[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

July 7



BARBADOS:

Catholic Church wants Govt to abolish the death penalty



The Catholic Church is calling on the Mia Mottley-led Government to abolish the 
death penalty, arguing it is not justified under any circumstance.

In a statement of support for a ruling by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), 
which declared the mandatory death sentence for a conviction of murder as 
unconstitutional and a violation of the right to life, the church said not even 
a person convicted of murder deserved to be killed.

"The CCJ's decision is a step in the right direction but does not remove the 
death penalty from the laws in Barbados, so there is still some work to be 
done," Apostolic Administrator of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgetown, 
Archbishop Jason Gordon said in the statement.

"Every life is a precious gift from God. We are all created in the image and 
likeness of God and thus have inherent dignity. The taking of 1 life does not 
therefore justify the taking of another," he added.

This has been longstanding position of the archbishop, who has preached a 
restorative justice approach to crime and violence, which focuses on holding 
the offender accountable in a more meaningful way and helping to achieve a 
sense of healing for both victims and the community.

The approach embraces socialization, rehabilitation and reconciliation, rather 
than retribution and vengeance.

"To reject capital punishment is not to make light of the loss of loved ones 
and the violation of human dignity and rights experienced by victims of crime," 
Gordon, the archbishop of Port of Spain, said.

"The pastoral care of the church is directed first towards the comfort and 
assistance of these victims. The compassion and love shown by the church and 
society to victims and the support given to their families to help them cope 
with a tragic loss continues to be vital. "Prayer, love and counselling can 
help grieving families reach a place of peace and, hopefully, healing," he 
said.

The CCJ, this country's highest court, made the ruling based on 2 unrelated 
death penalty cases from Barbados.

The cases, Jabari Sensimania Nervais v The Queen, and Dwayne Omar Severin v The 
Queen, were consolidated because both appeals challenged the murder convictions 
of each of the men and the constitutionality of the mandatory death sentence 
for murder.

The court stated that a section of the Offences Against the Person Act was 
unconstitutional because it provided for a mandatory sentence of death, but 
dismissed the appeals against the men's convictions.

Before examining the issues raised by the appeal, the regional court considered 
the state of the mandatory death penalty in Barbados for murder and found that 
it was indisputable that the nation, through its actions, had acknowledged that 
it had an obligation to remove such mandatory sentence under Section 2 of the 
Offences Against the Person Act.

The court also found that Barbados had also given undertakings to the CCJ and 
the Inter American Court of Human Rights to rectify the mandatory sentence, 
which was reflected in the Barbados Privy Council's consistent commutation of 
the mandatory death penalty.

(source: Barbados Today)








AUSTRALIA:

Grisly tales from the gallows revealed



When Caroline Overington set out on a 5-year project to research the potential 
injustice that saw Louisa Collins hanged for murder after an unprecedented 4 
trials she felt "blessed" that so much material from the 1880s had been 
preserved.

Louisa Collins was the last woman hanged in New South Wales.

Louisa's case - brought after arsenic poisoning was alleged in the deaths of 
her 1st and 2nd husbands - was incredibly unusual and became a catalyst for the 
campaign for women's rights in Australia, but was it fair?

Despite the fact that there "was no murder weapon, there was no real motive, 
there were no witnesses", the odds were stacked against the mother of 10, who 
was given a barrister "who became the 1st barrister in NSW to be struck from 
the role for incompetence," says Overington.

3 juries failed to convict, but a 4th found her guilty and Collins died on 
January 8, 1889 in a botched hanging that nearly tore her head off, leaving a 
gaping wound in her throat.

Her horrific end was far from unusual for the times though.

Robert Rice Howard - known as Nosey Bob because he had no nose - was the 
hangman at Louisa Collins' execution.

"Hanging is a terrible way to die and there were multiple accounts of 
executions that went terribly wrong across New South Wales and across the other 
states," Overington says.

"It's not a precise science. You have to do a lot of mathematics, if you will, 
about the length of the rope, the height of the gallows, the weight of the 
body, and it???s not precise, you can't predict how a body will react, whether 
the neck will break, whether the flesh will tear.

"Louisa's case was unusual in that she was the 1st woman and the last woman to 
be hanged at the Darlinghurst jail (in Sydney), and they really didn't have 
much of an idea how to deal with a woman whose body is different.

"They had in mind that if she was hysterical - because the idea was that she 
might be hysterical - they could perhaps strap her to a chair and hang (her on) 
the chair.

"To our mind today (it's) completely barbaric. In my view it was barbaric then 
too. I mean she died a terrible death. They didn't see it that way because they 
saw it as confessing your sins and being sent back to your maker, but it must 
have been terrifying."

In the following extract from Last Woman Hanged, Overington describes another 
brutal death at the hands of the authorities that shocked even the far less 
delicate sensibilities of spectators of the time.

BOOK EXTRACT:

Capital punishment had, regardless of gender, been the standard response to the 
crime of murder since the arrival of the First Fleet. The preferred method was 
hanging, which was for years done before crowds of enthusiastic onlookers, and 
often with startling ineptitude. Take, for an example, the 1st public hanging 
in the colony of South Australia. Given it was the first, mistakes were bound 
to happen - but still. The year was 1838, and the condemned man's name was 
Michael Magee. He was 24 years old and had been brought to the court in 
clanking irons, accused of firing a shot at the local sheriff, Mr Samuel Smart. 
The shot missed, leaving nothing but a gunpowder graze on Mr Smart's cheek - 
but the judge decided that Magee should hang.

3 immediate problems arose.

First, Magee was a Roman Catholic and would therefore need to see a priest 
before he died, but there seems to have been no Catholic priest in the colony 
of South Australia in 1838. The judiciary pondered this problem for a day or so 
before deciding that a local tradesman - fellmonger or blacksmith, the record 
does not say - would have to do (Magee reportedly agreed to this arrangement, 
not, one supposes, that he had much choice).

The 2nd problem was more serious: besides having no Catholic priest, the colony 
had no executioner.

Again, the judiciary pondered. The sheriff's name was mentioned, but given he 
had also been the intended victim of Magee's poorly timed shot, this was 
considered 'unseemly' and so the job was put to tender.

Who, now, would take 5 pounds to execute Michael Magee?

Nobody came forward.

Who now will take 10 pounds to execute this man?

Still no takers.

By the day of the hanging - it was a Wednesday - all of Adelaide was agog with 
curiosity. Would the execution go ahead and, if so, who would be the hangman? 
Everyone wanted to know and so, in the hours immediately after sunrise, at 
least 1000 people - women and children included - rose from their beds and 
began to make their way across fields to the hanging place to see what might 
happen.

Officials had decided that Magee should hang from a tree on the banks of the 
Torrens River. The tree was chosen both because it had a thick, horizontal 
bough over which the noose could be thrown, and because it was the only such 
tree on government land.

Perhaps because of the pretty location, many people had decided to bring 
picnics, and before long the riverbank was filled with spectators. Then, 
shortly after nine a.m., the mood turned serious: through the trees, people 
could see a procession leaving the distant gaol. (It wasn't really a gaol; it 
was more a timber shed. A proper gaol wouldn't be built for a year, and it 
would be run for decades by a man so fat that when he died his corpse would 
have to be carried out through a window.)

The procession comprised mounted police and a cart led by 2 horses, 1 in front 
of the other. Upon the cart sat a timber coffin - and upon the coffin sat 
Magee. If that were not bad enough, also sitting on the coffin was the hangman.

Who was he? Well, it was hard to be sure. To keep his identity a secret, the 
hangman had stuffed his clothes with padding, so he looked like he had a huge 
hump, and he covered his face with a horrible hand-made mask painted white 
around the eyes. The closer the hangman got to the crowds on the riverbank, the 
more enormous and repulsive he seemed. Women gasped and children screamed, the 
'thrill of horror creeping through their veins.'

In an effort to keep people from crowding too close to the hanging tree, the 
judiciary had set up a temporary enclosure, like a sheep pen, around its base. 
They had also saddled an extra horse so the hangman could make a quick getaway 
after the job was done.

With Magee's cart now parked inside the pen, the execution was, as they say, 
good to go. The noose was placed over Magee's head and a cap was drawn over his 
face. Prayers were concluded. A motion was made that all was ready and then, 
after 'a whip or 2 of the leading horse', the cart upon which Magee still sat 
was drawn away. Many in the crowd shut their eyes, as well they might, because 
'here commenced one of the most frightful and appalling sights that ever 
perhaps will be again witnessed in the colony'. Either the horse was moving too 
slowly or else the hangman had bungled the noose, but instead of having his 
neck instantly broken, Magee started to slide gently off the coffin until he 
was hanging by his throat in the air, screaming, 'Oh God! Oh Christ! Save me!'

Now it was time for men to gasp. The hangman - still in his mask and lumpy 
costume - got on the saddled horse and bolted.

'Fetch him back!' the crowd cried, so mounted police took off at full speed. 
Magee, meanwhile, was uttering the same piercing cries: 'Lord save me! Christ 
have mercy upon me!' Nobody knew what to do. Some cried, 'Cut him down!' Others 
urged the marines to shoot Magee dead with their muskets to at least put an end 
to his misery, and all the while, Magee's hands were up the rope as he madly 
tried to save himself, while his body twisted 'like a joint of meat before the 
fire'.

Finally, the hangman was brought back. Inspiration had struck and, with a 
'fiendish leap', he threw himself upon Magee's body and proceeded to hang 
himself from the condemned man's legs, pulling him toward the ground until 
Magee could no longer cling to the rope and began to suffocate. By some counts, 
it took 13 long minutes for Magee to die this way. Many in the crowd were 
horrified. Others waited for the body to be cut down and then carried on with 
their picnic.

(source: The Daily Telegraph)---- This is an edited extract from Last Woman 
Hanged by Caroline Overington, published by HarperCollins)








JAPAN:

Letters of executed cult members reflect regret, desire to live



etters sent from prison by some of the executed AUM Shinrikyo doomsday cult 
members expressed regret for committing heinous crimes and a wish to atone.

But their letters sent to civic groups also included those calling for 
abolition of capital punishment and requests for amnesty, showing their 
continued hopes to live even well over 10 years after their death sentences 
were finalized.

Cult founder Shoko Asahara, who was convicted of numerous murders including the 
1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system, and 6 other former senior 
members were executed Friday.

Among them, Kiyohide Hayakawa, 68, wrote words of remorse and showed discontent 
with Asahara in his letters.

Hayakawa was responsible for the murder of lawyer Tsutsumi Sakamoto, who had 
been helping parents seeking to free their children of the cult's control, and 
his wife and 1-year-old son in 1989 and construction of nerve gas production 
facilities among other crimes.

"My feelings of apology toward the victims and their families have never 
weakened in the 23 years since everything came to light," said Hayakawa, who 
was arrested in 1995 and sentenced to death in 2009.

"At the time, I thought I was fighting for truth and salvation, but all I got 
from resorting to terrorism was pain and sorrow," he wrote in one of his 
letters sent to a civic group.

"We the followers of Asahara can talk about why we followed his instructions, 
but only he can reveal why he ordered those crimes."

"If (the executions) are carried out, 'the correct answer' will never be known. 
I want to hear his thoughts before I die."

Tomomitsu Niimi, 54, who was also hanged Friday for the killing of Sakamoto and 
the nerve gas attacks in central Japan in 1994 and Tokyo in 1995 as well as 
several other counts of murder, expressed a desire to atone for his crimes.

In describing his life in prison in one of his letters, Niimi said, "I am 
following the rules and am careful not to kill even a single bug. There is no 
one here to order killings, and all I think about is expiating my sins."

Niimi's testimony in court had suggested he was still a follower of the cult, 
in contrast to Hayakawa, who said after his arrest that he no longer believed 
in Asahara. Niimi had said his crimes were "acts of salvation."

"No matter how wicked a man is, living and atoning for his sins is an act full 
of benevolence," he had wrote in a letter seeking amnesty.

"I would like to hand down stories about what happened and live on to atone for 
my sins."

(source: The Mainichi)








TAIWAN:

Chen Chu calls for prudence over practice of death penalty in Taiwan----Debate 
on capital punishment has been re-ignited and is now an election issue after a 
number of brutal murders occurred over the past 2 months



Whether or not the Taiwanese authorities should execute those who are sentenced 
to death has been hotly debated over the past couple of months, due partly to a 
number of brutal murders that occurred during May and June. Now the death 
penalty even looks to become an election issue leading up to November.

Asked to comment on the fact that there have not been any executions in Taiwan 
for more than 2 years, Chen Chu, secretary-general to the Presidential Office 
and a key member of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), said 
Saturday the authorities remain prudent in regards to the issue of capital 
punishment.

The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) is exercising prudence over the issue, said Chen 
Saturday morning at a farmers' market held at the Presidential Office. "In 
terms of carrying out the death penalty, it requires a broad societal 
consensus."

"After all, we all only live once," added Chen, even though some of her party 
members seem to hold a different view. A DDP member suggested to President Tsai 
Ing-wen during a party committee this week that the government should impose 
the death penalty, as he believes that it accords with the greater sentiment of 
the Taiwanese people, reported Central News Agency.

Earlier polls show that about 80 % of the Taiwanese people support the death 
penalty. However, when law stipulates a punishment of life imprisonment for who 
commit serious crimes, without the possibility for parole, the percentage of 
those in support of the death penalty shrinks to lower than 50 %.

According to MOJ, there are currently 43 people on death row in Taiwan. After 
the execution of Cheng Chieh, who randomly attacked passengers on the Taipei 
Metro in May 2014, killing 4 people and injuring dozens, was executed in May 
2016, the ministry, under the Tsai administration has not signed any further 
execution orders.

Chen Ming-tang, MOJ's deputy minister, told United Daily News that the ministry 
will neither abolish nor completely refrain from exercising capital punishment. 
But it will make decision with utmost prudence, said Chen.

(source: Taiwan News)








NIGERIA:

Supreme Court affirms 3 Bakassi Boys' death penalty



The Supreme Court on Friday affirmed the death penalty imposed on 3 members of 
Bakassi Boys vigilante group in 2006.

The High Court of Abia State had, on February 26, 2006, sentenced the 3 men to 
death for the murder of 2 persons which they were said to have apprehended for 
an alleged crime.

A 5-man panel of the apex court led by Justice Dattijo Muhammad unanimously 
ruled that the 3 men truly committed murder and deserved the death sentence 
imposed on them.

Describing the Bakassi Boys as "a lawless group," Justice Amina Augie, who 
delivered the judgment of the apex court, said, "the Bakassi Boys are nothing 
but outlaws."

She said they were "lawless persons operating outside the law, who desecrate 
the laws of the land in their unlawful and misguided quest to dispense justice 
by killing alleged criminals."

The 3 men - Emmanuel Eze, Adiele Ndubuisi and Stanley Azuogu - had separately 
approached the Court of Appeal challenging the judgment of the High Court.

But the Court of Appeal, in May 2010, dismissed their appeals and affirmed the 
death penalty imposed on them.

They further appealed to the Supreme Court praying the apex court to substitute 
the conviction on murder charge with a conviction on manslaughter, which would 
have attracted custodial sentence instead of the death penalty.

They had premised their appeal on the grounds that they were incited to kill 
the deceased by the Abia State Government.

But delivering the Supreme Court's separate lead judgments on each of the 3 
appellants' appeals on Friday, Justice Augie said their line of defence, 
anchored on the grounds of provocation, was baseless.

She held that in the absence of anything said or done by the deceased in the 
presence of the Bakassi Boys making the assailants "to suddenly and temporarily 
lose their passion or self-control," the defence anchored on provocation could 
not fly.

While ruling on one of the appeals, she said, "The appellant admitted that the 
Bakassi vigilante group, to which he belonged was an unlawful association that 
dealt with alleged criminals with extreme measures which flagrantly breached 
the provision of the law on fair hearing,"

She added, "Having desecrated the laws of the land with such relish and 
reckless abandon, and been convicted for murder, the appellant is urging this 
court to allow the appeal, set aside the judgment of the Court of Appeal 
delivered on May 5, 2010 and substitute his conviction on manslaughter, since 
he was incited by a 3rd party.

"There are a few things that were wrong with that line of defence.

"First of all, it was more of implicating the Abia State Government in the 
offence they have committed rather than a valid defence in law.

"Secondly, the learned trial judge, C.L Ubaraje, as he then was, debunked his 
insinuation that the Abia State Government had a hand in the killing of the 
deceased persons.

"Finally and more importantly, the defence of provocation to avail the 
appellant, there must be something said or done by the deceased persons in his 
presence which caused the appellant to suddenly and temporarily lose his 
passion and self-control.

"In other words, the appellant said he was incited by the Abia State Government 
to kill the two deceased persons who did not do or say anything to him to him 
or other Bakassi boys before they were savagely killed cannot amount to 
provocation and his attempt to convince this court otherwise failed woefully.

"The respondent (the prosecution - Abia State Government) is right.

"The appellant embarked on a futile journey of proving provocation which does 
not arise in this case as the testimony of the prosecution witnesses confirmed 
that the appellant and his cohorts committed the said charge with utmost 
dispatch and babarity without any provocation or incitement.

"This appeal totally lacks merit and is dismissed."

(source: punchng.com)