2014 there were 537 murders in England and Wales. The combined population of those two countries is approximately 57,500,000 people. Obviously the vast majority of people did not commit murder even though there was no death penalty to deter them. Could it be that the average human being is a reasonably decent person trying to lead a decent life in difficult circumstances? Decent people don't kill other human beings. Perhaps we should not be asking, "Does the death penalty deter murder?" but the more useful question of, "How do we as one nation with one destiny eliminate, or at least reduce, murder in our country?" Proponents of the death penalty must compare it with other strategies for reducing murder before they are in a position to say whether or not it is effective. One lawyer has suggested that we need the death penalty to deal with so-called Islamic State terrorists. That is probably the one group of people on whom the death penalty has absolutely no effect. They want to be martyrs. Another argument in favour of the death penalty is that the victim deserves justice. Unfortunately the victim is dead. That is why it is murder. It is literally impossible to render justice to a dead person. On the other hand if a murder victim was opposed to the death penalty, then we are guilty of dishonouring his/her memory by the death penalty. Justice for the victim really means that we, the living, are hurt and angry. We want the murderer to be punished. That is a very healthy response. We will know that we are in serious trouble when we are unmoved or uncaring about the lives of our fellow human beings. The critical and difficult question is what to do with someone who has murdered another human being. I believe we should ask the victim???s family and friends. We should take their views into account. Perhaps our grief at having failed to protect their loved one will help us to unite as a people and protect one another better in future. Perhaps it is necessary to stress that punishment is not the same thing as vengeance. In 2011 Anders Breivek murdered 77 people in Norway. The Norwegians do not have the death penalty. 2 days after Breivik's heinous crime, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said, "We are still shocked by what has happened, but we will never give up our values...Our response is more democracy, more openness, and more humanity but never naivety...We will answer hatred with love." What kind of country can possibly react in this way? One that is so civilised and compassionate that its current murder rate is 6 people in every1,000,000. One that is so humane and merciful that its prisons are focused on rehabilitation. Prisoners can even go to university. There are strong feelings in Guyana for and against the penalty. Those who wish to retain it must be taken seriously. Their concerns must be heard respectfully. Their fears for the safety of their fellow citizens must be addressed through legitimate strategies to protect the lives of the people of Guyana. But we must not be afraid to change. In addition to our high murder rate, we have the highest suicide rate in the world and the fourth highest rate of road deaths. How are we going to move away from a culture of death to a culture of life? Next year we will be 50 years old as an independent state. We have thrown away a great deal of what we saw as British imperialism. Yet we retain the death penalty. Can we really go to our 50th birthday party as a proud and free people, with this colonial barbarism around our necks? The State is the people - it is us. When the State executes a human being we are not exempt from responsibility. As the great Bob Marley asked, "Would you let the system make you kill your brother man?" One day we will be civilized and compassionate enough to answer, "No. Dread. No!" It is only a question of when, not if. Yours faithfully, Melinda Janki Executive Director Justice Institute Guyana Inc (source: Letter to the Editor, Stabroek News) MALAYSIA: Making a change The abolition of the mandatory death penalty will benefit Malaysia as it is hoped to prompt the first move towards the abolition of the death penalty, according to Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture (MADPET). In Malaysia, the mandatory death penalty is imposed on serious crimes like murder, treason, certain firearm offences and drug- trafficking. Its use in drug-related offences, particularly, has received much censure from human rights groups and lawyers. Minister in the Prime Minister's Department and de facto Law Minister Nancy Shukri had announced that the government planned to abolish the mandatory death penalty for drug-related offences. "Malaysia's image will improve with regard to the European Union, which has abolished the death penalty," says MADPET coordinator Charles Hector. "The convicted person will benefit from this. So, now, when evidence emerges in the future showing that the convict is innocent, he will still be alive." Hector says the only thing that a mandatory sentence does is remove the discretion from the courts when it comes to sentencing. "What is preferable is that Parliament only sets the minimum and maximum sentences, and the judge decides on the appropriate sentence based on the circumstances of the case." He believes that only the maximum limit should be set by law, with the discretion in sentences to be decided by the courts. "Sentencing guidelines already exist, but should new guidelines be introduced, these should be left to the judiciary - maybe with the involvement possibly of the Malaysian Bar and the public prosecutor." Brickfields Asia College general manager and senior lecturer Daniel Abishegam says the proposed abolition tempers the harshness of the current law and shouldn't impact the successful prosecution of drug-trafficking offences. "As I understand it, the proposal does not intend to interfere with the evidentiary rules and standard of proof required for a prosecution of a drug- related offence. "The proposal only seeks to add an element of mercy in certain situation where the judge sees fit. So, the person will still be convicted of the offence. However, if the judge is convinced that the convict was merely a low-level functionary and not a dealer, he may exercise his discretion and sentence him to a jail term." Abishegam says the category of people who will benefit from this would be those convicted under the presumption of trafficking under the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, but who were in fact not trafficking. "They were merely in possession of drugs beyond the permitted amounts. If a judge is convinced of this based on the evidence presented before the court, the judge would then sentence the person to a long jail-term instead of death. "The judicial discretion involved will be guided by the statute itself or the body of case law that will develop over the years. "If Parliament feels that the judicial discretion is being exercised in a way that is too arbitrary, amendments can be made to the act to reduce discretion. "However, it is my opinion that judges will be the best persons to decide based on the evidence presented before them and giving them some leeway to exercise mercy is not a bad thing." Taylor's Law School associate dean (learning and quality) Lai Mun Onn agrees that the proposed amendment, which will increase judicial discretion in sentencing, is a positive move. "Sentencing should be left to the judges. Guidelines can be helpful but, at the end of the day, it must not interfere with the judge's discretion. "The sentence should correspond with the offence, that is, minor sentences for minor offences. If the offence is 'minor', the possible harm that could have resulted should be small. "The sentence should, however, be sufficient to deter the individual from committing that offence again, as well as send a clear message out that what was done was wrong in the eyes of the law and should not be tolerated. The sentence should also help rehabilitate the offender and give him/her a chance to turn from his/her wrong ways." Malaysian Bar Council president Steven Thiru says the restoring of judicial discretion in drug-related offences that presently carry the mandatory death penalty should not adversely impact the prosecution of these offences. "The prosecution will still have the burden of proving the elements of the offence to the requisite standard of proof (beyond reasonable doubt). "It may well be the case that judges would be more prepared to convict when they have the discretion to impose the appropriate and proportionate punishment for the offence, as opposed to having their hands tied to impose the mandatory death sentence. "Increased judicial discretion is a good development and it provides guidelines to help judges with sentencing. The establishment of a Sentencing Council to initially study and collate sentences that have been imposed, and then to standardise sentences would help ensure a uniformed, consistent and fair sentencing regime." (source: New Straits Times) *************** Malaysian on S'pore death row: Malaysia mulls abolishing mandatory death sentences The case of Jabing Kho, the Sarawakian on death row in Singapore, is having an impact on Malaysia's capital punishment. Minister in the Prime Minister's Office Nancy Shukri said on Sunday abolishing the mandatory death sentence is a 'priority' for her. Currently, the matter is in the drafting state, she said, adding a bill could be presented to Parliament by March. "This is one of the most important ones (bills) to me. It's very difficult... especially when we have to face Kho's case. "We go to appeal (in Singapore) and yet we also have the same kind of law," Nancy said here on Sunday."The death penalty will still be there but minus (it being) mandatory, meaning we are giving the power back to the courts." "Last year, Malaysia executed 2 on death row, both for murder, she said. "The country has not executed those found guilty for drug offences for sometime. "We are keeping them in jail. We hope they get their pardons from state rulers," Nancy said. As of this October, there are 1,022 prisoners on death row in Malaysia. Since 1998, a total of 33 have been executed in Malaysia. On Kho, the minister said neither the Federal nor state governments have heard from Singapore since November 23, the day its court reserved judgement on the Sarawakian's bid to review his death sentence. Malaysia and Sarawak's stand was still to urge for clemency, hoping Kho's death penalty would be converted to a life imprisonment. However, Nancy said, because it was a murder case, "normally, they would not give any clemency". "We'll just have to wait. The Federal Government had done its part. Now, the State Government is appealing based on humanitarian grounds. "On record, I must say we respect the laws of another country, which is also why Malaysia is mulling abolishing mandatory death sentences." She said Kho's case had made it clear this was "exactly the kind of situation that can put us in an awkward place" if another country were to appeal for clemency to Malaysia. Kho, a 31-year-old Sarawakian of Chinese-Iban ethnicity, was scheduled to hang on November 6, but was awarded a temporary reprieve less than 24 hours to his execution after his lawyer filed a criminal motion at the Singaporean Court of Appeal on November 4 for remittance. He was convicted for the murder of a construction worker in 2008. Nancy was speaking to reporters after a charity fundraiser for the Sarawak Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Kuching yesterday. Earlier this month, Attorney-General Tan Sri Apandi Ali said he would propose to the Cabinet that the mandatory death penalty be scrapped. He said mandatory death sentences were a "paradox" as it robbed judges of their discretion to impose sentences on convicted criminals. (source: asiaone.com) *************** YOU WILL GO TO JAIL: Man's mother pleaded as he STABBED his stewardess GF to deatth Neo Chun Zheng was charged on Saturday (Nov 28) with the murder of Ms Soh Yuan Lin, who is believed to be his ex-girlfriend. The incident took place outside the accused's home at Boon Lay Drive on Thursday night. Residents of the HDB block told local media that they overheard the couple arguing as well as the man's mother attempting to stop the fight. Neo, 26, is believed to have stabbed Ms Soh in the neck with a knife measuring 10cm long. The 23-year-old later died of her injuries at Ng Teng Fong General Hospital. The Straits Times reported that the prosecution requested for Neo to be remanded while investigations are on-going. His case will be heard in court again next Friday (Dec 4). If found guilty of murder, Neo faces the death penalty. A 26-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a murder at Boon Lay Drive on Thursday night (Nov 26). According to a statement by the police, they received a call for assistance from a unit at Blk 268B Boon Lay Drive at about 8.16pm on Thursday. Upon their arrival, a woman was found lying motionless in the unit. She was taken to Ng Teng Fong General Hospital where she was pronounced dead on the same day at about 11.14pm. Shin Min Daily News quoted neighbours as saying that a loud quarrel between a man and a woman outside the unit was heard last night. They told the Chinese evening daily that the suspect's mother could also be heard asking the couple to stop their argument. Lianhe Wanbao reported that the victim, 23-year-old Soh Yuan Lin, wanted to break up with the suspect, Neo Chun Zheng. Shin Min reports also identified Soh as a former Scoot flight attendant. According to Shin Min, an argument was believed to have started over allegations that Soh was cheating on Neo. A neighbour told the Chinese Daily that Neo's mother was crying and asking her son repeatedly: "Why are you carrying a knife? You will go to jail." She was still crying after Soh was attacked and fell to the ground, and stood beside the body until the police arrived, Shin Min reported. Another neighbour Shin Min spoke to alleged that Neo was acting strangely, and even smiled when the police were questioning him. (source: malaysia-chronicle.com) SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi Arabian executioners are having an unusually prolific year Will more than 50 people be executed in just one day in Saudi Arabia? That's exactly what the popular newspaper Okaz reported this week, stating that 55 people were awaiting execution for "terrorist crimes." Another newspaper, the pro-government daily al-Riyadh, put the number at 52 in a report that has now been deleted online. Whether these reports are true is unclear - the Saudi state is less than transparent about its criminal justice system, fearful of the international backlash that its use of capital and corporal punishment can provoke. However, the reports are worrisome enough that Amnesty International has felt compelled to condemn them. "Saudi Arabia's macabre spike in executions this year, coupled with the secretive and arbitrary nature of court decisions and executions in the kingdom, leave us no option but to take these latest warning signs very seriously," James Lynch, Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International, said in a statement. Even before these reports, it was clear that Saudi Arabian executioners were having an unusually prolific year. Earlier this month, Amnesty announced that the country had already executed 151 people this year, the highest number for nearly two decades (perhaps not coincidentally, earlier this year the Ministry of Civil Service posted a job listing seeking applications for executioners positions). Under the country's strict interpretation of Sharia law, relatively minor crimes like drug smuggling and even "sorcery" can be punishable by death. Experts have struggled to explain what has caused the surge in executions over the past year. Some have suggested that it could be related to the death of Saudi King Abdullah in January and the arrival of the new administration of King Salman, a leader who appears to be keen to make his mark on the country. However, some groups were already complaining of a surge in executions in late August, months before Abdullah died, when Saudi Arabia beheaded 26 people. There are likely other factors at play. Earlier this year, Ali Adubisi, director of the Berlin-based European Saudi Organization for Human Rights, told AFP that rising poverty had led to an increased number of drug-related convictions in the country. Reuters has reported that there is speculation among diplomats that more judges have been hired in the country recently, meaning that a backlog of court cases are finally being heard with more executions as a result of that. The details of the executions reported by Okaz seem to suggest something else, however. The newspaper reports that those facing execution include alleged terrorists from al-Qaeda and people from near Awamiya, a town in the eastern part of the country that is largely Shiite. That detail has caused much consternation among critics. "Among those who are at imminent risk of execution are these 6 Shi'a Muslim activists who were clearly convicted in unfair trials," Amnesty's Lynch said, noting that 3 of the activists were arrested when they were under the age of 18. Saudi Arabia, under pressure from both Sunni extremists like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State and its regional Shiite rival, Iran, has put considerable efforts into its counter-terrorism efforts. The fear among critics, however, is that these efforts may be being misdirected - and the Saudi kingdom's surge in executions is the result of that. (source: Washington Post) GLOBAL: Death by stoning is barbaric In some countries of the Middle East, punishment for adultery by stoning has been so institutionalized that it is part of their law. Some women of Sri Lanka and other Asian countries go to these Middle East countries to work as housemaids and domestic workers. While some of them are subjected to unending work and certain forms of abuse, they all have to be very careful because it is not only adultery that is punished by death; even a mistake made due to ignorance, could bring on the chopping off of limbs and even the penalty of death. IGNORANCE PUNISHED BY DEATH Rizana Nafeek of Sri Lanka went to Saudi Arabia to earn some money to build a house for her poor family. She went as a housemaid and she looked after a child. She was an inexperienced girl in her mid teens. While feeding, the child choked and died. She was accused of killing the child. As she was underage the Saudi Arabian authorities waited till she came to her twenties to put her to death. Today, we are concerned about another Sri Lankan woman. She has been condemned to death by stoning for committing adultery. Death by stoning is a primitive mode of punishment that prevailed in the Middle East in ancient times but unfortunately still continued in places like Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Pharisees in ancient Israel, interpreted the letter of the 'Mosaic Law', most probably in the Book of Leviticus 20.10 in the Bible which states, 'If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbour, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death..', underlining the gravity of the offence. But Moses who had known God as God of compassion and mercy, had also stated, 'I charge your judges... hear the cases between your brethren, and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the alien that is with him. You shall not be partial in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike... the cases too hard for you, you shall bring to me and I will hear it' (Bible: Book of Deuteronomy, 1.10-17). JESUS REFUSES TO CONDEMN It was in the context of this mindset that two thousand years ago, a woman caught in the act of adultery was brought to Jesus by those who found her committing that sin. And they asked Jesus what he thought about it. The Gospel of John (Chapter 8.2-11) gives a good summary of that incident. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman along who had been caught committing adultery; and makng her stand there in full view of everybody, they said to Jesus, , "Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery, and Moses has ordered us in the Law to condemn women like this to death by stoning. What have you to say? They asked Him this as a test, looking for something to use against Him. But Jesus bent down and started writing on the ground with His finger. As they persisted with their question, e looked up and said, "If there is any one of you who has not sinned let him be the first to throw a stone at her". Then he bent down and wrote on the ground again. When they heard this they went away one by one beginning with the eldest until Jesus was left alone with the woman, who remained standing there. He looked up and said, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" No one, Sir, she replied. "Neither do I condemn you", said Jesus, go away and don't sin any more". Jesus did not condone the woman who probably was a prostitute. Neither did he condemn her. He did not mete out any punishment. He disapproved her behaviour and told her not to sin any more, thus telling her to change her ways. The accusers who did not stone her, at least had the honesty to accept that they were not sinless. Saudi Arabia is the only Islamist country where no other religion is allowed; yet the 'Islam' which derives from 'Slim' meaning peace. The Quran opens with the words, "In the name of God the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate". The majority of Muslims in the world today who are moderate are open to accommodation and reconciliation with those who are not of Islam. It is also relevant to question why the Muslims fleeing from terrorism do not flee to other Muslim countries but to the West. Islam has overall power in Saudi Arabia but the rigid interpreters of the law and the self-righteous there who are going to stone the Lankan woman seem to be saying that though they are not merciful or compassionate they are sinless, seeing sin in others but not in themselves. WHITENED SEPULCHRES Adultery, though it has been there in human history for ages past and though most of those who indulge in it are not caught nor punished, those who are caught face much humiliation. It is also frowned upon and judged by all civilized people as a reprehensible behavioral lapse. Similarly held reprehensible is the cutting off of hands and feet and the penalty of death, and lapidation meted out for certain offences. However there are other equally or more reprehensible behavioural lapses such as indecent behaviour between a father and his daughter-in-law, between a mature adult and a child. Defective upbringing and character formation at home, deficient schooling, lack of a culture of self-restraint and self-discipline will certainly create a conscienceless hypocritical society of pretense and outward compliance. Administering true justice may be a protracted and complex process; But the simplified short-cut of Saudi Arabia's justice dehumanizes those who carry it out. Sins of the flesh and disorderly sexual behaviour of the living do not get changed or disappear in society by stoning to death someone guilty of bad behaviour. Sins of the flesh are committed everywhere, also in Saudi Arabia. Only disciplined upbringing in the home and simultaneous character formation especially in school, the faith conviction and attraction of the purest motivation of religion would not only restrain anyone from doing wrong and committing sin including sexual sins but build human beings with self-esteem and self-respect. They have learnt and know how to respect the human dignity of people and even sacrifice their lives to save the lives of others. Those who terrorize and kill the innocent, commit many a crime, social evil, mega fraud and promote all mass murder are equally or far more culpable than those engaging in adultery. And the cunning cover up or the silence before such highly blameworthy behaviour and meanwhile condemning others make them despicable hypocrites and whitened sepulchers, clean externally but filthy and stinking within. REPEAL INHUMAN LAWS Stoning to death for adultery is an atrocious form of punishment disapproved by the civilized world. In an age when the demand for the abolition of the death penalty in any form is growing all over the world, for Saudi Arabia to continue to stone people to death stands out as highly inhuman, uncivilized, barbaric and brutal. Laws that sanction such punishment should be repealed and erased. There is still time for Saudi Arabia to be compassionate and merciful and be more true to the better traditions of Islam. The nations that uphold Saudi Arabia and other countries that maintain inhuman laws for one's political advantage are also guilty of immoral political stances. (source: Fr. Augustine Fernando, Diocese of Badulla----Sunday Island) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Nov 30 09:35:50 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2015 09:35:50 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., N.C., GA., FLA., COLO., ARIZ. Message-ID: Nov. 29 PENNSYLVANIA: When a Kid Kills His Longtime Abuser, Who's the Victim?----The perplexing double standards of death penalty politics. You could hardly open a Pennsylvania newspaper in 2012 without running into a story about the prosecution of sexual predators or their enablers. The case of Jerry Sandusky, the Penn State football coach convicted of abusing 10 boys, was all over the headlines. 2 Philadelphia grand juries, in 2003 and 2011, had documented a massive cover-up of sexual abuse by the Catholic Church that would end up with 2 priests and a Monsignor going to prison - the latter was the first senior church official in the United States convicted of endangering children by covering up abuses by priests under his supervision. "It is extremely difficult for sexual abuse victims to admit that the assault happened, and then to actually report the abuse." -- Philadelphia DA Seth Williams In July 2012, after yet another priest was arrested, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams lauded the alleged victim for speaking out after years of silence: "As we have learned," Williams said, "it is extremely difficult for sexual abuse victims to admit that the assault happened, and then to actually report the abuse to authorities can be even harder for them." The grand juries had made similar points. The most recent version of Pennsylvania's statutes of limitation, noted the 2003 grand jury report, required prosecutors to initiate sexual abuse cases by the child victim's 30th birthday, but "the experts have told us that this statute is still too short. We ourselves have seen that many victims do not come forward until deep into their thirties, forties and even later." The 2011 grand jury was even more forceful, noting that most victims don't come forward "for many years, or even decades." Seven of Sandusky's victims took a combined 73 years to report their ordeals. The Pennsylvania legislature responded by passing a law allowing the use of experts at trial to help juries understand how sexual violence affects its victims, and how they typically behave. But these sex-abuse scandals weren't the only legal dramas capturing the public's attention that year. In September 2012, a man named Terry Williams was in the final throes of an effort to survive a death sentence imposed on him for a crime he'd committed a few months after his 18th birthday. The Philadelphia DA's office was working overtime to ensure the commonwealth's 1st involuntary execution in half a century. But there was something about the DA's enthusiasm that seemed out of place: Terry Williams had been convicted, in separate trials, of murdering two much older men who had sexually abused him as a minor. A DA's spokesman characterizes Williams' murders as "hate crimes," adding, "It is well past time for some skepticism about his self-serving claims." In the 1st case, a jury convicted Williams of 3rd degree murder after it was made aware of the victim's sexual relationship with his killer. In the 2nd, the jurors never heard evidence of the victim's proclivity for sleeping with teenage boys. They convicted Williams of 1st degree murder and sentenced him to die. To read a summary of the crime provided by the DA's office, some readers might conclude that Williams was nothing but a violent psychopath who got what he deserved. Terrance Williams robbed and murdered 2 middle-aged gay men. He stabbed Herbert Hamilton more than 20 times and then beat him with a baseball bat. Months later, he lured Amos Norwood to a cemetery where Williams and a friend brutally bludgeoned him to death so they could steal his belongings and take a joy ride to Atlantic City in his car. Williams also committed other robberies, including one in which he broke into the home of an elderly woman on Christmas Eve with a rifle and threatened to blow her "f---ing head off." But this account leaves out some salient facts. Namely, that both men were having sex with Williams, and that Norwood had been doing so since Williams was just 13. The robberies the DA describes followed years of sexual victimization. As the Third Circuit Court of Appeals summarized in 2011: When Williams was very young, perhaps around the age of 6, he was sodomized by a neighbor boy five years his senior. In his early teens, he was repeatedly molested by a teacher. At 13, Williams met and began a relationship with Norwood. Norwood was cruel and physically abusive at times; he once allegedly beat Williams with a belt. When Williams was approximately fifteen, he was attacked by an older male while staying in a boys' home. The assailant held a weapon to Williams ' neck and forced him to perform fellatio. The DA's office has contested each of these facts, claiming that "not one of the purported incidents was contemporaneously reported to medical or law enforcement officials." Even today a spokesman for the DA characterizes the murders as "hate crimes," adding that "It is well past time for some skepticism about [Williams'] self-serving claims, and some sympathy for the trail of victims he has left in his wake." Yet this view ignores evidence that was present in the district attorney's own files even before Williams stood trial in 1986. "By any definition - legal, ethical, psychological - a sexual encounter between a 13-year-old child and a 51-year-old man is rape." When a condemned person seeks a new sentencing, the appeals court is often confronted with evidence that should have been presented at the original sentencing, but wasn't. The court's task is then to determine whether that evidence would have influenced the outcome. In the months leading up to Williams' execution date, 5 of the jurors who had condemned him wrote affidavits declaring that they indeed would have voted differently had they known of his sexual relationship with the victim. In addition, dozens of former prosecutors signed a letter to then-Gov. Tom Corbett, urging him to commute Williams' death sentence, and more than 350,000 people signed an online petition seeking clemency for Williams. After a deputy district attorney suggested in court that Williams' crimes were the result of "gay-prostitute rage," coalitions of sexual-assault survivors from 16 states signed a letter condemning the Philly DA for the "ill-informed stereotypes" his office was perpetuating. "By any definition - legal, ethical, psychological - a sexual encounter between a 13-year-old child and a 51-year-old man is rape," the letter stated. "To call this 'prostitution' and imply agency and willing participation on the part of a 13-year-old boy is unacceptable." But none of these things persuaded a court to vacate Williams' death sentence. A few weeks before the execution date, Shawn Nolan, one of Williams' federal defenders, appeared at a clemency hearing before the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons. Yes, Williams had lost all of his appeals, Nolan acknowledged, but "is that a reason to kill this battered, sexually abused, barely 18-year-old kid?" Just the previous week, he reminded the board, one of the prosecutors had been asked, "Why are you fighting so hard to execute this man? After 50 years of no executions like that, why this man?" Was the defense "seriously contending" that the DA's office was "pursuing this merely because they won the case?"asked Pennsyvania's attorney general. Pennsylvania's attorney general, one of the presiding board members, asked whether Nolan was "seriously contending" that the DA's office was "pursuing this merely because they won the case?" "Yes," Nolan replied. Minutes later, an assistant district attorney representing the DA's office told the board that it was "no secret that the reason we're here today, and the reasons these proceedings are unfamiliar, is that this is the only contested Pennsylvania death penalty case that has not been reversed by either state or federal court in many years." Indeed, hundreds of death sentences had been overturned for reasons ranging from the hiding of evidence to the illegal disqualification of black jurors to just plain incompetent lawyering. But this case had survived the scrutiny of the courts. As the day approached, the signatures on the clemency petition continued to pile up, as did the mail. Letters poured into the governor's office from retired judges and child advocates, law professors, mental health professionals, and clergy. Editorials against the execution appeared in newspapers across the state. Even the victim's widow wrote a letter stating that she had forgiven Williams and did not want to see his sentence carried out. Yet the prosecution pushed on, leaving the question raised at the clemency hearing still hanging. Was it possible that Philadelphia's District Attorney wanted to execute Terry Williams simply because he could? Most crime stories are best told chronologically. But the pivotal moment in Terry Williams legal saga came 28 years after the crime, just days before his scheduled execution. The setting: The courtroom of Judge Teresa Sarmina, a former prosecutor assigned to oversee last-minute appeals in the case. Sarmina (who by coincidence had presided over the landmark Catholic Church sex-abuse trial only months before) took what she deemed "extraordinary measures" to vet the fairness of Williams' death verdict. She ordered Andrea Foulkes - Williams' prosecutor, by then a lawyer with the US Attorney's Office in Philadelphia - to testify about her handling of Williams' 2 trials. Sarmina also ordered the police department's homicide files and the district attorney's trial files brought to her courtroom for examination. She wanted to be confident, she said, that the verdict "was what the word 'verdict' means: To speak the truth." An appeals judge wrote that the documents hinting at the deviant sexual appetites of Williams' victim had been "sanitized" by the prosecution. The search for the truth in a criminal case always begins with the prosecution. A homicide trial in particular takes shape in the DA's office long before a jury is selected - and sometimes before a suspect is even arrested. Investigations are launched, statements taken, reports completed, and by law, any information that might conceivably be helpful to the accused must be shared with the defense. This is a constitutional obligation, and yet the law books are replete with cases in which such exculpatory evidence is never passed along. Judge Sarmina wrote in the Williams case that the paperwork involving victim Amos Norwood had been "sanitized." This was a polite way of putting it. The prosecution had omitted portions of 2 witness statements before turning them over, thereby eliminating the evidence of Norwood's sexual proclivities. Although the most sordid details weren't known at the time, Norwood, 56, was known to have engaged in very suspicious behavior with young boys. Before it was redacted by the prosecutors, one police report had indicated that Norwood disappeared overnight with a teenage boy and, upon returning home the next day, told his wife he'd been kidnapped. The other censored document recounted that a mother from Norwood's church had complained of his sexual advances toward her underage son. The prosecutor conceded that she'd suspected a "sexual connection" between Williams and his victim. But she didn't share that suspicion with the defense. Prosecutor Foulkes' handwritten notes - which were also withheld from the defense and made reference to a now-defunct police unit nicknamed the "faggot squad" - indicated that she was aware of the victim's appetites. Foulkes later conceded to Sarmina that she suspected a "sexual connection" between Williams and Norwood: "Of course it occurred to me." But she didn't bother sharing this with the defense. To understand why, it's necessary to look at the first murder Williams committed, when he was 17. The victim was 51-year-old Herbert Hamilton, who had a history of paying for sex with teenage boys. Hamilton had been in such a relationship with Williams, who ultimately beat and stabbed him repeatedly before dousing his body with kerosene in a failed attempt to dispose of it - "I loved you" was scrawled in toothpaste on Hamilton's bathroom mirror. After hearing the evidence, the jury acquitted Williams of 1st-degree murder and instead found him guilty of third-degree murder, which carried a far lesser penalty. Foulkes had sought death in that case, too, but she professed to have been satisfied with the outcome: "I didn't care what the verdict was as long as the jury considered all the evidence," she later testified. Judge Sarmina didn't believe her: "The third degree verdict in the Hamilton case," she wrote, "colored Ms. Foulkes' decisions when she prosecuted [Williams] for the murder of Amos Norwood." Indeed, less than a year after the Hamilton trial, Foulkes told the Norwood jury that Williams had killed him "for no other reason but that a kind man offered him a ride home... "He has taken 2 lives, 2 innocent lives of persons who were older and perhaps unable certainly to defend themselves against the violence that he inflicted upon them. He thought of no one but himself, and he had no reason to commit these crimes." That jury, none the wiser, sentenced Williams to death. Sarmina ultimately stayed Williams' execution and granted him a new sentencing hearing, at which a jury would be able to hear the suppressed evidence. Far from being chastened, the Philadelphia DA's office dug in its heels. There were other courts to turn to. Higher courts. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania was no friend to capital defendants. In the 5 years before the Williams case came onto its docket, the court, led by Chief Justice Ronald Castille, had ruled in favor of the death penalty 90 % of the time. This wasn't too surprising, given that Castille had been elected to his judgeship in 1993 as the law-and-order alternative to a candidate he labeled soft on crime. (He became chief justice in 2008.) Before joining the court, he had been Philadelphia's district attorney. "Castille and his prosecutors sent 45 people to death row during their tenure, accounting for more than a quarter of the state's death row population," the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette noted in 1993. "Castille wears the statistic as a badge. And he is running for the high court as if it were exclusively the state's chief criminal court rather than a forum for a broad range of legal issues." Castille was pretty clear about where he stood: "You ask people to vote for you, they want to know where you stand on the death penalty," he told The Legal Intelligencer, a law journal. "I can certainly say I sent 45 people to death row as District Attorney of Philadelphia. They sort of get the hint." As Philly's DA, the chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court personally approved Williams' capital prosecution, yet he wouldn't recuse himself from hearing Williams' appeals. One of the 45 was Terry Williams. In fact, it was Castille who, in a handwritten note to the chief of his homicide unit, had approved Williams' capital prosecution in 1986. You could make a strong argument that a judge in his position should recuse himself from the appeals process, but Castille had a fraught relationship with the Federal Community Defender Office, a group of lawyers who represent numerous death row inmates, including Williams. Castille claimed that federal lawyers had no business appearing in state courts. He complained bitterly over the years about their "prolix and abusive pleadings" and about all the resources they dedicated to defending death-row inmates - "something one would expect in major litigation involving large law firms." The defenders, for their part, routinely filed motions arguing that Castille had no business ruling on the appeals of prisoners whose prosecutions he had approved - particularly not in a case in which his office was found to have suppressed evidence helpful to the defense. But as chief justice, Castille had the last word. He denied all such motions, and accused the federal defenders of writing "scurrilously," making "scandalous misrepresentations," and having a "perverse worldview." Thus it stood on October 1, 2012, when Williams' attorneys filed a motion asking Castille to recuse himself from their client's appeal. The chief justice denied it that very day, along with a second request???to let the full Pennsylvania Supreme Court rule on the appropriateness of his involvement. You might assume that a prosecutor who hides key evidence, especially in a death penalty case, would be subject to discipline - if not criminal charges. But courts are as loath to punish a prosecutor as they are to assist a murderer. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court's ruling in Commonwealth v. Terrance Williams, which was released in December 2014, contained not so much as a footnote scolding Foulkes for what Judge Sarmina politely termed "gamesmanship." Instead, the court excoriated the defendant for failing to make an issue of his sexual abuse at the hands of the older man. These were, in fact, the prosecution's own arguments, coming from the same DA's office that had recently acknowledged how excruciatingly difficult it was for sexual abuse victims to go public. Of Terry Williams, the court wrote: He could have argued Norwood's homosexual proclivities developed into sexual abuse, leading to rage and ultimate murder of Norwood... However, [Williams] chose not to do so. Instead, [he] perjured himself at trial, testifying he did not know the victim, had never seen him before, took no part in the murder, and had no reason to be angry with him or wish to harm him. Castille, who was on his way out due to a mandatory age retirement, voted with the majority but couldn't resist taking a final salvo at the federal defenders' "blatantly frivolous" litigation. In a concurring opinion, he warned the lower courts not to let themselves be turned into circuses with the defenders as "ringmasters." And he upbraided Sarmina for letting Williams' lawyers scour the government's files. The information they revealed, he wrote, had smeared Norwood's character. Did the prosecutors truly expect a kid facing a possible death sentence to discuss his sexual victimization with a lawyer he'd only met the day before trial? In any case, the high court reinstated Williams' death sentence and ordered the court record sent to the outgoing Gov. Corbett, who just before leaving office set the execution date for March 4, 2015. Following it through would fall to his successor, Gov. Tom Wolf. To understand why Williams might have denied knowing Norwood, it helps to go back to the first day of jury selection in his capital trial, when Williams announced to the court that he'd only met his lawyer the day before and he wanted a new one. The defense lawyer, assigned to Williams' case by the Philadelphia court system, acknowledged that this was true. Williams, he explained, was incarcerated at a prison far from the city, so he'd relied on his associate for "a lot of the detail work." When the judge asked which prison Williams was housed in, the lawyer had to turn to his client to ask. The judge nevertheless deemed the attorney "very adequate" and denied Williams' request for a replacement. Whether the attorney's preparation was truly adequate - a federal judge would later deem his performance "constitutionally deficient" - 1 thing was clear: There was no trust between the client and his lawyer. Did the prosecutors truly expect a teenager facing a possible death sentence to have a frank discussion about his sexual victimization with a court-appointed lawyer he'd just met? As the 1st Pennsylvania execution of the 21st century loomed, Gov. Wolf made an historic announcement: He was granting a reprieve to Terry Williams and any other inmate facing execution until a state task force completed a study of the death penalty and officials had a chance to act on its recommendations. In a 5-page memo, Wolf listed race discrimination, bad lawyering, high costs, and the threat of executing an innocent man among the reasons for his decision. The announcement was no great surprise, given that Wolf and all of his Democratic primary rivals supported a moratorium on executions - and that Wolf had handily defeated a pro-death penalty incumbent in the general election. Even the new chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had declared the system in "disrepair," and had written extensively on its failings. But death penalty supporters were furious. Seth Williams was among the first to lash out. The people who would be the "most grateful," the DA announced, "are the guiltiest, cruelest, most vicious killers on death row." As for Terry Williams, the DA was "weary of this murderer's effort to portray himself as a victim." He failed to mention, of course, the censored police reports, or the Board of Pardons' 3-2 vote in Williams' favor (a unanimous vote is required for clemency). The DA simply reiterated that the prisoner was guilty of heinous crimes. "The governor's action today was an injustice to the citizens of this state," he concluded. "And to victims of crime." Several weeks later, during a televised debate, Seth Williams further articulated his case: Terry Williams, he said, "brutally beat to death two gay men because he was extorting them." This was a bewildering claim from the head of an office that prosecuted hundreds of sexual abuse cases a year: You could spend decades digging through the Philadelphia court dockets and be hard pressed to find a case in which teenage boys hired to service middle-aged men were charged with extortion. But the DA didn't stop there. Explaining that he agreed the death penalty was appropriate only in the "worst of the worst of the worst" cases, he attempted to describe how the systemic problems the governor had described did not apply to Williams. "Every appellate court has said issues of racism, yes, they exist in the criminal justice system, but not in this case. Cases of people not being given the attorneys that are appropriate, that exists, but not in this case..." 14 of the 16 jurors disqualified by Williams' prosecutor were black - even though African Americans made up less than half of the jury pool. Each of these statements had at best a casual relationship to the truth. Take the race issue. About a month before jury selection commenced in the Norwood case, the US Supreme Court heard arguments in Batson v. Kentucky, a case that led to the ban on lawyers disqualifying people from the jury pool on account of their race. Indeed, 14 of the 16 jurors disqualified by Williams' prosecutor were black - even though African Americans made up less than half of the jury pool. A federal judge later found that these numbers suggested discrimination, but he accepted prosecutor Foulkes' "race-neutral" reasons for eliminating the jurors and concluded that there had been no constitutional violation. (This was five years before Judge Sarmina determined that the prosecution withheld key evidence.) The district attorney's claim that Terry Williams received appropriate counsel was even more incredible. Had he forgotten that Williams' court-appointed attorney hadn't even bothered to meet with his client until the day before the trial? Or the court finding that the lawyer's performance was "constitutionally deficient"? (He would later have his law license suspended for his role in a wire-fraud scheme, according to court documents; the associate who did the "detail work" was disbarred for other reasons.) Was this really the quality of lawyering appropriate for a man whose life was at stake? Seth Williams was hardly the only elected official grandstanding over the reprieve. State Rep. Mike Vereb introduced a House resolution asking the governor to reverse his action, and he accused Wolf of "standing with some of the worst criminals in Pennsylvania and against their victims." Mamie Norwood, the victim's spouse, responded with an open letter to Vereb and DA Williams: I read your resolution which says that Governor Wolf has caused me and my family unnecessary heartache by stopping Terry Williams' execution and I am shocked and upset that you and other politicians are using me and saying things that are not true. You are the ones now causing me unnecessary heartache...I am asking that you please stop trying to execute Terry Williams. And please don't use me for your own political gain or to get your name in the news. You should be truly ashamed of yourselves. 12 days later, Amos Norwood's daughter provided a statement supporting an end to the death penalty, but calling for the execution of the man who murdered her father. Terry Williams had become a political football. Before the ink was dry on the reprieve, DA Williams moved to challenge it in court. In September, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court heard arguments on whether the governor had acted legally under the state constitution. Pennsylvania governors had been granting reprieves for hundreds of years and no court had ever struck one down. What was in dispute, from the DA's perspective, was Wolf's power to impose a moratorium, and his rationale for doing so - namely that the system of capital punishment was "riddled with flaws, making it error-prone, expensive, and anything but infallible." The high court wasn't keen on analyzing the governor's conclusions. "You're asking us to overturn [his] political pronouncement," one of the justices told the chief of the DA's appeals unit. "He could easily have [granted the reprieve] without announcing it as some kind of policy." The argument barely mentioned Terry Williams, and when the new chief justice urged Williams' lawyer to "focus on the interest of your client," the response was painfully obvious: "Mr. Williams has a strong interest. Indeed, his life depends on the court respecting the governor's constitutional reprieve power." "Mr. Williams has a strong interest. Indeed, his life depends on the court respecting the governor's constitutional reprieve power." As the Pennsylvania Supreme Court pondered Wolf's ability to grant a reprieve - a decision is expected by year's end - the US Supreme Court announced last month that it would consider the propriety of former Chief Justice Castille's participation in the case. The high court will have to decide whether a prosecutor who personally authorized a defendant's capital prosecution and then ran for an appeals court as a death-penalty supporter should get to vote on that same defendant's appeal. Throw in the suppression of evidence under his watch, and it's hard to imagine a more compelling case for a judge to recuse himself. The justices will render their ruling by next summer. (If they rule that Castille should have stepped aside, the justices will then have to address whether his participation may have changed the outcome, as his was not the deciding vote.) In the meantime, the Philly DA continues to attack the governor's "flagrantly unconstitutional" reprieve. Andrea Foulkes - "an outstanding prosecutor with an impeccable record for integrity, professionalism, and dedication to public service," according to her supervisors - continues to work as an assistant US Attorney. Terry Williams, his execution on hold for the moment, remains in his cell on death row, awaiting the decisions of 2 courts and maybe an honest answer to the question first raised at the clemency hearing: Why him? (source: motherjones.com) NORTH CAROLINA: LGBT defendants face bias in death penalty cases, but you wouldn't know it from the data available The capital punishment trial of Calvin Burdine in Texas is famous.Burdine's lawyer fell asleep multiple times during the October 2000 murder trial, prompting a retrial. But the fact that the lawyer made derogatory comments about his client, a gay man, did not garner as much attention. And the prosecutor's statement that "sending a homosexual to the penitentiary certainly isn't a very bad punishment for a homosexual" was not the cause for the retrial. While there is an abundance of data on racial, gender and geographic bias influencing death penalty convictions, data are not collected on bias against LGBT defendants - but case studies across the nation show that discrimination exists. Robert Dunham, executive director of the death penalty information center, said the kind of argument used against Calvin Burdine is not uncommon in death penalty cases involving LGBT defendants. "To convince the jury or judge that they should take the life of a defendant, they attempt to demonize the defendant," Dunham said. "They do it to make the defendant 'other' than human." Dunham said prosecutors often label LGBT defendants as sexually or morally deviant or bring up their sexual orientation when it is not relevant to the case. Ruthann Robson, a law professor at the City University of New York and expert on sexuality issues and the law, said female defendants sometimes face implications of lesbianism regardless of how they identify. "One way to dehumanize women, or at least defeminize them, is through their sexual orientation," Robinson said. "...Lesbians are portrayed as hating men." Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall said an argument attempting to dehumanize a defendant would be considered improper in North Carolina. "That's the kind of argument that would get a case overturned," he said. A jury of peers? In addition to discrimination in prosecutor's arguments, jury selection in capital punishment cases can also work against LGBT defendants, Dunham said. "The death qualifying process tends to impanel who are more xenophobic," said Dunham, citing a 2007 study from the University of South Florida. "That includes jurors who harbor feelings of discrimination against the LGBT community." Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt, who is also a death penalty defense lawyer, stressed that not everyone who supports the death penalty is racist or homophobic. "What is certainly true is that anyone who makes it to a death penalty jury believes in the death penalty," Kleinschmidt said. "As the number of people who believe in the death penalty gets smaller and smaller over time, they become the only people who are eligible to serve on these trials." According to an October 2015 Gallup poll, 61 % of Americans favored the death penalty for those convicted of murder - a percentage that has been slowly falling since support for the death penalty peaked in 1994 with 80 % of Americans in favor. "You start narrowing the pool, and I think it becomes more likely that you are identifying people who may hold other kinds of abhorrent beliefs," Kleinschmidt said. It is unlawful for lawyers to ask jurors about their sexual orientation, which some argue might make it more difficult to find a jury of peers for LGBT defendants. Kleinschmidt said a possible line of questioning would be to ask jurors if they know a gay person and about their relationship to that person. He said he also asks jurors in what kinds of cases the death penalty should be imposed. "Often times you can hear in those explanations hints about other kinds of bias," Kleinschmidt said. "...I always ask them why they think the way they do." In North Carolina, district attorneys can call for the death penalty if one or more aggravating factors are present in the case, according to Woodall. Aggravating factors include if the murder was especially cruel, if the murder was committed for financial gain and if the murder was committed during the commission of another felony, such as robbery or drug dealing. There are 11 aggravating factors recognized by the state. "Once you find an aggravating circumstance, jurors have virtually unlimited discretion as to whether to spare a defendant's life or sentence him or her to die," Dunham said. In many places, views of homosexuality and LGBT rights have progressed in the last decade. According to a 2014 Pew Research survey, 62 % of Americans said homosexuality should be accepted by society, compared to 46 % in 1994. And Robinson argues that even if society has progressed, these biases were certainly true at the time of many LGBT inmates' convictions. "And they're still in prison." Data on discrimination Dunham and other death penalty experts emphasize that there is no thorough data on discrimination against LGBT individuals facing the death penalty. The sexual orientations of defendants and victims are not tracked. Robinson's research is all based on individual case studies. UNC professor Frank Baumgartner, a death penalty expert, said in an email that there are data on the race, gender, age and other factors about those who are executed. Baumgartner's research has shown that the race and gender of the defendant and victim both play a part in death penalty sentences. For example, between 1976 and 2008 in North Carolina, 42 % of all homicide victims were black males. But black males accounted for only 4 % of the victims of those executed, while 43 % of the victims of those executed were white females. It is also rare to find women on death row. Baumgartner said in an email that nationwide, females account for about 10 % of homicide offenders, yet just 1 % of those executed. "They tend to be executed for crimes against family members, whereas men are more often executed for crimes against strangers," Baumgartner said in an email. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, there have been 43 executions in North Carolina since 1976. The last execution was carried out in 2006. Currently, there are 157 inmates on death row in North Carolina, including 4 women. Kleinschmidt said extreme circumstances such as a murder trial can bring out implicit biases, such as racism, sexism and homophobia. "We're not any closer to ridding the criminal justice system of anti-gay bias than we are ridding the criminal justice system of racial bias," he said. (source: dailytarheel.com) GEORGIA----impending execution Execution date for Terrell set for next week After putting the planned execution of Brian Keith Terrell, 47, on hold earlier this year, the Georgia Department of Corrections announced in a press release that the Newton County Superior Court has now set the date for the execution to proceed. The court ordered the Georgia Department of Corrections to carry out the execution on a date between Dec. 8-15, 2015. Commissioner Homer Bryson has set the date for 7 p.m. next Tuesday, Dec. 8 at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. Screen Shot 2015-11-29 at 10.36.27 AMTerrell was convicted in Walton County Superior Court in 2001 for the 1992 robbery and murder of John Henry Watson, of Covington. His execution was put on hold in March this year while an analysis was conducted on the drugs planned for use in the scheduled execution of Kelly Renee Gissendaner. Her execution was called off in the hours leading up to the scheduled execution due to concerns over the drugs to be used. Gissendaner was eventually executed on Sept. 30. (source: monroelocal.org) FLORIDA: Death penalty to be discussed at diocesan prayer service In an effort to call attention for the abolition of the death penalty, the Catholic Diocese of St. Augustine will be taking part in an international prayer service tonight. The prayer service, which begins at 6 p.m. at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine, is part of an international project that began in Italy, according to a release from the Diocese of St. Augustine. 6 Florida dioceses, including St. Augustine, are part of the project, called Cities for Life - Cities Against the Death Penalty, the release said. Almost 2,000 cities in the world have declared themselves a "City for Life," and will show their commitment to abolish the death penalty by lighting up their cathedrals and other landmarks, including the coliseum in Rome, the release said. In St. Augustine, Rev. Tom Willis will be presiding over the prayer service and Deacon Jason Roy will give the homily. Roy is the Florida Catholic Chaplain for inmates on death row. Bishop Felipe J. Estevez is calling on all Catholics to stop what they are doing Monday at 6 p.m. to "pray for life, pray for mercy and seek reconciliation," the release said. (source: St. Augustine Record) COLORADO: Accused gunman in Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood attack could face death penalty, legal experts say Flowers have been laid, candles lit and prayers offered. But on Monday, attention is likely to shift back to Robert Lewis Dear Jr. in what could be Colorado's next death penalty case. As questions mounted Sunday ahead of the first court appearance for the man accused of opening fire at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood, some legal experts say one thing is clear: Prosecutors may seek the death penalty. "When I saw events unfold, that was my thought: I thought this possibly could be a capital crime," said Colorado Springs attorney Jennifer Stock, a veteran defender of 1st-degree murder cases. She, like many others across the country, followed the mayhem in media reports. The early legal questions came as the toll of the state's latest mass shooting became clear, signs of strain emerged among local law enforcement agencies, local agencies consoled grief-stricken witnesses and the investigation stretched into a 3rd day at the shooting site. An Iraq War veteran and a stay-at-home mother of 2 were named among the dead in Friday's attack - an act that Gov. John Hickenlooper called a "form of terrorism" in a nationally televised interview. Ke'Arre Stewart, 29, who previously served in the Army and was raising 2 children, died in the shooting spree, as did Jennifer Markovsky, 35, who moved to Colorado Springs from Hawaii and had 2 children. "I know everyone is struggling with it. It's just hard to believe," said Julia Miller, Markovsky's sister-in-law. Sunday morning, parishioners held their first church service at Hope Chapel without Garrett Swasey, a University of Colorado at Colorado Springs police officer slain in the shootings. He was a church elder. 9 people - most of them law enforcement officers - were wounded by the gunfire. The bloodshed spawned a string of services and 2 vigils in a city left reeling from its 2nd mass shooting in a month. On Halloween morning, investigators say a man armed with an AR-15 and 2 handguns killed a bicyclist and 2 women at a substance abuse recovery home before dying in a shootout with Colorado Springs police. After the latest attack, a handful of people sought grief counseling at an American Red Cross center that opened Sunday for people struggling to deal with the trauma. Most of them witnessed Friday's mayhem firsthand at the clinic or the busy shopping center nearby, where dozens sought shelter while the 5-hour standoff in the clinic unfolded. Police investigators took statements from some of them. Other detectives continued their investigation at the bullet-riddled clinic. Investigators expected to finish examining the facility this week after combing for evidence and cataloging the bullets fired. A Planned Parenthood official said the facility will reopen, but could not say when. The sheer number of officers who fired rounds Friday rendered El Paso County's SWAT unit short-handed. At least a dozen sheriff's deputies and an unknown number of Colorado Springs police were placed on paid administrative leave. Doing so is routine after officer-involved shootings, but it left dispatchers scrambling Sunday morning when a man shot his father in the head before barricading himself inside a Gleneagle home in northern El Paso County. Douglas County Regional SWAT members responded instead. While officers pieced together how Friday's Planned Parenthood shooting unfolded, clues have emerged about what led to the rampage. After surrendering to officers, Dear reportedly uttered "no more baby parts" - a reference to videos released by anti-abortion activists over the summer targeting Planned Parenthood's practice of using fetal tissue for research. Several questions emerged Sunday: Who will prosecute the case, who will defend Dear and will the death penalty be sought? Dear, 57, of Hartsel, is scheduled to appear for his advisement Monday, his 1st appearance before a judge. He has been held in the El Paso County jail without bond since the attack. El Paso County Sheriff Bill Elder said Sunday that he wouldn't release Dear's booking information, including the names of his attorneys. "We're not going to release it," Elder said. "We are holding that information until a judge tells us that we need to release that." The hearing, expected to be held via a video feed from the jail, could signal that prosecutors want to keep the case in El Paso County. Still, prosecutors have consulted with the U.S. Attorney's Office over whether Dear would be tried locally or in federal court, 4th Judicial District Attorney Dan May confirmed Sunday. He sidestepped further questions about charging considerations and whether local prosecutors would seek the death penalty. "I'm not going to comment on that," he said. A source with knowledge of defense preparations confirmed that representatives of the state Public Defender's Office met with Dear at the El Paso County jail. They obtained a signed application for legal assistance, and intend to introduce the document in court Monday. The source wouldn't specify which attorneys had been assigned, or whether steps were being taken to gird for the possibility of the death penalty. Local attorneys say the Planned Parenthood shooting is a likely candidate for a death penalty case. Accusations in the Dear case meet at least three "aggravators," or legal prerequisites to pursue capital punishment, said Joshua Tolini, a Colorado Springs defense attorney who previously served as a deputy public defender. The assailant allegedly targeted multiple victims, laid in wait before launching an ambush and killed a police officer - factors that are likely to weigh on the minds of Dear's attorneys. "Any time there's a homicide with statutory aggravators, that's something for them to consider, and they'll staff it accordingly," Tolini said. The death penalty was most recently sought against James Holmes in the Aurora theater shooting and Dexter Lewis in a Denver bar mass stabbing. Juries instead opted for life sentences in both cases. Dear's attorneys also are nearly certain to file a change of venue request on the argument that he would be unable to receive a fair trial in El Paso County, Stock, the veteran defense attorney, said. Either way, it could be a while before prosecutors' intentions for the death penalty are clear. In Colorado, prosecutors must provide written notice whether they intend to pursue the death penalty within 60 days of the defendant entering a plea. (source: gazette.com) ARIZONA: The Execution of Joseph Wood----An execution of a man in Arizona with a new cocktail of drugs was supposed to take about 10 minutes. It took almost 2 hours, the longest execution in U.S. history The following is a script from "The Execution of Joseph Wood" which aired on Nov. 29, 2015. Bill Whitaker is the correspondent. Ira Rosen and Habiba Nosheen, producers. In July of last year, Joseph Wood was strapped to a gurney in Arizona's death chamber. His execution, by lethal injection with a new cocktail of drugs was supposed to take about 10 minutes. It took almost two hours -- the longest execution in U.S. history. When lethal injections were introduced in 1977, they were supposed to be a more humane form of capital punishment. Instead the process has become a messy testing ground for unproven, toxic drugs. At the heart of the problem: pharmaceutical companies have banned the use of their drugs for capital punishment -- partly under pressure from death-penalty opponents. Without access to the lethal agents they've used for decades, the states are turning to new, untried drugs. And that's creating an execution crisis in America, making it harder and harder to ensure that when a state decides to end a life, things don't go horribly awry, as they did in the execution of Joseph Wood. Arizona is 1 of 31 states to employ capital punishment. Cameras aren't allowed here, but this Department of Corrections video takes us inside death row, where more than 100 inmates are awaiting execution by lethal injection. On July 23, 2014, it was Joseph Wood's turn. Wood had been convicted of murdering his former girlfriend and her father. At 1:52 p.m., Arizona executioners began pumping an experimental combination of drugs into Wood's veins. They had never before used these drugs for execution, but they expected Wood to die within minutes. Among the witnesses that day were Deacon Ed Schaeffer, Wood's attorney Dale Baich, and reporter Michael Kiefer. Michael Kiefer: It seemed to go as normal. They put in the catheters. They announced that they would-- were administering the drug. And he closed his eyes and went to sleep. Dale Baich: And about 11 minutes in, I noticed his lip quiver. And a minute later, he gasped. A few seconds later, he did it again and then again and again and again. Ed Schaeffer: It was loud. It wasn't just, you know, some nice, peaceful sleeping sound. Bill Whitaker: Were you thinking at this point, "Something's gone wrong"? Michael Kiefer: Everybody was thinking something went wrong. You could see the looks on the faces of the people from the Department of Corrections, who were standing along the side. You know, they were looking at each other nervously. Bill Whitaker: You tried to have the execution stopped? Dale Baich: While Joe Wood was on the table gasping and gulping, we were arguing to a federal judge that he should stop the execution. Bill Whitaker: On what grounds? Dale Baich: That it wasn't working. / Ed Schaeffer: I actually said about 4 rosaries, 4 complete rosaries, and there's 5 decades to each rosary. And each one can take anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes. Bill Whitaker: And that told you that this was going on for a very long time? Ed Schaeffer: Hour and 58 minutes. Michael Kiefer: That's a long time to be sitting there, watching somebody die. Before the federal judge could rule, Joseph Wood was dead. It was supposed to take just one dose of the drugs to kill him. Prison logs show before it was over executioners had injected Wood 15 times with the new cocktail of drugs. Dale Baich: Someone made the decision to inject 14 additional doses of that drug into Mr. Wood. That's not something that has ever been done before. So, they were making it up as they went along. In several rulings, the Supreme Court has reaffirmed the Eighth Amendment: punishment must not be cruel and unusual. Joseph Wood's lingering death set off alarms across the country and prompted an independent investigation in Arizona. Bill Whitaker: Was Joseph Wood's execution botched? Mark Brnovich: Well, Bill, I think "botched" is a very inflammatory word. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich told us he sees nothing wrong in the way Wood's execution was carried out. Bill Whitaker: It took almost 2 hours. That's the longest execution in U.S. history? Mark Brnovich: At the end of the day, though, the independent report, the medical examiner, all concluded that Mr. Wood was sedated the entire time, was unresponsive to stimuli, and he was feeling no pain whatsoever. Bill Whitaker: But, how do you know that? Mark Brnovich: Well, obviously-- Bill Whitaker: Were-- Mark Brnovich: At the end of the day-- Bill Whitaker: --there sensors? Was anybody taking brain s-- you know, how do you know he wasn't feeling-- Mark Brnovich: Well-- Bill Whitaker: --pain? Mark Brnovich: Ultimately, you can't know, because the person's dead. Bill Whitaker: So if two hours isn't too long, what is? Three hours? Would that cause alarm? 4 hours? Mark Brnovich: I think 2 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours, when someone's on the death gurney and they're unconscious, I don't think they're worried about the time. In this instance it happened to take longer but that does not mean that it was botched. Bill Whitaker: What should you call it? Mark Brnovich: I would call it that you had somebody who is a heinous killer that murdered people in cold blood and eventually received justice. There's no dispute of Joseph Wood's guilt. In August of 1989, Wood, a 31-year-old vet, addicted to methamphetamines, walked into this auto body shop in Tucson, Arizona, shot and killed his former girlfriend, Debra Dietz, and her father, Eugene Dietz, in cold blood, in broad daylight. Richard and Jeannie Brown remember that day well. Bill Whitaker: You actually saw Joe Wood kill your-- Richard Brown: Sister-in-law. She's saying "No, Joe, don't do it, don't do it" and he shot her anyways. It was one of the worst days of my life. In 40 seconds, Eugene Dietz and Debra Dietz were dead. Jeannie Brown: And my mom looked at me and she walked up and gave me a hug and she said, "Your dad and your sister were just killed." Bill Whitaker: You witnessed his execution? Richard Brown: Yes. Bill Whitaker: What was that day like for you? Richard Brown: That day was one of the best days of my life, because he finally got it. Jeannie Brown: Everybody can say he went inhumanely, it was a horrible death, I wonder if we were all sitting in the same room and if we all saw the same thing, because he went peacefully. And my-- I'm sure my dad and my sister did not go peacefully. Bill Whitaker: This is a murderer. He committed a heinous crime. Why worry about his last 2 hours on earth? Dale Baich: We're not medical doctors. We don't know whether Joe Wood experienced pain. But what we do know is that under the Constitution there cannot be cruel and unusual punishment. And there cannot be a lingering death. I witnessed other executions by lethal injection and I had never seen anything like that. Lethal injections were supposed to be a civilized step up from the brutality of electrocutions and the spectacle of public hangings. Former President Ronald Reagan described execution by lethal injection as just like falling asleep. Alex Kozinski: I just think that the whole idea of using drugs is foolish. Alex Kozinski is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit which covers the West -- including Arizona, where Joseph Wood was executed. Kozinski was appointed to the bench by President Reagan and is one of the most prominent conservative judges in the country. He is in favor of the death penalty but is opposed to lethal injection. Alex Kozinski: The state of Arizona and other states want to make this look like it's benign, want to make it look like "Oh, it's just a medical procedure." They ought to just face the idea that this is cruel and this is violent. And they ought to use some method that reflects that. Bill Whitaker: Well, we used to do all kinds of things to kill people. We used to have the electric chair. We used to have the gas chamber. We used to hang people, even publicly. Alex Kozinski: Many people were executed by electric chair but then it was switched away from that because it was thought to be something that caused pain. Bill Whitaker: So, that's why most states moved to lethal injection. Alex Kozinski: And as a result, those people who strongly opposed the death penalty moved to stop the flow of drugs that are available for execution. So now states have to scramble for ever-more-exotic drugs to try to carry out the death penalty. Pharmaceutical companies also grew alarmed that drugs developed to heal were being used to kill and they refused to sell them for use in executions. The U.S. government now prohibits the import of the drugs. We found 15 states have begun to improvise their own lethal concoctions. The result: a number of bungled executions. Last year, in Ohio, convicted murderer Dennis McGuire gasped and convulsed on the gurney for 25 minutes before dying. In Oklahoma, Clayton Lockett, convicted of rape and murder, was administered an untested combination of drugs. He struggled violently, groaned and writhed. A witness later said it was like watching a person being tortured to death. Prison officials moved to stop the execution, but Lockett would die of a heart attack 43 minutes after the drugs first entered his veins. Lockett's execution prompted President Barack Obama to call for a wide-ranging federal review of executions. President Barack Obama: What happened in Oklahoma is deeply troubling. In the application of the death penalty in this country we have seen significant problems. Most states have laws making lethal injection the only option for executions. With the drugs now unavailable, we have found six states have skirted federal law and turned to black-market dealers to get their hands on them. Five years ago, when Arizona needed drugs to execute an inmate named Jeffrey Landrigan, it purchased them illegally from a supplier operating out of this driving school in London. On customs forms obtained by 60 Minutes, the state claimed the imported drugs were for animal use. We asked the current attorney general, Mark Brnovich, if those drugs were used for the Landrigan execution. Bill Whitaker: The importing of the drug that you were trying to use for his execution was illegal. It's against U.S. law for that drug to be imported. Mark Brnovich: It's my understanding that there was a paperwork issue. The proper forms weren't filled out. Bill Whitaker: Was it used in the execution of Mr. Landrigan? Mark Brnovich: Yes. Bill Whitaker: This office, the state of Arizona, knew or should have known that it was illegal to import these drugs. Mark Brnovich: Bill, I was not the attorney general when that happened-- Bill Whitaker: Yeah, but this-- Mark Brnovich: And I don't want to use that as an excuse. 'Cause I think there's-- ? Bill Whitaker: But if this office-- Mark Brnovich: --a broader-- Bill Whitaker: --is-- this-- this is the top legal office. Mark Brnovich: Right. And all I can assure you is that as long as I'm attorney general, we will follow all state and federal regulations and all state and federal laws when it comes to obtaining and using the drugs in the executions here in Arizona. After our interview, newly-released documents revealed the Arizona Department of Corrections once again purchased banned execution drugs abroad. Federal authorities seized the illegal imports. Arizona now is trying to get them back. Mark Brnovich: We execute individuals not because we want to or we get some sort a bloodlust out if it. We do it because we feel like we have to. And we will do everything we can to make sure that they're killed in the most efficient manner possible. The death penalty in Arizona has been blocked by a lawsuit since the problems with Joseph Wood's execution. The state is fighting in court to resume capital punishment by lethal injection. Alex Kozinski: I would eliminate the entire controversy. I would use a bullet or a series of bullets. They're fast. They're effective. Nobody ever survives. "The death penalty is barbaric. And I think we as a society need to come face-to-face with that. If we're not willing to face up to the cruelty, we ought not to be doing it." Bill Whitaker: Go back to the firing squad? Alex Kozinski: Make it look like an execution. Mutilate the body. And this would express the sense of that's what you're doing, that we're actually committing violence on another human being. Bill Whitaker: I read that you have even thought the guillotine might be a good way to execute. Alex Kozinski: Oh, yes. Bill Whitaker: Really? Alex Kozinski: The guillotine works. Never fails. It's quick. It's effective. Bill Whitaker: You do know what that sounds like, hearing a judge sort of be an advocate for the guillotine? Alex Kozinski: Tell me. Bill Whitaker: Barbaric. Alex Kozinski: The death penalty is barbaric. And I think we as a society need to come face-to-face with that. If we're not willing to face up to the cruelty, we ought not to be doing it. (source: CBS news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Nov 30 09:36:44 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2015 09:36:44 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 29 SUDAN: Minnawi in Geneva! Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM -MM) leader, Mini Minnawi denounced the death penalty to 18 of its members and warned Khartoum against carrying it out. The defendants were arrested following the capture of Baashim area, north-west of Mellit in North Darfur last March by the Sudanese army and militiamen of the Rapid Security Forces (RSF). The defendants faced charges of undermining the constitutional system, stir up war against the state, using heavy weapons, looting and destroying the citizens' properties and threatening local peace security. Minnawi said that the verdicts do not respect the rules of justice and international law for the protection of prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. He called on all political forces, civil society and humanitarian organizations, local, regional and international to launch a campaign to save their lives. He described this as a political trial intended to humiliate the Sudanese people and avenge for the defeats received by the regime at the hands of our forces. It is natural for Minnawi to say what he stated; but he must know that the charges against the defendents were by civilians who were attacked and looted by SLM-MM armed groups. The SLM-MM outlaws invaded the areas with their FWD vehicles and looted properties, burnt the houses of the inhabitants and transformed them into IDPs in an overnight. If Geneva Convention protects such criminal action of his outlaws, then we say it is possible to convict the victims and bring them to book. The case of the SLM-MM members were raised by the affected citizens and not the government and the court got the documents and evidences from the citizens besides hearing the testimonies from all parties in the case before issuing its decision. Minnawi and his likes must know that the death penalty was issued in accordance to citizens' complaints and not the government so the ruling was in favour of private right and not public case. This means that even the President of the Republic cannot pardon them unless the citizens agree to take blood money or any other alternatives. (source: Editorial, Sudan Vision) INDONESIA: 'Moratorium' on RI executions If the reports on the general moratorium on Indonesian executions are officially and formally validated, that decision is certainly welcome not only for Mary Jane Veloso but for all concerned. The purported rationale for the nonpriority of executions as pronounced by Indonesian authorities (i.e., to focus on the economy) may be amorphous and not self-evident, but the objective net effect is that lives are saved and will be saved. We hope in time it leads to a permanent abolition as we have serious reservations about the death penalty's real value in effectively deterring crime. Furthermore, it precludes rehabilitation and reformation while not giving weight to humanitarian considerations. Worse, it may victimize innocent individuals who are wrongly convicted for different reasons or factors and bring them irretrievably to the afterlife.We pray Veloso's own temporary reprieve will be made permanent or that she be granted clemency and brought home soon to the waiting arms of her little boys this coming holiday season. Independent of but complementary to all these, we will pursue in earnest the illegal recruitment, human trafficking and other charges against those who duped her and victimized similar poor and vulnerable young barrio women despite insensitive stunts by the accused to delay the legal proceedings on top of the already trademark sluggish legal pace of cases in the Philippines. Edre U. Olalia Secretary General, Josalee Deinla, Assistant Secretary General for Education, National Union of Peoples' Lawyers - Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN/Manila (source: Letter to the Editor, Jakarta Post) MALAYSIA: Unemployed youth charged with murder of former lover A 20-year-old unemployed youth may face the death penalty in the alleged killing of his former lover in Cheras Utama some 10 days ago. Lin Kok Heng was charged with causing the death of Chan Li Mei, 19, on Nov 19 between 8pm and 9pm in Cheras Ria apartment, Cheras Utama. He was charged under section 302 of the Penal Code that provides for the death penalty if convicted. Lin spotted with a tattoo of a cross on his right arm this afternoon, had the charge read to him by a court interpreter in Mandarin. Magistrate Siti Radziah Kamardin then fixed Feb 2 for re-mention pending post-mortem and chemist's reports. On Nov 21, it was widely reported by the media that the 19-year-old Chan who was found dead in the apartment, had endured physical abuse for some time. The victim who was found sprawled on the apartment floor, had swelling on the face and body, as well as wounds on her legs, believed to have been caused by hot iron. The police also revealed that Lin who was then remanded to assist in the investigations had a previous drug-related case record. (source: therakyatpost.com) SINGAPORE: Singapore hotel cleaner, 57, escapes hanging after drug trafficking charge reduced A 57-year-old woman escaped the gallows after the High Court here reduced her drug distribution charge to possession due to reasonable doubts raised on the facts of the case. The accused, Long Say Lein, who worked as a cleaner at a renowned hotel in Singapore, was allegedly caught in possession of some 2,259.7g of methamphetamine at the Central Bus Terminal along Jalan Trus here at around 6.30pm on Jan 5 last year. She was charged Section 12(2) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 for possessing the illegal substance, which is punishable under Section 39(A) of the same act. Judge Datuk Mohd Sofian Abd Razak later sentenced Long to 10 years' jail for the offence. DPP Nor Iffa Zarilla Abd Rahman prosecuted the case while lawyer Norman Fernandez represented the accused. (source: asiaone.com) **************** Swinging between life and death It must be terribly difficult for anyone to teeter between life and death. For Sarawakian Jabing Kho, now sitting in a jail cell, it's been a hellish ride since February 2008. He had initially faced the mandatory death penalty for killing Chinese national Cao Ruyin, 40, a construction worker, during a robbery earlier that month. Then it looked like there would be reprieve for him when the Penal Code was revised in 2012. The death penalty will only be mandatory if the accused was convicted of murder and found to have intended to cause death. In other cases of murder where the courts did not find an intention to cause death, judges had the discretion to sentence the accused to death or to life imprisonment with caning. At that time, 35 offenders, including Jabing, were on death row. Those on death row were given the option of being re-sentenced under the new regime and if they so opted, had their executions stayed. So Jabing's case went again before the High Court in 2014 and he was re-sentenced to life imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane. It seems that he had escaped the hangman's noose. But the prosecution appealed the next year, on the grounds that the attack was extremely vicious. Jabing had beaten Mr Cao with a piece of wood, resulting in multiple fractures on his skull which had the same severity as those suffered by victims in high-impact traffic collisions. A five-judge court heard the arguments and it was the death penalty again for Jabing. The Court of Appeals laid down the legal principle for judges to apply when the death penalty was warranted. The principle was whether the action "outraged the feelings of the community". That is, whether the manner with which the act was committed sufficiently exhibited viciousness or a blatant disregard for human life. In an uncharacteristic fashion for a Singaporean Court, the Court was split 3-2 on the decision. It was back to death row for Jabing. Jabing appealed to the President for clemency last month but his appeal was rejected. Then in a new twist, his lawyer went to court to contest the legal principle applied. His lawyer, Mr Chandra Mohan K. Nair, argued that every murder outraged the feelings of the community and that the court was therefore unable to distinguish murders that warranted the death penalty from those that did. So the court is now deliberating their decision and will give it at a later date. Checks showed that of the 35 on death row, at least 8 had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. Some such as Wang Wenfeng who was convicted of murdering a taxi driver in 2011 and Kamrul Hasan Abdul Quddus who was convicted of murdering his Indonesian girlfriend in 2010, were originally on death row for murder charges and re-sentenced to life imprisonment. The 35 included 28 drug traffickers. They too went up to court for re-sentencing and most were able to escape the gallows because they had assisted the Central Narcotics Bureau substantially in, for example, giving information on syndicates or the kingpin. Malaysians Cheong Chun Yin and Yong Vui Kong had death sentences committed to life imprisonment. But others, such as Muhammad Ridzuan Md Al were not so lucky. He was sentenced to hang while his friend, Abdul Haleem Abdul Karim, had received a certificate from the prosecution stating that the accused had substantively assisted in disrupting drug trafficking activities, and hence spared the death sentence. There were notable exceptions however. Drug dealers Tang Hai Liang and Foong Chee Peng chose not to apply for resentencing after being convicted in separate cases for trafficking diamorphine in 2010 and 2011 respectively. That is, they preferred to be executed. So those previously convicted of murder were generally able to escape the gallows, so long as the courts were satisfied that the murder was not intentional. That is, the mandatory death penalty does not kick in. What makes Jabing Kho's case special is that even though he did not intend to kill, the courts were willing to sentence him to death. The question then arises, what principle should courts use when invoking the discretionary death penalty? Jabing will have to wait to find out if the noose will be tightened or taken off altogether. (source: themiddleground.sg) HONG KONG: Activists decry death penalty A group of activists protested outside the Indonesian Consulate and Beijing's Liaison Office in Hong Kong to call for the abolition of the death penalty. An alleged drug dealer from Hong Kong, Wong Chi-ping, was sentenced to death by an Indonesian court earlier this month for possessing hundreds of kilograms of methamphetamine, while a Beijing court in October handed down a death sentence to a Hong Kong businessman who was caught with a large quantity of cocaine. The Joint-Committee for the Abolition of the Death Penalty activists called on Beijing and Jakarta not to go ahead with the capital punishment. The spokesperson of the organization, Father Franco Mella, condemned the death penalty as a violation of human rights. Mella told RTHK's Michelle Chan that "you cannot use the law to kill people. Life is sacred, so killing is not the solution to any problem." He added that international experience shows that capital punishment is not an effective deterrent against serious crime. The protest also marked the Cities for Life Day - a worldwide movement that supports the abolition of the death penalty. It is celebrated on November 30, the day on which the Grand Duchy of Tuscany banned the death penalty in 1786. (source: thestandard.com.hk) BANGLADESH: Bail of Farhat Quader extended The Cyber Crimes Tribunal on Sunday granted plea for extension of bail period of Farhat Quader Chowdhury, wife of executed BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury. Farhat is on bail in the case filed over leakage of International Crimes Tribunal's verdict copy awarding death penalty to the BNP leader. KM Shamsul Alam's tribunal gave the order in presence of Hummam Quader Chowdhury, who appeared in the court on Sunday as another accused in the case. Cyber Crimes Tribunal public prosecutor Nazrul Islam Shamim said the court fixed 14 January 2016 for framing charge against the accused in the case. Other accused - Salauddin Quader Chowdhury???s lawyer Fakhrul Islam, International Crimes Tribunal premises cleaner Nayon Ali, ICT office assistants Farukh Hossain and Mahbubul Ahsan - are in jail in the leakage case. Another accused, lawyer Mehedi Hasan, is absconding, while Hummam and his mother Farhat are freed in bail. (source: prothom-alo.com *************** HC urged to uphold death penalty of 152 BDR mutiny convicts Attorney General Mahbubey Alam today prayed to the High Court to uphold the lower court verdict that sentenced 152 convicts for killing 74 people including 57 army officials in the 2009 Pilkhana mutiny. The lower court has rightly convicted and sentenced 152 accused to death after properly examining relevant documents, evidence and statements of witnesses, as they are responsible for the heinous killings, he told the HC while finishing his arguments on the death reference of the case. After concluding today's proceedings on the death reference, the HC of Justice Md Shawkat Hossain, Justice Abu Zafor Siddique and Justice Nazrul Islam Talukder set tomorrow for resuming 141th day's hearing on the case. The defence lawyers will start placing arguments tomorrow on behalf of the convicts, Deputy Attorney General AKM Zahid Sarwar Kazal told The Daily Star. He also said after finishing hearing the arguments on the death reference, the HC will hold hearing on the appeals filed individually and collectively by 567 convicts. 74 people, including 57 army officials, were slain in the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) mutiny on February 25-26, 2009 at the force's Pilkhana headquarters in Dhaka. In November 2013, a Dhaka court sentenced 150 soldiers of BDR, now Border Guard Bangladesh, and 2 civilians to death, and jailed 161 for life for their involvement. It also gave rigorous imprisonment, ranging from three to 10 years, to 256, mostly BDR soldiers. The remaining 277 were acquitted. A total of 844 people, 823 of them BDR personnel, stood trial in Bangladesh's biggest criminal case in terms of the number of accused and convicts. *********************** Cop among 3 to walk gallows for killing 9-yr-old boy A Sylhet court today awarded death penalty to three persons including a sacked police constable for killing nine-year-old Abu Sayeed for ransom. Judge Abdur Rashid of Sylhet Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal also fined the condemned convicts Tk 1 lakh each. The convicts are Abdur Rakib, general secretary of Sylhet district unit Olama League, Ebadur Rahman, a sacked constable of Sylhet Airport Police Station, and Ataur Rahman Geda, a police informant. The court also acquitted Mahib Hossain Masum, publicity secretary of the district unit of Olama League, of the case as allegation against him was not proved. The convicts abducted Abu Sayeed, son of Andul Matin, on March 11 for a ransom of Tk 5 lakh and later killed him for recognizing the policeman. On March 12, Ebadur confessed to the crime before a magistrate. 2 days later police recovered Sayeed's body from the attic of the building where both Ebadur and Sayeed resided. (source for both: The Daily Star) ******** Munshiganj court sentences 2 to death, 2 to life in jail for 2009 murder A Munshiganj court has sentenced 2 persons to death and 2 others to life imprisonment in the Riaz Byapari murder case. District and Sessions Judge Md Shawkat Ali Chowdhury delivered the verdict on Sunday afternoon in a packed courtroom. Those given the death penalty were Ripon Khan, 28, and Md Shamim, 26. The 2 who were awarded life in prison were Shah Jalal, 32, and Monjil Mia, 31. The victim and the convicts, all labourers, were from the district's Gajaria Upazila. After the verdict, Public Prosecutor Abdul Motin said only Monjil Mia was still absconding. Quoting the case details, Motin said the convicts strangled Riaz to death on Mar 14, 2009 following a dispute. Riaz's body was recovered from a paddy field the next day. His father Golboksh Byapari filed the murder case against the 4 on that day. Byapari on Sunday expressed satisfaction over the verdict and called for speedy execution of the convicts. ******************* Court sentences 4 to death for 2008 Boalkhali murder A Chittagong court has sentenced 4 men to death and 2 others to life in prison for the 2008 murder of an auto-rickshaw driver in Boalkhali Upazila. Chittagong Divisional Public Security Tribunal's judge Syeda Hosne Ara delivered the verdict on Monday on the 7-year-old case. Those given the death penalty were Nurul Alam, Abul Kalam, Md Kausar and Md Rubel. The 2 who were awarded life imprisonment were Ariful Islam and SM Noimuddin. Only Kausar and Noimuddin are behind bars. The 4 others are still absconding. According to case details, on May 3, 2008, the accused hired the auto-rickshaw from the port city's Bahaddarhat to go to Anwara. They murdered the driver 'Yusuf' and made off with the 3-wheeler. Yusuf's body was dumped on a road in West Gomdondi area at Boalkhali. The vehicle's owner later found it in Satkania, where police later arrested 5 of the accused. Yusuf's cousin 'Hashem' filed the murder case at Boalkhali Police Station. Police named the 6 convicted on Monday in their chargesheet in the case. Public Prosecutor Md Jahangir Alam said 17 out of 27 witnesses in the case had deposed at court. (source for both: bdnews24.com) ********** 11 get death penalty for killing Jubo League leader A Gazipur court has sentenced 11 persons to death for killing Jubo League leader Jalal Uddin Sarkar in 2003. Judge Fazle Elahi Bhuiyan of Gazipur Additional District and Session Judge Court 1 pronounced the verdict on Monday afternoon. The court also fined Tk10,000 each. Victim's elder brother Milon Sarkar said the convicts hacked his brother to death in broad daylight when he was chatting his friends at a field near Bolkhela Bazar in Kapasia upazila on August 17, 2003. Later, Milon Sarkar filed a case against the convicts over the murder of his brother. (sourcer: Dhaka Tribune) PAKISTAN: Army Chief signs death warrants of four terrorists involved in APS attack----The 4 terrorists were sentenced to death by military courts. Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif approved on Monday the execution of six terrorists sentenced to death by military courts. "Chief of Army staff today signed black warrants of four hardcore terrorists involved in APS Peshawar massacre," the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) reported. The four terrorists including Maulvi Abdus Salam S/O Shamsi, Hazrat Ali S/O Awal Baz Khan, Mujeeb ur Rehman alias Ali alias Najeeb Ullah S/O Gulab Jan and Sabeel alias Yaya S/O Atta Ullah were sentenced to death by military courts in August this year after they were convicted of involvement in the Taliban massacre of 134 children at an army-run school in Peshawar on December 16, 2014. The decision of their execution comes a week after President Mamnoon Hussain rejected mercy pleas of convicted terrorists on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's advice. Army says the men belonging to a banned organization played a major role in planning and facilitating the school attack and several others. The December school attack is seen as having hardened Pakistan's resolve to fight militants along its lawless border with Afghanistan. Authorities lifted a 6-year moratorium on executions last December and since that time nearly 300 convicts have been executed. Amnesty International estimates that Pakistan has more than 8,000 prisoners on death row, most of whom have exhausted the appeals process. Supporters argue that the death penalty is the only effective way to deal with the scourge of militancy in the country. (source: Dunya News) GUYANA: Justice Institute urges gov't to pave way for abolition of death penalty by May 25th The Justice Institute Guyana (JIG) is calling on the government to begin an immediate public education campaign with a view to abolishing the death penalty no later than midnight on the 25th May 2016, the eve of the country's 50th anniversary of independence. In a statement to mark today's observance of Cities for Life Day - Abolition of the Death Penalty, the JIG also implored the government to begin immediately a national inquiry into the causes and factors which contribute to murder in Guyana. (source: Stabroek News) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Nov 30 12:52:45 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2015 12:52:45 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 30 IRAN: FACING EXECUTION AFTER HASTY, UNFAIR TRIAL Shahram Ahmadi, a Sunni Muslim man from Iran?s Kurdish minority, is at imminent risk of execution. He was sentenced to death for ?enmity against God? after a grossly unfair trial, and his death sentence has been upheld by the Supreme Court. Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format, including case information, addresses and sample messages. Shahram Ahmadi, aged 28, learned in October 2015 that his death sentence had been upheld by the Supreme Court. The judge overseeing the implementation of sentences in Raja? Shahr Prison in Karaj, where he is held, has apparently told him that his execution could be carried out any moment Shahram Ahmadi says that he has not been able to obtain a copy of the verdicts against him and know the evidence and the legal reasoning on which they rest. Shahram Ahmadi was arrested in April 2009 in Sanandaj, Kordestan Province, on his way home. He has said he was shot and beaten on the street by men from the Revolutionary Guards, and taken to hospital, where he was interrogated. He spent almost three years in pre-trial detention, without access to a lawyer or his family. He has said he was tortured and otherwise ill-treated to make him ?confess?: this included prolonged solitary confinement, kicking and punching and being denied his medication. He met his state-appointed lawyer for the first time at his trial before Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran, on 2 October 2012, which he says lasted only five minutes. He was told in April 2013 that the court had sentenced him to death for ?enmity against God? (moharebeh) because of his alleged membership of Salafist groups. He has denied the charge, saying that he was targeted because of his faith. The Supreme Court overturned the verdict in 2015 and sent his case back to Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran. The court resentenced Shahram Ahamdi to death. The sentence has now been upheld by the Supreme Court. No investigation into Shahram Ahmadi?s allegations of torture are known to have been carried out. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Shahram Ahmadi was arrested during a wave of arrest of Sunni Muslim men, mainly from Iran?s Kurdish minority, by Ministry of Intelligence officials in the western province of Kordestan in 2009 and 2010. The factual circumstances leading to these arrests and the evidence used in the men?s convictions and sentencing remain unclear to Amnesty International. Click here to view the full Urgent Action in Word or PDF format. Name: Shahram Ahmadi Gender m/f: m UA: 272/15 Index: MDE 13/2952/2015 Issue Date: 27 November 2015 Please let us know if you took action so that we can track our impact! EITHER send a short email to uan at aiusa.org with ?UA 272/15? in the subject line, and include in the body of the email the number of letters and/or emails you sent, OR fill out this short online form to let us know how you took action. Thank you for taking action! Please check with the AIUSA Urgent Action Office if taking action after the appeals date. If you receive a response from a government official, please forward it to us at uan at aiusa.org or to the Urgent Action Office address below. HOW YOU CAN HELP Please write immediately in Persian, English, Arabic, Spanish, French or your own language: * Urging the Iranian authorities to halt any plans to execute Shahram Ahmadi, quash his conviction and death sentence and order a retrial that complies with fair trial standards, without recourse to the death penalty; * Urging them to conduct an impartial and independent investigation into the allegations that he was tortured and otherwise ill-treated, bring those responsible to justice and exclude from trials any evidence that may have been obtained through torture or other ill-treatment. * Reminding them that fair trial rights during appeals entail the right to obtain public reasoned judgments for each appeal and trial transcripts within a reasonable time. PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 8 JANUARY 2016 TO: Leader of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Sayed ?Ali Khamenei The Office of the Supreme Leader Islamic Republic Street- End of Shahid Keshvar Doust Street Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran Email: via website http://www.leader.ir/langs/en/index.php? p=letter Twitter: @khamenei_ir (English) Salutation: Your Excellency Head of the Judiciary Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani c/o Public Relations Office Number 4, 2 Azizi Street intersection Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran Email: info at humanrights-iran.ir Salutation: Your Excellency And copies to: President?s Special Advisor on Minorities Affairs Hojjatoleslam Ali Younesi The Office of the President Pasteur Street, Pasteur Square Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran Also send copies to: Iran does not presently have an embassy in the United States. Instead, please send copies to: Iranian Interests Section 2209 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington DC 20007 Phone: 202 965 4990 I Fax: 202 965 1073 I Email: info at daftar.org Please share widely with your networks:?http://bit.ly/1SsbBRY We encourage you to share Urgent Actions with your friends and colleagues! When you share with your networks, instead of forwarding the original email, please use the "Forward this email to a friend" link found at the very bottom of this email. Thank you for your activism! UA Network Office AIUSA ?600 Pennsylvania Ave SE, Washington DC 20003 T. 202.509.8193 ? F. 202.509.8193 ?E. uan at aiusa.org ?amnestyusa.org/urgent TRINIDAD & TOBAGO: Trinidad and Tobago to resume hanging Trinidad and Tobago wants to resume hanging. This is according to new Attorney General Faris al Rawi who said he intends to apply the death penalty and to this end he has set up a "tracking committee" to deal with the systemic clogs to ensure the effectiveness of enforcing it. "I certainly intend to apply the death penalty which is the current law in Trinidad and Tobago, through due process. The point is making sure that due process works efficiently. The death penalty is the law," he told reporters after the funeral of Trinidad and Tobago Regiment Corporal Shervaun Charleau who was gunned down while "liming" at Ft. George, Port of Spain recently. He said whether the death penalty was an efficient measure to deal with crime that was a different issue. "That is something as a society we must look at, but the laws of Trinidad and Tobago will be applied by this government," he said. Al Rawi questioned why the death penalty has not been applied in recent years. The move to resume "executions" in T&T comes at a time when Amnesty International is calling on Caribbean governments for a moratorium on hangings in the region. There are more than l00 convicted killers on death row, but they are unable to be "executed" because they had spent more than 5 years on death row and would soon have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. So far for this year 359 people were murdered. The last hanging in Trinidad and Tobago took place in l999 when notorious drug lord Dole Chadee and his gang of 8 were "executed" for the murder of a South family of 4 under former Attorney General Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj. Since then, several killers have escaped the gallows after the London-based Privy Council, in a landmark ruling more than a decade ago (Jamaican Pratt and Morgan case) said the excessive delay to hang a condemned killer after spending 5 years on death row amounts to a cruel and inhumane punishment. That ruling resulted in hundreds of prisoners then on death row in the Caribbean escaped being hanged as their sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. (source: Caribbean Life) ITALY: Italian cities against death penalty----Tuscany governor says still long way to go from 1786 abolition Rome, November 30 - Cities around Italy and internationally will be illuminated on Monday as part of the Cities for Life initiative, organised by the Rome-based Community of Sant'Egidio for the International Day of Cities Against the Death Penalty. The initiative has been observed every November 30 since 2002 to mark the anniversary of the first abolition of the death penalty on the part of a state, that of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany on November 30, 1786. "Cesare Beccaria said in 1764 that the death penalty hasn't made us better. It isn't a solution, rather, it represents the failure of a community," said Ettore Rosato, MP and head of the Democratic Party (PD) in the Lower House, on his Facebook page, adding that Italy was the 1st to propose an international moratorium on the death penalty at the UN General Assembly in 1994, which was approved in 2007. "Capital punishment is still legal in 94 countries in the world, but only practiced in 40," Rosato wrote. "The side of countries renouncing (the death penalty) is growing day by day, thanks to the contribution of many associations and NGOs for human rights, and Italy is by their side". In Tuscany, Governor Enrico Rossi presided over the yearly solemn session of the regional assembly marking the anniversary of the 1786 abolition of the death penalty by the Grand Duke of Tuscany. "In the declaration of human rights there is the right to life but there's not an explicit ban on the death penalty," Rossi said. "That means we still have a long way to go ahead of us if we consider that there are still states that commit veritable massacres every year". (source: ANSA) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Nov 30 16:21:37 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2015 16:21:37 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----VA., FLA., MISS., ARIZ. Message-ID: Nov. 30 VIRGINIA: Death Penalty Upheld in Harrisonburg Murder Case A federal appeals court has rejected a Virginia death row inmate's appeal of his murder-for-hire conviction. Rockingham County Commonwealth's Attorney Marsha Garst said she is pleased with the ruling. Ivan Teleguz was sentenced to death in 2006 for hiring a man to kill his former girlfriend, Stephanie Sipe, in Harrisonburg. After two key prosecution witnesses recanted, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2012 ordered a judge to conduct a hearing on Teleguz's innocence claim. After 1 of those witnesses refused to testify and the other did not attend the hearing, U.S. District Judge James P. Jones determined that affidavits recanting their previous testimony were unreliable. A 3-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Monday that it found no reason to overrule Jones on that issue. Garst said Teleguz could ask for another review and appeal to the Supreme Court and Virginia governor for a stay of execution. (source: Associated Press) FLORIDA: A who's who of Brevard's most notorious in court Friday It's a routine procedure that oftenseems like little more than housekeeping. Still, this Friday's docket sounding at the Moore Justice Center in Viera bring together the majority of the county's most notorious cases from the past few years for scheduling purposes. Usually docket soundings are held to check on the status of a case, but there may finally be some trial dates set and maybe even a surprise plea. And while it may not rival Batman's rogues gallery, a look at the court calendar reads like a scorecard of recent terrible headlines. Among the cases being called are the capital murder cases against Jessica McCarty, who telephoned police to tell them she had killed her 3 small children in March, and registered sex offender Marcus Royal, who police say brutally killed an 80-year-old Cocoa woman and the 59-year-old man who arrived at her home to drive her to church only hours after Royal was released from the county jail. Royal was also later charged with the 2011 murder of an elderly Rockledge woman. Both McCarty and Royal face the death penalty if convicted. Other cases being called Friday include William Woodward, who admitted to killing two of his neighbors and shooting another 11 times. Woodward's attempt to invoke Florida's Stand Your Ground law was rejected by the court but it appears from court documents that he will try to use self-defense as the reason for the killings. Woodward had a contentious relationship with neighbors and video and audio from that night shows them taunting, cursing and yelling in the direction of his home. Like McCarty and Royal, Woodward could face the death penalty. (source: floridatoday.com) MISSISSIPPI: Suspect in Waffle House shooting asks if death penalty possible during court appearance The man accused of shooting a Waffle House server over a no smoking ban had only one question when standing before a judge for his initial appearance on Monday. "Is the death penalty going to be involved in this charge?" suspect Johnny Max Mount asked Justice Court Judge Albert Fountain. In response, the judge read the law regarding capital offenses that could result in a possible death penalty. But as for now, Mount only has been charged with 1 count of 1st degree murder, and not a capital offense. He has requested a preliminary hearing, which Fountain said would be set within a couple of weeks. The court will appoint a public defender to represent Mount, who indicated he wished to speak to an attorney. Harrison County jail Warden Evan Hubbard said Mount is being held in the medical block at the jail for medical reasons. Mount, a former Biloxi firefighter arrested on a charge of 1st-degree murder in the Friday slaying of long-time Waffle House server, Julie Brightwell, 52. The hearing is set at the Harrison County jail, Sheriff Melvin Brisolara confirmed this morning. Mount is being held on a $2 million bond set by Fountain. Biloxi police arrested Mount, 45, as he was walking out of the Waffle House restaurant around 1 a.m. Friday. According to authorities, Brightwell was trying to get Mount to stop smoking in the restaurant when he pulled out a 9 mm handgun and shot her. She was taken to Merit Health Biloxi, where she was pronounced dead. Harrison County Coroner Gary Hargrove said she died of a single gunshot wound the head. Brightwell had been working for Waffle House for 8 years. She had worked at the Waffle House where the shooting occurred since June 2014, when it reopened after being destroyed in Hurricane Katrina. According to Pat Warner, vice president of Waffle House's corporate office in Atlanta, a candlelight vigil in memory of Brightwell is scheduled at 5:15 p.m. Friday on the beach across the street from the restaurant where Brightwell worked in the 2400 block of U.S. 90. He said Monday her coworkers, friends and Waffle House management are helping set up the vigil. "One of her coworkers is planning on singing," he said. "She had been encouraged by Julie to pursue her singing, so she wanted to do that." Warner said he and other senior corporate officials are hoping to make it to the memorial. In addition, he said, Waffle House plans to cover the funeral costs for Brightwell and help her family "any way we can." Since the shooting, Warner and Waffle House employees from other restaurants have filled in for those workers who needed time away to grieve and come to terms about what happened. "Julie touched a lot of people," he said. "This tragedy doesn't just affect this one restaurant. It affects our entire market. All of our associates knew her or knew of her." Brightwell, he said, had been handpicked to help reopen the Waffle House where the shooting occurred. "She was picked because she was such a good associate," he said. "She had that kind of personality that made you feel better when you came in and dined with us. She seemed to really bond with her customers and she made sure they had an enjoyable visit while they were there." A GoFundMe account has been set up to help Brightwell's family with any expenses. The Waffle House where the shooting occurred is smoke free. Some of the chain's restaurants allow smoking. Waffle House also prohibits firearms in its restaurants unless the customer works in a law enforcement field or the military, Warner said. Customers said Brightwell spent some of her last minutes alive asking them if they'd enjoyed their Thanksgiving holiday or if they had found some good deals during their post-Thanksgiving shopping. Mount has no felony record, but he does have misdemeanor violations. Since Brightwell's killing, people have taken to Twitter and Facebook to talk about the killing and wondering what could have set off the accused. A friend of Mount's family said he "was not a monster," and that something must've "snapped" in him. On Christmas Eve 2002, a car struck Mount while he was standing in the middles of U.S. 49 in Gulfport. A family friend said he lost a limb and suffered a traumatic brain injury at that time. Mount stopped working for the Biloxi Fire Department after the 2002 accident. Biloxi police are continuing their investigation. (source: sunherald.com) ARIZONA: Will Arizona be the death of death penalty? Arizona's unethical, possibly illegal purchase of execution drugs from overseas, along with the state's grotesque determination to use those drugs to kill death row inmates, and then botching one attempt, very well could be the death of the death penalty in the United States. It should be the death of the death penalty in the United States. It speaks to everything that is wrong with capital punishment as it is applied in states like ours, where justice has been supplemented by a monstrously surreal bloodlust and the inability to treat execution for the savagery that it is. CBS's 60 Minutes aired a segment Sunday on Arizona's botched execution of Joseph Wood in July of last year, which was supposed to take 10 minutes and instead took 2 hours and involved 15 dozes of the drug cocktail of midazolam and hydromorphone. The Arizona Republic's Michael Kiefer has done excellent, ongoing reporting on this, drawing attention to the growing national crisis over executions. This is not to say that Wood was innocent. Just the opposite. He was a cold-blooded killer. In 1989 he hunted down and shot to death his former girlfriend, Debra Dietz, and her father, Eugene Dietz. He was convicted of the crime. The citizens of the state of Arizona decided to kill him. And we did. Only in trying to execute Wood in a "humane" way, as if such a thing is possible, we did just the opposite. The CBS reporter spoke to Kiefer as well as to Dale Baich, one of Wood's attorneys, who said, "I've witnessed a number of executions before and I've never seen anything like this." He also spoke with Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who came off like a lame apologist for the state's clumsy, unethical, possibly illegal effort to get the death penalty drugs under Gov. Jan Brewer's administration. Brnovich also sounded like a pro-death penalty blowhard hoping to impress conservative voters. In the end, the person who made the most sense in the CBS report was Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Kozinski's court has been in the forefront of the legal battle over all of this and he has spoken boldly and bluntly about it. During the appeals process before Wood's execution Kozinski wrote, "Using drugs meant for individuals with medical needs to carry out executions is a misguided effort to mask the brutality of executions by making them look serene and peaceful..." He added, "Sure, firing squads can be messy, but if we are willing to carry out executions we should not shield ourselves from the reality that we are shedding human blood. If we, as a society, cannot stomach the splatter from an execution carried out by firing squad, then we shouldn't be carrying out executions at all." He's right. (source: Column, EJ Montini, Arizona Republic) ******** Did Jodi Arias Deserve Death? Juror Accused Of Falling In Love With Killer Should Jodi Arias be on death row? According to prosecutor Juan Martinez, her life was saved thanks to the love of one of the jurors. The Daily Mail reports that Martinez is penning a book about the trial that made national headlines and the crime the Arizona woman committed. The prosecutor is reported to have information in this upcoming book that has never been addressed by media over the course of this brutal case. Martinez says that a juror fell in love with the woman convicted of killing Travis Alexander. He alleges that the juror refused to vote for putting Arias to death, which ultimately saved her life. Now she's serving a prison sentence of natural life, which is known to have angered numerous people who wanted justice for Travis. On social media, sentiments against Jodi Arias remain nearly a year after she evaded the death penalty. Jodi Arias reportedly murdered Travis Alexander in an overkill type of slaying that rocked media headlines for years. The convicted murderer drove to Alexander's home on June 4, 2008. The following day, his body was discovered by some of his friends. The man had suffered nearly 30 stab wounds and a gunshot to the head. His throat was crudely slashed, and his body was left slumped in his shower. The killer told many lies throughout the course of the investigation, even going on crime shows and declaring her innocence. Ultimately, she confessed to the horrific crime but claimed it was done in self-defense. A jury wasn't convinced of this argument since Travis's death was so brutal in nature. Nearly a year later, Jodi Arias is still on the minds of folks who follow gruesome crime cases. That's only going to intensify with the book being published by the prosecutor of her case. Meanwhile, Jodi's own former attorney has published his own tell-all. Kirk Nurmi writes that he was "forced" to represent the then-accused killer, according to the Huffington Post. One quote in particular, written by Nurmi, appears to sum up feelings of pure contempt for Arias. "To fully get a visual of what Ms. Arias did to my brain you would have to find some fecal matter, throw it into the pan, add a chopped up dead rat and scramble the whole mess up. Once completely cooked this concoction would then approximate the effect that Ms. Arias would have on my brain." So it seems that Arias left a lasting impression on pretty much everyone who has encountered her. That evidently includes the juror who reportedly "fell in love" with her. It should be noted that at least 1 of the former jurors have claimed they are not in love with Arias. Meanwhile, Juan Martinez is not naming the juror who reportedly has romantic interests in the murderer. Do you think his claims hold any weight, or are they just intended to drum up interest so he can sell copies of his book? If a juror did, in fact, fall in love with Jodi Arias, would this have any effect on her escaping a death penalty sentence? (source: inquisitr.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Nov 30 16:23:03 2015 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2015 16:23:03 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Nov. 30 PAKISTAN: In pictures: Artworks by death row inmates, underprivileged kids seek to build bridges in Pakistan----A travelling art exhibition aims to understand difference and diversity, and to broaden the boundaries of what society has labeled as art. A 1st-of-its-kind project in Pakistan, Is Saye Kay Parcham Talay (The Shadow Over Our Flag) is a travelling art show that seeks to build bridges between artists and the community, and to invite people to indulge in difficult but necessary conversations. The show tackles issues of marginalisation and minority politics in Pakistan and looks at ethnic, religious, and gendered communities in the country and within art institutions themselves. The premise of the project is to understand difference and diversity, to absorb the cultural contexts of Lahore and then Karachi. It hopes to be part of a growing movement that broadens the boundaries of what society has labeled as art. Starting in Lahore this month, the works to be displayed include those composed by death row inmates and nearly 50 child photographers from Karachi's underdeveloped Neelum and Shah Rasool Colonies. They will sit alongside the works of artists from different backgrounds, whose collective work observes a fractured nation. The exhibition will reach Karachi in January, where it will feature works of additional local artists. Justice Project Pakistan Justice Project Pakistan, an organisation run by Sarah Belal, is probably one of Pakistan's most active groups against the death penalty. Spearheaded by JPP members, its installation will highlight the artwork of executed prisoner Aftab Bahadur, who was sentenced to death at the age of 15. (source: scroll.in) ************ Should the death penalty exist?----A convicted person may well be innocent in Pakistan As we await the ultimate fate of Abdul Basit, a paralysed man, to know whether or not he is to be hanged, the question arises: Should the death punishment exist, most particularly in Pakistan? Abdul Basit was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 2009. While in prison he contracted tubercular meningitis and lost the use of both legs due to a lack of proper medical attention and care. Such neglect is common in prisons in Pakistan. A report put together by the organisation Death Penalty Worldwide says, 'Prison doctors (in Pakistan) are incompetent and uninterested state employees, and prisoners are given severely substandard care.' Abdul Basit's execution has been delayed a couple of times, once only minutes before he was to be hanged because it was raining at the time of execution, and again just this month when the President of Pakistan ordered a 2-month delay in execution only a few hours before the event. Another prisoner Shafqat Hussain was hanged in Karachi in August this year. He had been in prison since the age of 14, a minor convicted of murdering another minor. Hussain confessed to the crime but maintained that the confession was tortured out of him. An excerpt from a statement made by him earlier this year describes what it was like to be on death row: 'I have been told I am going to be executed 7 times. The 1st time was in 2013. I am alone in my cell now. Both my cellmates were hanged. I had shared a cell with them for 6 or 7 years. I cannot even begin to explain what I went through when they were executed because I myself was scheduled to be executed the next day.' Hussain was hanged just a few days after this statement was recorded. At the time of his death he was just 24. He had been in prison for 10 years. These are only 2 examples but together they serve to highlight several things about the death punishment in Pakistan: That prisoners suffer neglect and their physical condition makes little difference to their sentence as in the case of Abdul Basit whose execution has only been postponed now, not commuted. It highlights the fact that although the law does not allow the death sentence for minors, this law is broken as in the case of Shafqat Hussain. Overall it highlights the fact that the adage 'justice delayed is justice denied' holds little meaning in Pakistan. Both these men have been imprisoned for several years and have had their date of execution pushed around arbitrarily, thereby suffering the torture of everything but execution itself several times over. Not that living on death row is much better, physically speaking. That report put together by Death Penalty Worldwide also describes conditions inside a typical death cell in Pakistan: 'The norm is for 7 prisoners to be confined in one death cell, which also contains the prisoners' toilet. In some cells, inmates must take turns sleeping for want of space to lie down. Families are allowed to bring food for loved ones but prison officials often withhold food intended for prisoners, and prisoners are given watered-down rations. Mentally ill prisoners are often kept together in1e cell. In 1 jail in Punjab, there are forty of them and they all have one arm chained to the wall. Only 1 hand is free. They are kept like this all day. In some prisons the gallows can be seen by the prisoners from their death cells.' The report notes that as always, wealthy people are able to buy better conditions, even in prison, but almost all death row inmates are "extremely poor and helpless". The report goes on to say that 'some officials abuse prisoners in custody. Female prisoners may be subjected to abuse including custodial rape. Condemned prisoners can walk outside for only about an hour a day, are subjected to lengthy periods of shackling - a practice the UN has concluded as torture - may be excluded from social or recreational activities, and have severely restricted visitation rights. A condemned prisoner may face impending death while under these conditions for more than 10 years.' The fact is that even outside of prison living conditions in Pakistan are good only for the select few. For prisoners in daily expectation of death, they are pitiful. No human deserves to live this way, not even convicted murderers for whom civil and religious norms both prescribe justice and humane treatment, and neither justice nor humanity may be found in any of these cases. It is time we re-examined the very existence of the death penalty everywhere but most particularly in Pakistan where even more than in other places a person convicted of murder may well be innocent. Persons who would otherwise be awarded the death penalty should be sentenced to life in confinement without a chance of parole, yes. But if there is any doubt as to their guilt they should not receive the death punishment and their case should be investigated immediately rather than being allowed to drag on for years. Living conditions in prison should be humane. Unfortunately, practical concerns make it necessary to consider finances when evaluating death vs life under confinement. Feeding and housing a person with any semblance of humanity is difficult to afford particularly for a poor country like Pakistan. But with a little ingenuity and some organisation an alternative can be managed tailored to the particular requirements of this country. Long term prisoners could perhaps be confined in a place similar to a commune where they could grow their own food and work at a cottage industry to pay for their keep. Citizens of any country and all humans everywhere have rights in life, and in death, as well as when they are under sentence of death. We have been instructed in this in the best of ways: 'Be just, for this is closest to righteousness....' (Quran 5:8) (source: Rabia Ahmed, Pakistan Today) SAUDI ARABIA: Strong evidence kingdom will go ahead with mass execution, says rights group There is growing evidence that Saudi Arabia will go ahead with the mass execution of more than 50 people convicted of terrorism, a human rights group has claimed. Okaz newspaper reported that the country is poised to execute 55 people for "terrorist crimes" that killed more than 100 civilians and 71 security personnel. The European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR), which has been monitoring the publication of news reports in the media, believes that the Saudi government may be "testing the waters" ahead of the execution of activists convicted of anti-government offences. If the public reaction is not deemed strong enough, the Gulf kingdom could go ahead with the punishments. Last week, 3 news reports of a mass execution were published in online publications described by ESOHR as "pro-government", including Okaz, Al-Riyadh and Al-Jazeera, quoting unofficial sources. 2 of the articles were subsequently deleted. Additionally, unofficial Twitter accounts, which are known to to be sources close to the government and give accurate news, also spread news about executions, but did not give the identities of the accused. "When those accounts come out and they announce events, people take it seriously. We think those media put the articles up to evaluate the international community's reaction," Zena Esia, a research associate for the ESOHR, told IBTimes UK. Esia explained how ESOHR witnessed similar behaviour with Sheikh Nimr Al-Nimr, a prominent human rights defender, who was believed to be in line for execution along with his nephew, Ali Mohammed Al-Nimr. In July, there was a strong reaction from the public, which protested after the Twitter accounts announced Nimr would be executed. "If the international community is quiet, it would not be in the favour of these young men and Sheikh Nimr Al-Nimr." - Zena Esia, research associate, European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights Sheikh Nimr was arrested in 2012 after supporting protests that were by then raging in Qatif and al-Awamiyah and was shot in the leg by police. His arrest and later conviction on a range of charges - including "encouraging foreign meddling" in the kingdom and insulting its rulers - caused days of rioting during which 3 protesters were killed. "In the past, articles went up announcing the government's intentions to execute Sheikh Nimr, to test the water. On the day the protests were planned, a news article came up saying the execution would not take place," Esia said. "We see this as a deliberate media strategy, which can be very psychological because Ali Mohammed al-Nimr's mother has seen a lot of these unofficial statements, and it is very disturbing for her. If the international community is quiet, it would not be in the favour of these young men and Sheikh Nimr Al-Nimr." Legal charity Reprieve, which has followed the case of the pro-democracy young man and his uncle, said this week that a number of those who will reportedly be executed come from the same region as the activists convicted of anti-government offences. The men were also taken for an announced medical examination in prison, which suggests their execution has been scheduled. Under Saudi Arabia's draconian legal system, the two are to be beheaded and their bodies crucified in public. The case has triggered uproar worldwide, with Amnesty International describing the trial as unfair and deeply flawed. Saudi Arabia has already executed more than 150 people this year, mostly by public beheading, the most in 20 years, rights group Amnesty International said this month. (source: ibtimes.co.uk) BANGLADESH: Justice At The Gallows - Analysis On November 22, 2015, condemned war crimes convicts Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed (67) and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Standing Committee member Salauddin Quader Chowdhury (66) were hanged simultaneously at Dhaka Central Jail at 12:55 am. Earlier, on November 21, 2015, President Abdul Hamid had rejected their applications seeking Presidential clemency, which they had filed after losing all legal battles against their death sentences on charge of crimes against humanity committed during the Liberation War of 1971. On July 17, 2013, the International Crimes Tribunal-2 (ICT-2) had sentenced Mojaheed to death after finding him guilty on 5 of 7 charges against him, including the killing of eminent journalist Serajuddin Hossain in Dhaka; mass killings at village Baidyadangi in Faridpur District; the killing of Badi, Rumi, Jewel, Azad and Altaf Mahmud at Nakhalpara Army Camp in Dhaka; the killing of intellectuals in Dhaka; and the killing of Hindu civilians and persecution in Faridpur District. He had filed an appeal with the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court (SC) on August 12, 2013. On June 16, 2015, the Appellate Division upheld Mojaheed's death sentence. Similarly, on October 1, 2013, ICT-1 sentenced Salauddin to death finding him guilty on nine of 23 charges including the Madhya Gohira Genocide, in which the Hindu community was targeted on April 13, 1971; the murder of Nutun Chandra Singha; genocide at Jogotmollopara, in which 32 Hindus were killed; the murder of Nepal Chandra and 3 others; the genocide at Unsuttarpara, in which an estimated 70 Hindus were killed; the killing of Satish Chandra Palit; the killing of Mozaffar and his son; abduction and torture of Nizamuddin Ahmed; and abduction and torture of Saleh Uddin. He had lodged an appeal with the Appellate Division on October 29, 2013, but his death sentence was upheld on July 29, 2015. On September 30, 2015, the Appellate Division released its full verdicts upholding the death penalty of Mojaheed and Salauddin, leaving them with the option of seeking a review of the verdicts. Expectedly, both Mojaheed and Salauddin had filed their respective review pleas on October 14, 2015. Again, the Appellate Division dismissed their review petitions on November 18, 2015, with all 4 judges - Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, Justice Nazmun Ara Sultana, Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain and Justice Hasan Foyez Siddique - concurring, leaving only Presidential mercy as a last resort. On November 21, 2015, Mojaheed and Salauddin submitted their separate mercy petitions to the President, and these were rejected on the same day. Mojaheed had been arrested on June 29, 2010, and was indicted on June 21, 2012; while Salauddin was arrested on December 16, 2010, and indicted on April 4, 2012. Salauddin and Mojaheed are the 2 highest-profile war crimes convicts to walk to the gallows. Salauddin is also the first BNP leader to be executed, and was Parliamentary Affairs Adviser to the then Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, with the rank of a Cabinet Minister. He had also served as Minister of Health during General Hussein Muhammad Ershad's regime. Mojaheed had served as Minister of Social Welfare in the then BNP-led coalition Government between 2001 and 2006. He is the third JeI leader to have been hanged for war crimes, after JeI Assistant Secretary Abdul Quader Mollah (65), known as 'Mirpurer Koshai (Butcher of Mirpur), who was hanged at Dhaka Central Jail on December 12, 2013; and JeI Senior Assistant Secretary General Muhammad Kamaruzzaman (63), the 3rd most senior figure in the JeI, who was hanged at Dhaka Central Jail on April 11, 2015. Expectedly, on November 22, 2015, the JeI called for a countrywide dawn-to-dusk hartal (general strike) for November 23, 2015. Earlier, protesting the SC verdict of November 18, 2015, JeI had called a countrywide hartal on November 19, 2015. Unlike previous hartals called by JeI protesting against war crimes' verdicts against party leaders, which had resulted in massive street violence, these 2 hartals were largely ignored across the country and no major acts of violence were reported. The War Crimes (WC) Trials, which began on March 25, 2010, have thus far indicted 44 leaders, including 27 from JeI, 6 from the Muslim League (ML), 5 from Nezam-e-Islami (NeI), four from BNP and 2 from the Jatiya Party (JP). Verdicts have been delivered against 24 accused, including 17 death penalties and seven life sentences. So far, 4 of the 17 people who were awarded death sentence have been hanged. Each earlier judgment had resulted in violence unleashed by fundamentalists, led by the Opposition combine of BNP, JeI and its student wing Islami Chattra Shibir (ICS). According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), the country recorded at least 51 fatalities, including 23 civilians, one Security Force (SF) trooper and 27 JeI-ICS cadres (between December 12, 2013 and December 19, 2013) as violent protests were witnessed across Bangladesh after the execution of JeI Assistant Secretary Abdul Quader Mollah on December 12, 2013. Further, the violence that followed the execution of JeI Senior Assistant Secretary General Muhammad Kamaruzzaman (63) on April 11, 2015, led to death of 2 JeI-ICS cadres (violent protests continued till April 14, 2015). However, no violent protests have taken place, thus far, after the execution of JeI Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed (67) and BNP Standing Committee member Salauddin Quader Chowdhury (66) on November 22, 2015. Meanwhile, on November 22, 2015, various political parties and organizations hailed the latest executions. The Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) demanded a ban on the politics of JeI and ICS to root out extremism from the country forever. Demanding immediate execution of all other war crimes convicts, Bangladesh Chhatra Federation (BCF), the student front of Ganasanghati Andolon, another left leaning political party, expressed satisfaction over the verdict and declared that it was a reflection of people's expectations. Sammilita Sangskritik Jote, a cultural organization, also expressed satisfaction over the executions. Gonojagoron Mancha (People's Resurgence Platform), a youth platform seeking death sentences for all war criminals, took out a procession at Shahbagh in the capital, Dhaka. Further, calling for confiscation of all properties of the convicted war criminals and distribution of the wealth among the families of insolvent freedom fighters and rape victims of the 1971 Liberation War, Shahriar Kabir, Acting President of Ekatturer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee, an anti-war crimes platform, asserted, on November 26, "The properties of Jamaat-e-Islami including its business firms, factories, NGOs, and educational and social institutions, should come under the Government's control. These institutions have to give compensation as well." Surprisingly, the BNP did not announce any programme of protests in the wake of the execution of its leader, Salauddin. At a high-level party meeting on November 25, 2015, BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia did not allow her party colleagues to discuss Salauddin's execution. After the meeting, Jamiruddin Sircar, a member of the party's Standing Committee disclosed, "The issue of Salauddin's execution was raised at the meeting. Madam [Khaleda Zia] offered her condolence at his death. There was no more discussion on it as it was not on the agenda. We now want to make it clear that we are not in favour of war criminals. By not discussing Salauddin, she has saved her party from the accusation of patronizing war criminals." Earlier, on November 19, 2015, when a correspondent of Prothom Alo (First Light), a major daily newspaper published from Dhaka city in the Bengali language, contacted seven BNP leaders, including 3 members of its Standing Committee, one Standing Committee member, preferring anonymity, observed, "Salauddin Quader's execution will have no impact on BNP. The party is not also discussing this much (sic)." Indeed, BNP is now trying to extricate itself from its own past. For decades, the party has been facing accusation of patronizing war criminals. Its electoral ties with the anti-liberation JeI have also drawn flak, and the leadership has been facing pressure from both friends and foes at home and abroad to cut ties with JeI. In the past, BNP had joined often violent protestsat the war crimes verdicts and past executions. Criticizing former Presidents Ziaur Rahman and H. M. Ershad; and BNP Chairperson Khaleda, for rehabilitating those involved in war crimes in 1971, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed observed, on November 23, 2015, "Ziaur Rahman did not try the war criminals. We tried and executed the war criminals. I think through the trial and execution of the war criminals the victims' family members will at least get some consolation. If we cannot end the trial of war criminals, the nation will never be freed from curse (sic)." For years now, entities sympathetic to the JeI-BNP combine, backed by several Western nations, have been attempting to undermine the legitimacy of the war crime trials. With the BNP pulling away from the convicted war criminals, it appears that the legitimacy issue has been more than settled, and apologists will find it increasingly difficult to sustain their campaigns against a process that has been abundantly transparent. (source: Eurasiareview.com) MALDIVES: Maldives strips pres of death penalty clemency High Court on Monday annulled the clause giving the president power to grant clemency to convicts on death row. The case seeking to annul the clause in the Clemency Act, which gives the president the power to turn death sentences into life imprisonment, was filed privately by a group of individuals. The High Court ended hearings on the case on Thursday. State is against the case arguing that the clause was in direct contradiction to Islamic law. The state argued that the authority given to the president by the clause cannot be used in Qisas (the right of a murder victim's nearest relative or Wali [legal guardian] to, if the court approves, take the life of the killer) cases. The case heard by the 5-judge bench of the appellate court was filed in 2012. The court ruled that the president cannot grant clemency to convicts on death row in Qisas cases but would be able to exercise the power on other cases involving a death sentence. Maldives has recently adopted a series of new rules and regulations and is currently drafting a law on death penalty. The Supreme Court issued new guidelines on Sunday allowing death sentences and public lashing rulings issued by lower courts to be appealed automatically at the High Court. In a circular, the Supreme Court said if the defendant fails to appeal death sentences and public lashing verdicts within 10 days, the court that had initially issued the verdict should forward the relevant documents to the High Court. The appellate court would have seven days to notify both the defendant and the prosecution of the appeal and during that period should take the necessary steps to begin appeal proceedings, it added. The new rules follow similar guidelines issued by the apex court early this month. The Supreme Court issued new guidelines on November 8 giving a month-long window for the last chance to appeal death sentences and public lashings backed by High Court. According to the guidelines, if a defendant fails to appeal a High Court verdict in favour of death sentences and public lashing rulings within a 30-day period, the appeal can then only be filed at the Supreme Court by the prosecution. The guidelines, included in a circular signed by Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed, did not specifically mention sentences of death and public lashing. However, it says that High Court rulings that need to be reconfirmed by the Supreme Court had to be appealed within 30 days, including public holidays. Under local laws, the only sentences that need to be reconfirmed by the Supreme Court are death sentences and public lashing verdicts. Judicature Act earlier granted a 90-day period, excluding public holidays, to appeal rulings by any court. However, the Supreme Court had in January annulled that clause and issued new guidelines under which rulings issued by lower courts had to be appealed at the High Court within 10 days and appeal over High Court verdicts needed to be filed at the Supreme Court within 60 days. Meanwhile, the government has included funds in the proposed state budget for next year to establish an execution chamber at the country's main prison to carry out the death penalty. The state budget for next year, which was approved by the parliament on Monday, includes MVR4 million to build an execution chamber. However, the correctional service was not immediately available for comment. Maldives adopted a new regulation last year under which lethal injection would be used to implement the death penalty. However, over mounting pressure from human rights bodies, companies have been refusing to supply the fatal dose to countries still carrying out capital punishment. Home minister Umar Naseer had earlier said the correctional service would be ready to implement the death penalty by the time a death sentence is upheld by the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the government announced on November 16 that it was in the process of drafting legislation on implementing death penalty. Attorney General Mohamed Anil told reporters that the bill being drafted by his office would expand on the already existing regulations on death penalty. The bill would include procedures on conducting murder investigations, filing charges in such cases and conducting proceedings in murder cases, he added. There are around 10 people on death row at present, but none of whom has exhausted the appeal process thus far. (source: haveeru.com)